One of our goals at PACE is to come alongside education consultants with training and parent resources and also give you tools to help you be successful in your role. Many consultants have written to us asking how they can get their agency on board to offer better education care to families. 

We recently led a webinar for Missio Nexus on the topic, “Can an Agency Achieve its Goals without Educational Support for Families?” Our hope is that the webinar will be a tool to be used to envision mission leaders to address the issue of education planning that we are so passionate about. Go to Webinar: Educational support for families: Can your agency achieve its goals without it? – Missio Nexus to listen.

Why is this an important issue? Recent and past studies of attrition in the missions community have shown that family issues, which include both member care and education issues, are one of the top three reasons that families leave the field before they had planned to do so. Both parents and field leaders identified this as one of the top reasons but home office leaders did not. For that reason, we hope to encourage you to reach out when you have an opportunity to advocate for making sure your agency has a planning/assessing process in place for families as they prepare and as they serve.

The process needs to start as soon as families inquire with the agency. Although there are legal barriers to asking specific questions about children, it is important to at least ask parents what their hopes and plans are for the education of their children. Are there specific needs for a child that must be taken into consideration? Are their education plans realistic or impossible as they look to a particular location? Redirecting them to a place where they can fulfill their aspirations and meet specific needs for their children may be the first step to a good placement and a successful missions career.

How do we, as consultants, facilitate a process that comes alongside families?

We recognize that educational support is needed at three key times: before arriving on the field, while on the field, and when crises or transitions occur. 

PREFIELD SUPPORT

We recommend three important supports for families pre-field:

1 – Fully informed placement decisions

When the education of children isn’t seriously considered before field placement, major problems can occur. Most of the questions that can be answered, or need to be addressed, at this point aren’t rocket science. Key questions might be:

1. Are the schooling options that the family is assuming will be available in fact, available? Legal? Feasible?
2. Do any of the children need special supports in place in order to learn well? Are those supports available in a given location? How might having a child with special needs (particularly visible needs that significantly impact a child’s learning) impact the future ministry of the family? 

Our fellow education consultants have shared with us that sending agencies are sending out an increasing number of families who have children with special needs. We have no objection to that; however, there are a few layers of questions or considerations that should be addressed before a field assignment can be determined. 

One way that your agency might make sure that these questions have been addressed is through their education consultants.

2 – Education consultants

If you don’t already have TCK education consultants involved in your organization at some level, you likely have some professionals within your organization who are fully capable of serving in this role. 

Simply put, by appointing TCK/MK education consultants, your agency is providing much-needed people resources for families. Notice where this support falls in our Venn diagram. 

First, education consultants can be incredibly helpful during the appointment and placement process, and can serve as your go-to resource for answering those questions that should be answered before families are appointed. Of course a consultant will not know everything about every possible placement, but effective consultants understand what questions to ask and where to find accurate information that can assist in placement decisions.

A second way that education consultants are invaluable in the prefield process is that they can lead families in high-quality prefield education planning. Some agencies provide this in-house, but more and more agencies have come to rely on the in-person or online training offered by PACE and Interaction International for this. 

We fully train education consultants to walk families through a process of education planning for their unique children and for their unique field and ministry. The strong relationship that is forged between parents and their education consultant is carried onto the field, providing a level of familiarity that serves workers well when they need to call on their consultant because of problems that have arisen on the field.

Second, education consultants are invaluable assets to families who are currently on the field.

Here’s a short list of how they serve in this role:

• Serve families by providing resources and information at the right times that help families in the education of their children
• Serve as the first line of problem-solving and communication when obstacles arise
• Equip families with supports and resources related to the school options in which their children are participating
• Connect families with experts when questions or issues arise WHEN NEEDED
• Collaborate with education consultants at SHARE, AERC, or Anchor as families in those regions are served. (EXPLAIN these orgs) These organizations are staffed with experienced educators who serve families across their region from many different sending agencies. 
• Support multi-national families as they make important decisions related to the education of their children

Education consultants with your agency can track with your families and make sure that things are going well and answer any questions; they can then refer families to SHARE or SAFE (formerly AERC) when questions arise that are outside of their expertise, are country/region-specific, or specialized testing is needed. 

Third, education consultants assist families who are walking through a transition or crisis that affects or is entirely related to the education of their children. These educators can be instrumental in bringing their education expertise into situations such as transitioning between fields, connecting families to resources for struggling learners, or making sure that MKs are prepared for their transition to college or career after high school.

PACE is a resource for training education consultants. With the help of some incredibly experienced educators who served in this role, we have identified professional standards for education consultants in missions. Based on those standards, we offer certification for those serving in this role through our online coursework, as well as webinars, mentoring groups, and other resources. Our goal is for education consultants to be well-equipped to support families on the field.

