Holliston PTO/Mindshare, Holliston Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC), Diverse Holliston, Holliston Youth & Family Services, and Holliston Public Schools (HPS) are joining together to present an event open to the community entitled, 

How to Have Important Conversations with Our Kids for Greater Inclusion in Holliston. 

 This event will be in two parts, with the first part in early winter and the second part in the spring.

 Adults interact with Holliston’s youth in many different spaces including at community events and activities, in our schools, and in our homes. This program will focus on giving adults an opportunity to gain insights and share strategies for having safe and effective conversations with children regarding the daily issues that can arise surrounding human differences and commonalities (i.e., race, religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, abilities/disabilities, socio-economic status, etc.). The purpose of the program is for all of us to become more comfortable having these conversations.

 The group is looking for adults who have a relationship with a young person of ANY age (elementary, middle, high school age) to interview that young person regarding their experiences having conversations with adults about these issues. We are interested in their perspective about what works well and what does not work. Here are the prompt questions we are using (questions can be modified to be age-appropriate):  

• When were times you experienced safe and effective conversations regarding human differences/commonalities with adults (differences/commonalities in race, religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, abilities/disabilities, socio-economic status, etc.)? What made these conversations work well?

• When were times you experienced challenges w/these conversations with adults? What made these conversations not work so well?

What do you need from the community and from the adults in your life to continue to strengthen your ability to talk openly about human differences/commonalities?

 The young person’s parents/guardian/caregiver should be asked for permission to do the interview. We are asking that the interviewer either create a voice memo of the interview or create a transcript of it and send it to [email protected] by Friday, Jan. 6. The identity of the young person being interviewed will remain anonymous. They will draw excerpts from these interviews and these excerpts will be presented anonymously at the community event. A panel of adults who have experience speaking with young people about diversity-related issues will then present their understanding of what they learn from these excerpts about how to have effective conversations with young people. This will be followed by break out groups to allow those attending the event to explore more deeply what we are learning and how to apply it.