Michelle Robin Dunlap is associate professor in the Department of Human Development at Connecticut College.
For more information about the author, visit her faculty page.
Review
"Reaching Out to Children and Families is intended primarily for college students but may be useful to
high-school, international, or nonstudent volunteers, and to those who organize or manage student-volunteer programs."
--Chronicle of Philanthropy
"The book will be most useful for students who participate in community learning, and for university or college
faculty who work with setting up and supervising community learning experiences."
--Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health
"This book will be a companion to students as they face the challenges, struggles, apprehensions, and joys
of community service. It provides practical and realistic advice for students on many issues. In addition, the
book will be a valuable resource for faculty as they develop and conduct service learning classes. The book will
also be useful to community agency personnel as a resource for their supervision of service learning students."
--Robert G. Bringle, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
"How can we help our students move beyond familiar stereotypes to think more critically about the significance
of race and class not only in other people's lives but in their own? This is a question that teacher educators
and others involved in community-based learning are asking all over the country. In this excellent book, using
students' own voices, Professor Dunlap cogently captures the challenge of preparing students to interact effectively
with racially and ethnically diverse populations, and offers useful strategies for supporting student growth in
service learning placements. Anyone engaged in service learning programs, faculty and students alike, will benefit
from reading this book."
--Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of "Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?"
and Other Conversations about Race
"Faculty will find the book useful not only in terms of preparing their students for community service and
learning, but also in terms of facilitating students' reflection upon their experiences and merging those reflections
with the learnings in the course. This book will make students better learners, faculty better teachers, and the
community work more beneficial to all parties."
--Jeffrey Howard, editor of Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Web Site, May, 2002
Summary
Community service and learning experiences are booming as we enter the 21st century. This practical guide assists
college students and other constituents as they psychologically prepare for volunteering, service-learning, practicums,
fieldwork assignments, and internships in a diverse and ever-changing world. Though created with the novice community
worker in mind, this book will also assist professors, teachers, administrators, and agency personnel in understanding
and preparing workers for community service and learning in schools, child care centers, soup kitchens, and shelters
for the homeless. Written in a practical, conversational style, this book offers the voices, issues, concerns,
and resources of more than 200 previous community workers. This book includes their struggles with the initial
adjustment process, as well as ongoing gender, race, and class issues encountered in various service learning environments.
Topics range from choosing a community service site to appropriate methods of bringing closure to the experience
when it is time to say good-bye. This book in essence, provides hundreds of role models, scenarios, and worker
perspectives that will help less-inexperienced workers prepare for the real-life, hands-on experiences of community
engagement.
The book offers hundreds of role models, scenarios, and student perspectives that will help inexperienced students
to prepare for a variety of real-life, hands-on situations and experiences that may occur when they volunteer,
intern, or engage in service-learning in community settings.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Beginnings
How Do I Get Started? Getting Organized for Community Service
While You Are Getting Ready: Community Service and Learning in Context
What in the World Am I Doing Here? The First Visits
Intermediate Issues Looking in the Mirror: Images of the Self, the Hero, and the Mutual Learner
Is It Getting Better Yet? Building Trust and Nurturing Relationships
What should I do now? Addressing Issues, Behavior, and Limits
To Touch or Not to Touch? Affection and Gender-Related Issues
The Melting Pot and the Vegetable Stew: Multicultural Issues
Working with Individuals with Special Needs
Did She Really Say That? Shocking Statements and Other Traumas
Endings
Is It Time to Say Good-bye? Arranging Successful Closure
Reviewing the Community Service Adjustment Process
Notes
Appendix A: Journal Reflection Questions
Appendix B: Methods
Appendix C: Guidelines Regarding Privacy and Confidentiality
Appendix D: Sample Introductory Letter to Agency
Appendix E: Guidelines for Working with Children and Families
Appendix F: Collectivistic Practices and Approaches
Appendix G: Sample Placement Supervisor Evaluation of Worker
References
