Would You Trust You?

I had the opportunity to present at a local conference last Friday. It was a public health summit that was brave enough to take on the intersection of health, racism, and poverty. My part went fine, but I was really floored by an earlier presentation by a colleague. Shaundel is a powerful and effective speaker on race and one of his themes was the idea of "would you trust you?" Shaundel's lens was on racially diverse communities being reluctant to engage in the healthcare system after a pretty negative history (Tuskegee syphilis experiment for example). Given that history, and myriad other examples, he asked if you were in the other's chair, would you trust people like you? The parallels to the work we are doing struck me at a visceral level. Dr. Donna Beegle often tweets that students from generational poverty have an 11% chance of succeeding without poverty informed support. And so, if we were pushing education at you as a solution to changing your reality, but you knew at some level that 9 out of 10 fail in the current situation... Would you trust you?

When we began last summer with our "No" audit (read more here), it was in many ways an effort to

regain trust, although I wouldn't have labeled it that way then. When we took a look around and realized we were sending so many signals inadvertently which caused students to feel suspect or unwelcome, it was shocking. I wouldn't have trusted somewhere that made the assumptions we seemed to imply. We had signs on locked doors that said, "staff only." And we made them red just in case you got past the outer door and didn't notice the door was locked as well (sarcasm inserted here in case I wasn't clear)... It might seem like a small example, but I think it's symbolic of a fundamental problem with not being poverty informed. We built systems on the wrong assumptions, and the assumptions that were implied eroded trust with the very people we were trying to connect with. So, when we changed our signage to be more welcoming, we weren't just being nice, we were changing our signals, instead of signaling "we assume if we don't have warnings, you will make the wrong choices." Would you trust someone who thought about you that way? So, when we changed the signs, we also were stating we want you here and we want to help, not judge. It was respectful and was a way of showing we believe someone who can solve the crisis of poverty, can be trusted in our space.

The question of what you assume about people permeates our poverty-informed work. We have been stunned at how many policies are built to prevent abuse, more than are built to promote success. I stole a line from Cara Crowley at Amarillo, with my own little twist, on Friday when I told the group about questions that arose when we started putting food out for students. I said people asked me 3 questions: How do we make sure the "right" people get the food? What if people take "too much?" and What if we run out? Channeling Cara, I said my answers were: I don't care, I don't care, and get more... Take a moment and listen to the questions behind those questions. There are assumptions people can feel. There are assumptions people shouldn't get "too much too fast." I'm pretty certain we don't hold ourselves to the same standard. Would you trust someone who thought you had to have resources rationed to you? Our poverty-informed approach tries to identify and surface assumptions which reduce trust, so we can choose actions that build trust and change assumptions. This idea of what is your basic assumption about human behavior should fuel discussions about policy and procedures. Do your policies support the students you have or do they look for opportunities to punish?

When pondering the question of whether you would trust someone like you, I was drawn to an article that came across my desk this morning. It was an excellent piece from an educator wondering if he could have done more to support a student he described as "vulnerable to the slightest of breezes." (What more could I have done...). It made me think of a similar sentiment I read in the Atlantic when they profiled Amarillo College (Amarillo profile), and they quoted President Russell Lowery-Hart saying "It isn’t enough, we’re not doing enough, we have to do more." Besides stealing the quote for my LinkedIn profile, it has caused me to continually question how much is enough. I like to think my family trusts me, in part because I would do whatever I could do to get them what they need. If I want to earn the trust of our students, am I willing to go down those same paths? As I challenged the health summit Friday, are we willing to be uncomfortable? Because the people we are asking to trust us are very uncomfortable and choosing to come to us anyway. While signs and food are great places to start, are there other actions that demonstrate we are worthy of their trust?

Last spring, I asked my division to adopt a mantra that every barrier that can be removed, should be removed. It's been a powerful shift for us, but I still get questioned on it. Sometimes it's pretty direct, like when someone told me it felt like "welfare." And sometimes, it's more subtle, like when people question whether we can sustain something or if we have a process fully developed for rationing out resources. I've even been asked if I have an assessment process to see if there is a benefit to feeding students... really. There are assumptions of scarcity (In case you doubt there is enough) throughout those questions as well as a fairly dark view of human nature. I'm a generally positive person, but I will admit to getting worn down on occasion. And if I'm perfectly honest, sometimes it's me asking the questions. I'm not sure how much is enough, and I'm not sure how much we can do, but I think we must do what we can, and what we can do is probably a lot more than we have done historically. Like anyone else, I must challenge my assumptions regularly. As Dr. Beegle says, we know too much to be silent, and I want to make sure if the tables were turned I would trust someone like me.