3 – Prefield Education Planning

There are so many problems that we can prevent by preparing families to educate their children on the field before leaving for the field. High-quality education prefield planning experience would include elements such as:

1. Learning more about the unique characteristics of TCKs and how this will impact their academic education
2. Creating or honing a family philosophy of education – this helps parents to prioritize aspects of their childrens’ education, choose between available options, and guide their decision making when things don’t go according to plan.
3. Understanding the unique wiring of each of their children. This of course includes giftedness and special needs, but also just the general academic strengths and weaknesses of their children. Again, understanding this helps tremendously in educational decision making.
4. A thorough, insider understanding of the options available on a particular field. The only way to do this is to connect with those in the know: education consultants on the field, or future teammates.
5. Knowing the basics of language learning and how this may or may not integrate into the academic experience of their children. This is critical in helping parents develop realistic expectations of their children.
6. Finally, based on all of these elements, families should develop an education plan that takes all of these issues into account. There should be a Plan A and Plan B.
7. Ideally, all of this takes place alongside an education consultants who will also be available to the family once they’re on the field. By having an education consultant guide the family through this process, education consultants get to know the parents well and the parents come to get to know and trust their education consultant, who will  serve as an ongoing resource to the family. 

A few agencies have developed all of this in-house, but many organizations rely on prefield education online courses or in-person seminars developed by educators at PACE and Interaction International. In the past, Interaction offered an in-person seminar taught by educators, and PACE offered an online course that equipped agency education consultants to guide their families through. In the last year, PACE and Interaction have partnered together to offer one unified experience that is offered as an in-person, 3 to 4-day retreat, OR an online course, and either of these will involve the family’s education consultant.

ONFIELD SUPPORT

Family Education Conferences

One simple way of providing families with educational support on the field is to encourage and equip them to attend Family Education Conferences. SAFE (formerly AERC) offers a conference annually in Thailand, Anchor Education has offered conferences in several countries in Africa, and SHARE Education Services offers conferences in Hungary, Greece, southern Spain, and Central Asia.

The purpose of these conferences is to serve the educational needs of the families who attend. They generally offer high-quality educational programs for children, and plenary and workshop sessions for parents that meet parents right where they are. Generally, achievement testing, which serves as a general grade-level check-in, and diagnostic testing, for children who are showing signs of learning difficulties, are offered. 

Workers tell us again and again that these conferences serve as a bright spot every year for both parents and children. These conferences are staffed by the education consultants who serve full-time with SHARE or SAFE, as well as agency education consultants who often attend to continue their own education and meet with families that they serve. So every family who attends has many opportunities to obtain help they need in making small or significant decisions related to the education of their children.

We would recommend that your families be allotted the time and resources to attend a Family Education Conference every year if at all possible. This relatively small investment into workers pays off in many ways as they equip and encourage families who attend.

CRISIS/TRANSITION SUPPORT

University/Career Preparation

Regardless of how a family has chosen to educate their children, they will likely need assistance in preparing for whatever God has for a child after high school. This can be accomplished by:

1 – Partnering with an organization such as KC360, which specializes in guiding third culture kids in this process;

2 – Taking advantage of resources offered by SHARE or SAFE, who have staff members who are equipped to guide families through this preparation process;

3 – Of course, education consultants from your own agency who stay abreast of current trends and requirements can be essential resources in this process. 

Diagnostic Services

Anecdotally, education consultants are observing that more families who have children with special needs are being sent to the field than ever before. Because children are wonderful “moving targets,” this requires regular reevaluation and assessment in order to determine their current level of learning needs.

There also continues to be a need for diagnostic testing and identification for TCKs who are struggling significantly in their learning. Identifying the learning challenges of a child can be incredibly empowering for a family. In many cases, parents who have been agonizing over the challenges their child is facing gain understanding of that child’s strengths and weaknesses, which helps them make better educational decisions. A diagnosis can also connect parents with the resources that will help their child. 

We recommend that your agency, ideally through an education consultant, have a plan for obtaining educational testing when it is needed. In many cases, this may mean waiting until the next SHARE or SAFE conference, when an educational psychologist will be available for this type of evaluation. In other cases, there may be diagnosticians available at international schools. There are resources available on the field, though this continues to be an area of need. 

You serve your families well when you can advise and connect them with diagnostic services when they are needed. 

Finally, we want to offer a “quick start guide” if your agency would like to provide high-quality educational support for your families.

Educating children today is no small task for anyone. Let’s equip our workers by providing them with the support they need to know that the educational needs of their children are being met, and that they have all of the resources they need to keep their families healthy as they continue serving where they have been called.

 

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