Connecting with your community

What a tall order! What do we actually mean by community?

We often think of community as a body or group of people who live in our immediate location. Here at Playtime however, we hear from many parent and toddler group leaders who hold their groups in locations away from the immediate areas in which they live. We also hear from groups in rural areas, where parents and carers often travel quite a distance to join a group. But what is far more important than geographical location is how you connect with the community of people who attend your group.

Dictionary definitions of ‘connecting’ and ‘community’ are as follows:

• Connecting: To link or be linked; to relate or associate with.
• Community: The people living in one locality; a group of people having cultural, religious or other characteristics in common; common ownership and participation; similarity or agreement - community of interests.

Good relationships

At the 2004 Playtime National Conference we want to take the scariness out of ‘connecting with your community’. You are connecting with your community if you have five parents/carers attending your parent and toddler group each week for coffee and an informal chat. You are connecting with your community if you see 200 parents/carers each week and you are running parenting courses, dads’ events and more. Our aim at Playtime is to encourage and support you in all that you are doing.

At the conference we want to equip you to connect with your community in practical ways, whilst creating genuine friendships.

Genuine friendships

We would encourage you to connect with your community, your group, on a genuine friendship level. As you do this, you can consider expanding the ways in which you connect with the group members. Once you have the foundations of good relationships in place you might choose to run parenting courses or other events. These would make a difference in the community around you - although for some groups, simply providing a safe and warm place to chat will be enough. Real relationships allow us to make a real difference.

And don’t forget, group leaders, the importance of connecting with your own teams, remembering that they are a community of likeminded people who make it possible to run your parent and toddler groups.

Here are some ways in which you can start to build genuine friendships with the people in your parent and toddler community:

• Be genuinely interested in the people who attend your group.
• Try to remember parents’/grandparents’/carers’ and children’s names. This may take time, depending on your memory! Being remembered by name helps to make people feel special and part of the group they are attending.
• Be a good listener. Encourage the people who come to your group to talk about themselves and the everyday situations they are facing.
• Try to remember something about their interests and talk to them about it.
• Help new mums to feel important - they often lack confidence. Value the contribution they make to your parent and toddler community - and do it sincerely.

Last Updated 31 July 2009