We are so excited to share what we learned at the Building Creative Communities Conference that we would love to engage our community at FSU and share our knowledge with our fellow students! We will be facilitating a Creative Community Engagement Workshop on March 2^5, (UCC Miller Hall, 1-4:30pm), co-sponsored by the FSU Association for Student Social Workers, and in collaboration with FSU students from the FSU Art Therapy Program, the FSU College of Medicine and the FSU Department of Urban and Regional Planning. The half-day event will bring together students from across these programs for an interprofessional learning experience.

We also would like to give credit to our inspiration for the community engagement workshop. Thanks to the support of the FSU College of Social Work and alumna Joy Jinks, we were able to attend the Building Creative Communities Conference in Colquitt, Georgia January 28-31,2016. The unforgettable learning experience at the conference provided us with a wealth of knowledge about innovative, effective community engagement, and gave us many hands-on opportunities to develop our skills. We learned firsthand that inviting and listening to people’s stories can be a powerful way of engaging and building communities.

Each of us will use what we have learned in Colquitt throughout our social work careers. We’d like to share some of the learning outcomes we took from the conference:

• We learned creative techniques to engage with people from a variety of social, cultural, and professional backgrounds to build a community that derives strength from its members’ experiences.
• We learned how we can use the arts to help bridge racial, ethnic, cultural, and generational difference within a community.
• We learned a variety of innovative ways to facilitate dialogue among community members.
• We learned how to successfully manage the differences of opinion and conflict that may arise within a diverse group.
• We learned the importance of creating environments in which community members feel safe to share their experiences.
• We learned how to view the world through the eyes of others, particularly those who are different from us, and to use that broadened perspective to enhance our leadership skills.
• We learned about the many ways that BSW and MSW students can teach each other when we work together.
• We learned the value of collaborating with colleagues from other disciplines as part of an interprofessional team.
• We learned how to truly listen when someone shares their story with us, and what a gift it is to receive someone else’s story. One student remarked, “Seeing how important these stories were and how much strength it took to tell these stories was incredibly powerful to me. This gave me a taste of what it will be like when I am in the workforce hearing my clients’ stories and how I will hold each one as a treasure in my heart.”
• Most important of all, we learned how to be creative leaders who draw upon our own strengths and the positive forces within our communities to facilitate meaningful engagement. We all share the sentiment of one student who noted, “With the skills I gained from attending the Building Creative Communities Conference, I feel ignited to work towards strengthening groups and encouraging others to be part of the process.”

Sincerely,

Meghan Collins, Ashton Dumdei, Tiffany Gonzalez, Cynthia Hanifin, Meghan Hillenberg, Shelby Land, Rachael Mack, Morgan North, Samantha Rust, Erika Valdes, Joanna Winters, Kotrish Wright