Friends Forward

Since 2020, MFS’s three-day summer orientation for all new faculty and staff and our year-long induction program for classroom teachers have been led by peer teachers rather than administrators. In addition, the yearlong induction program only includes typical meetings and presentations for the first half of the year and then becomes a Professional Learning Community following the Critical Friends Group model. Participants in this session will be introduced to the structure of and rationale for these programs. They will then participate in a modified CFG discussion protocol in which they are asked to probe one or more dilemmas that the program leaders experience.  Both the form and the content of these discussions, therefore, will immerse participants in learning about the session’s topics.

The SPICES acronym has long helped Quaker schools highlight core testimonies and values, but does this distillation fully reflect what is central to your school’s mission, priorities, and daily practice? This session shares the process DVFriends School undertook to develop its own Faith and Practice, including core testimonies and queries, to more fully reflect its identity as both a Quaker school and a school for students who learn differently. Participants will explore the rationale for this work at this moment in the School’s history, how the Quaker Life Committee led a collaborative process of discernment and development, and how the resulting Faith and Practice is being used with students, faculty, staff, and trustees to deepen a shared understanding of Quaker identity. Participants will engage with selected testimonies and queries from DVFriends and consider how similar work might take shape in their own school communities. 

An Emotional Wellbeing Program is a set of attitudes and practices which support optimal personal and interpersonal functioning at the Friends Center.

All staff participate in making this program work, through the way they develop the curriculum in their unique classroom, learn to support one another through the strenuous demands of high quality early childhood care, and engage with families in these areas of awareness.

We are attentive to how trauma can interrupt natural physical, mental and emotional growth processes. Our aim is to recognize the effects of adverse childhood experiences on children and to counterbalance those effects. Likewise, we recognize the residual effects of individual and cultural trauma on the adults in our community. We impart possible pathways to healing and life-long learning, leaning into partnerships with other community services.
Establishing and maintaining a sense of community among teachers and families at an early childhood center is a critical component of fostering emotional well-being among both adults and children. Nurturing strong relationships and creating a culture of open communication enables the staff community to connect on a personal level, fostering a sense of acceptance, belonging, and understanding, as well as the opportunity to forge and maintain meaningful relationships.

Creating a community of belonging allows staff members to feel acknowledged and appreciated for their unique qualities. The resulting positive and inclusive atmosphere enhances collaboration and ultimately leads to better outcomes for everyone within the community. Our ability to Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Regulate our emotions as it relates to our past experiences, present needs and future selves speaks to the power that emotional regulation/intelligence has on leaders, educators and our youngest learners.

Attendees will have the opportunity to create a group charter, engage in Self-reflection through queries, and scenario work through role-playing.

This workshop introduces the combined lens of “Outliers, Outlaws, and Outcasts”, through which the stories we hear (and ones we tell ourselves) have aspects of leadership, defiance, and failure rather than demarcations of winning and losing by heroes and villains, or pitting “us” against “them.” Participants leave with a greater awareness of their own growth as leaders, along with resources and strategies that help students recognize leadership qualities in themselves and their peers as they mature within social and academic communities.

In the Lower School at Wilmington Friends School, students explore one Quaker testimony each month through developmentally appropriate, experiential learning. Using queries, music, shared readings, and collaborative projects, students reflect on how these values show up in their daily lives and relationships. Learning culminates in student-created artifacts that are shared throughout the school, helping to make Quaker values visible within the community.

This interactive session will share the structure, resources, and practices that support this work, including examples of queries, songs, readings, and student projects. Participants will collaborate in small groups to generate ideas for testimony-focused experiences and visible displays tailored to their own school settings. Together, we will explore how tangible, student-centered expressions of the testimonies can build shared language, deepen understanding, and strengthen Quaker identity across a school.