Guest Speaker Reflection

This past week we had the pleasure of having Karisa Tashjian in our class to talk about her work as the Director of Education at the Providence Public Library.

First off, they have a wedding room which sounds like a dream to get married in a library. Karisa was awesome I feel we really got a well rounded experience of what she does as the Director of Education. There were so many amazing programs that have been implemented at the library I don't even know where to begin!

I thought their adult programs were so awesome, I really like the idea of the Learning Lounge and how laidback it is. Any adult can come for help with several different subjects like education, employment or citizenship prep. From what Karisa described it's very laid back and they are being taught how to find this information on their own to become more self-sufficient. This also goes along with their P2PU (peer to peer university) style of learning where there isn't one specific teacher or facilitator but instead learning from each other. 

The other program that really stood out to me was the Teen Squad program. Teen Squad allows for a lot of opportunities for high school aged youth like; work exposure, academic credits, paid opportunities, showcase presentations and develop web portfolios. 

The last thing that really resonated with me was when Karisa talked about collective impact and the five conditions necessary. They are; A Common Agenda, Shared Measures, Mutually Reinforcing Activities, Continuous Communication, Smart Partnerships and Karisa also mentioned A Purpose for Partnering. These really resonated with me and my internship and looking at specific community partner relationships and if they make sense with the goals of our organization. Here's a link I found for more info on Collective Impact

What I thought really aligned with what we've learned in Non-Profit is how closely related fundraising and program development is to working with other groups in the community. To Karisa it went hand-in-hand and there were some very unexpected partners that help the library reach their goals!