SHARE Education Services: An Update

This week’s guest writer is Dr. Wes Willis, the president of SHARE Education Services. We asked him to tell us more about what SHARE offers to families on the field. Last year, we featured Anchor Education, and next spring, we’ll update you on the latest news from AERC. We want to make sure that you have the latest information about these agencies that offer services for families all over their region!

SHARE Education Services is a rarity among organizations, envisioned as a cooperative ministry jointly sponsored by multiple sending agencies. The operative word was “cooperation” not “competition.”

In order to understand SHARE, we need to go back more than 25 years. In 1989, demolition of the Berlin Wall was symbolic of the massive changes taking place as the Soviet control of Eastern Europe unraveled. After Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union opened up to westerners, sending agencies jumped at the opportunity to move families into these countries.  However, life was difficult and there were few support services; so many families returned home, frustrated and disillusioned. The lack of education support for children proved to be a major barrier that families struggled to overcome.

In the early 1990’s a group of international educators meeting together realized that they all were attempting to resolve similar educational issues for families in their agencies. Focusing on the needs of families in Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, several of these educators formed a committee to study how the needs could be met. This led to the formation of SHARE Education Services, established as a not-for-profit organization in 1994. Co-founders of the ministry were David Brooks, Nancy Elwood, and Kay (Yoder) Baker, with Nancy and Kay continuing to serve full-time with SHARE today.

Diverse agencies cooperated in the founding of SHARE, and currently 13 agencies cooperatively sponsor the ministry. Each agency has the opportunity to appoint one of its members to the SHARE Board—the board following the Policy Governance model to direct the ministry through the SHARE President. Each Sponsoring Agency contributes a modest annual fee, and all of the families in that agency receive discounted services, with SHARE providing a variety of services directly to the agency itself.

The SHARE mission continues with the same emphasis that the ministry began in the 1990’s. The mission of SHARE Education Services is to provide education support, assisting families serving cross-culturally in meeting the education needs of their children. This is particularly critical since failure to resolve education issues is a key contributor to worker attrition. One international study revealed that difficulties with children’s adjustment is the key preventable reason for attrition. And education is a major factor in children’s adjustment.

SHARE serves families in a variety of ways through Family Education Conferences, academic achievement and assessment testing services, consulting in-person or remotely, and assisting Sponsoring Agencies in policy formulation and implementation:

SHARE helps parents identify needs, assess options, and choose education strategies for their children as they live cross-culturally. Education options include national school, home school, international Christian school, online school, boarding school and others. Since options vary and each family is unique, the goal is to help each family consider all aspects and choose the option(s) best for each child. Quite often parents settle on a combination of strategies that most effectively will meet each child’s needs.

SHARE evaluates and recommends appropriate education resources. Based on family needs and resources, there can be a wide variety of appropriate choices. The goal is to help parents better understand resource options so that they can make informed choices.

SHARE provides parents with information to help them evaluate their children’s learning and measure their progress through appropriate assessment and/or personal consultation. Readiness testing, academic achievement, and testing to assess learning needs all play key roles in serving families. Parents can compare their children’s progress with their home country peers. This helps parents better understand learning needs, and then identify and select appropriate education strategies.

SHARE supports secondary students in career guidance for selection of post-secondary work and/or education. After completing their secondary education, teens confront a variety of decisions including transition to work or higher education, either in their passport culture or where the family is serving. When parents and teens understand the issues and can identify appropriate strategies, this transition can be more effective and less traumatic.

SHARE assists families with cultural integration, socialization, and transition issues. Family Education Conferences provide children and teens the opportunity to interact with peers and address common TCK issues. Classroom, large and small group, and personal interactions offer children and teens the opportunities to develop personal competency and build meaningful relationships.

SHARE serves Sponsoring Agencies in developing and implementing education policy. This includes helping agencies to understand best practices so they can create effective policies and procedures. SHARE staff also are available to serve at agency conferences, providing workshops, testing, and consulting with parents.

SHARE Education Services began as a cooperative organization committed to serving families ministering overseas. It continues serving families today by helping parents to understand the education options available to them, to select those that are best for each child, and then to implement those choices effectively. This involves providing a variety of ongoing services so that TCK’s can receive the best education available. When families succeed in educating their children, SHARE also succeeds.

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