Sisseton Wahpeton College CI Report – Final

What has been most instrumenta to your progress?

One aspect instrumental to progress was adaptability in meeting the needs of the community. Throughout the last year, we’ve seen the response of the community change to different kinds of programming. We first saw a surge of enthusiasm for large cultural events after pandemic shutdowns concluded, which then transitioned into a return to more stable, varied routines in the community that mirror those before the pandemic. To adapt to the community enthusiasm for large cultural events, we used events such as a traditional lacrosse workshop and a traditional moccasin game tournament to reach out to the community. Both had successful turnout, with the moccasin tournament having over 38 registered participants, with additional spectators. Then, during the winter, while several intense winter storms made travel and in-person gathering unfeasible, we adapted by offering language lessons to interested parents over Zoom. This adaptability to changing community interests and environmental context was an instrumental part in making progress.

Another instrumental aspect was the independent initiative of the Family Outreach Assistants. During the winter months, they approach the Project Managers with a plan to hold Zoom sessions with women (mostly mothers) in the community who wanted to learn Dakota language words and phrases that they could use in the home. The Project Managers encouraged them to go forward with it, and the Assistants brought the Zoom sessions to fruition in a trial run of two sessions that included 7 and 10 participants attending each session, respectively. The sessions included simple commands parents can use, background knowledge about how children learn language, and how to create an immersion environment in the home. The sessions received very positive feedback. Through the initiative of the Outreach Assistants, we were able to identify a model of family language outreach that the community was ready for and has the potential for future implementation.

Key lessons learned

The first key lesson was about detailed follow-through of all parts of a given event or project. For example, the lacrosse workshop and the moccasin tournament were intended as ways to encourage community interest in the language by integrating language with the large cultural events that were seeing boosts of interest after pandemic shutdowns. The events themselves were successes, with large numbers of participants. However, the language component – while part of the purpose and plan – did not end up being as prominent an aspect of the events as first intended. Part of this was the failure to create a detailed plan for including language and how to follow through despite the tasks that compete for attention while hosting an event. For example, at the moccasin tournament, our guest speaker was a fluent elder, and the MC and several department members who helped run the tournament are also proficient 2nd-language speakers. However, there was not an in-depth conversation with all parties beforehand on how the language would be integrated in. As a result, the logistics of running the tournament overwhelmed the intention of integrating language as key component of the event.

Another key lesson is about having defined and focused responsibilities for team members. This has been a strong lesson the Project Managers have learned from various angles throughout the last year. The Project Managers inherited the responsibility for several different grant projects when they started in their positions last May. There were not well-defined teams or individuals dedicated to each of these projects; most department members were involved with most projects. In this grant, for example, the Family Outreach Assistants were also Language Learners. This meant that, between the Project Managers and the Assistants, there was no one on staff whose responsibilities fell completely within this project. This caused progress to fall by the wayside for periods of time as focus turned to other responsibilities, which were often more urgent on a day-to-day basis. In response, we have been trying to foster a department culture that clearly defines who is responsible for what tasks, and, when possible, ensures that each project has at least one person dedicated to only that project, even if they pull in others to assist.

Reflections on the community innovation process

The testing of possible solutions, for us, also simultaneously fed back into ‘increasing collective understanding of the issue’. With each additional activity under the grant project, we as a staff (and as Project Managers) gained more knowledge of what does and doesn’t work. In this way, we embraced the nonlinearity of the process as described by the community innovation process diagram. In contrast, elements of the process that we could have leaned more into were the inclusiveness and collaboration in the task of generating solutions. By trying to bring the language to large cultural events, we were attempting to get people interested in something aside from the reason they showed up. The Zoom language sessions with mothers, however, demonstrated that there were already those interested in the language, and that our time was better spent supporting those who already held an interest, rather than trying to inspire interest in new people. This lesson of inclusiveness and collaboration was also reinforced by the second session of the trial run over Zoom, which mainly consisted of answering the questions of those in attendance about the language and how to bring it into the home.

Other key elements of Community Innovation

For us, a key element throughout the grant period was self-reflection. As Project Managers relatively new to the field of grants and coming into this project midway through, the learning curve has been significant. But self-reflection has allowed us to identify mistakes and shortcomings and turn them into lessons learned before too long. Moreover, these lessons will undoubtedly assist us in running future grant projects and programs more effectively.

Progress toward an innovation

The biggest progress towards innovation took place within the first year of the grant project. During this time, the department and Family Outreach Coordinator put aside the prepared ‘Family Outreach Kits’ for the more effective strategy of designing curriculum for the unique interests of the families involved. In the two years after this, through the chaos of COVID shutdowns and several rounds of leadership and personnel changes, we arrived at a similar conclusion with the trial run of mothers’ language lessons over Zoom. However, there were some differences between the model used in the first year and the pilot sessions done this year. The original Family Outreach Coordinator met with each family separately, designing curriculum personalized for each. However, that Coordinator also mentioned issues with sustainability, as this personalized approach was extremely time consuming. The trial run of Zoom sessions, however, had interested mothers coming together in a small ‘classroom’ setting, but which also revolved around their specific questions. Comparing these alternate models may be a topic of future testing. But the circuitous route back to the conclusions of the first year was in some ways necessary: some parts (pandemic shutdowns and previous leadership changes) were out of our control. Other parts showed us what didn’t work, both for the mission of the grant project and for organizational leadership more generally. The takeaway: we now know that we need to bring the language to parents who already express interest in the language, and, crucially, tailor that language to the needs and interests that they express. In this sense, we are somewhat closer to achieving an innovation, and we also know several routes to avoid going forward.

What it will take to reach an innovation?

Moving forward, to reach that breakthrough we would, ideally, establish a Family Outreach Coordinator who does not have their attention divided between different projects. They could dedicate their attention to developing and teaching the curriculum that the families and parents request. More time teaching the families is a key part, because language learning is a years-long process, requiring several hours per week for meaningful progress. The parent-group model seen in our pilot sessions may have the advantage of fostering ties between the participants themselves, not just between the College and the participants. However, whether this model or the one of individual family meetings (or perhaps a hybrid individual-group one) is sustainable long term will be determined through further testing. Moreover, testing the effectiveness of in-person versus virtual meetings is important as well. Is virtual better because it means parents don’t have to travel to a meeting? Or does in person lead to more effective learning and commitment over time?

What’s next?

As of now, this project will be put on hold. The reasons are ones previously mentioned in this report: the Managers of this project have learned over the past year the value in focused attention, both for managers and staff. We inherited the department with, to put it one way, many pots on the stove, such that our attentions were too divided to do all projects well. This grant is sunsetting in a moment when we are attempting to refocus the bandwidth of the department’s staff on a limited number of existing projects/programs. Our hope is to carry the lessons learned forward into these other projects, and once they are established, we can reopen this one. But in the meantime, the long term intent of this grant project – providing support for people to bring the language into their home – will still see progress. This is done through our Voices of Our Ancestors program, which allows Learners to study the language intensively over two years and reach a high level of proficiency. Many of these Learners are young parents, so while it may not be as expansive as the vision behind this grant project, the language will still be making its way back into community homes. Yes Yes

If you could do it all over again…

First piece of advice: arrange personnel so that one person can take the lead on this project and have it as their main focus, without the distractions of other duties and projects. This may, in fact, require hiring someone new, but this will still be more effective than trying to pull pieces together from various members of the department. This could have led to a lot more progress by making it less likely for this project to fall by the wayside when urgent matters of other department programs arise. Second piece: don’t spend time trying to inspire interest in new people when there are already individuals out there who are interested. Focus on finding those individuals, and involve them in the process as much as possible.