QUALITY STORYTENTS

A resource for family, early childhood and community literacy workers

Workers need to be present and effective every day, in all kinds of weather. They need to adhere to the philosophy and use connecting behaviours, even when it’s difficult. They also need to be able to self-reflect and work toward constant improvement. "Having the same workers come back each summer is ideal. This allows the workers to integrate the previous year’s learnings. It also provides another important aspect of consistency" (Brown & Dryden, 2005, p. 37).

I was so glad the storytent came back this year. I was also glad it was the same people.

Parent Survey Response, 2004

Training

We believe, based on feedback from Storytent workers, that the most effective training model is an apprenticeship approach which combines information sessions and hands on training. Workers felt the initial information day was helpful, but all said they would not have known how to interact in the tent without actually doing it and having an opportunity to talk about it. Each day we took time to debrief, reflect and discuss. A one-hour staff meetings on Saturdays became a forum for larger discussions and a time to give information requested by workers. Recent staff comments echo those of previous staff members about the importance of workers having maximum freedom within a framework to figure some things out on their own and pursue their own questions in the search for quality. Additional training that may be useful is listed in Appendix B.