Lia Lloyd-Clare

Where to you live?
Pelluco, Chile

Major?
Master’s of Science in Mediation and Conflict Studies 2006
Interdisciplinary Studies 2007

Why did you choose Woodbury College?
I first thought of El Rincon de la Familia, the Chilean version of The Family Place when I was a student at Woodbury College. I enrolled in Woodbury’s Mediation program because I was eager to learn new techniques to take back to Southern Chile where my husband and I have lived for the last 20 years. Mediation seemed to be a perfect starting point to learn how to bring hope and healing to a society that is still politically divided after seventeen years of a military regime.

Have you continued your education since you attended Woodbury?
While at Woodbury I learned about its Prevention program, and the more I reflected on the strategies and perspectives of this program, the more I realized that Mediation alone is not enough. In 2006 I enrolled in an Individual Study Program focusing on Conflict and Community.

How have you used your skills that you received at Woodbury?
As part of my Internship I established a Family Center on our 125 acre farm in the hamlet of Pelluco, located in the outskirts of the port town of Puerto Montt in Chilean Patagonia. Because of Chile’s centralized government, and its long and thin geographical configuration, social programs that make the headlines in Santiago often take decades to reach the outlying provinces. This is the case of many “Head Start” type projects that are so needed in the developing world and which, in Chile, scarcely exist outside the capital.

Realizing the importance of making this a Chilean project and not something imported from abroad – and being a foreigner in Chile – I began by contacting Carla Mansilla, a young Chilean student in her final year of Family Counseling in one of the local universities. Together we began the rigorous and painstaking task of personally interviewing families in the two-mile radius of our Pelluco neighborhood. It was summer so we did not have to worry about the mud and the rain in this stormy region of Patagonia, but the stray dogs that surrounded each small cottage or lean-to we visited did give us pause. People were warm and hospitable and surprised at our questions that centered on their wishes and dreams instead of the usual governmental focus on their needs. They found the idea of a place for the family intriguing and fun, and they were ready to sign on. The information gleaned in these interviews served as the basis for the design of our program.

Because early childhood stimulation is vital to full brain development, the program focuses on providing the best and most stimulating possible environment for children between the ages of zero to six.  Our mission is to work with preschoolers and their main care giver, mostly stay at home moms but in several cases a grandparent. We provide information on parenting, personal growth, health, communication, home economics, sanitation, diet and general wellbeing in small group sessions while the children benefit from being with an experienced pre-school teacher and enjoy story telling, play time, toys, music and books in a clean, warm and attractive atmosphere. All of these things are not normally part of their beleaguered early years.  The program also serves as a link with other frequently unknown or inaccessible family services available in the area.

With three staff members, El Rincon de la Familia has become a haven for parents and children in the area and after only six months of operation, a glimpse of incipient community coherence is beginning to appear. The older brothers and sisters are tagging along and are now doing their homework at the center while the other programs are underway. Literacy and elementary education classes as well as computer courses for parents, according to their needs and level of education, are now part of our schedule. The program is evolving and maturing as we go along. In this beautiful yet harsh and remote southern corner of the world, the key principles of respect, active listening and adjusting to the needs of others, which are pivotal concepts in Woodbury’s Mediation and Prevention training, are very much a part of the style and substance of El Rincon de la Familia.

Is there anything you’d like to say to a prospective student?
The initial success of the project I attribute in great measure to concepts I learned at Woodbury College – among others, the importance of having explicit objectives for a given program and of listening to prospective clients and inviting their participation in the program design phase.