The SelfDesign® Family Services team offers integrated, holistic support for learners and their families as they engage in their educational programs. The services, places and resources offered to extend beyond the content of educational programs to anything that impacts a  learner and family’s ability to engage in their educational program.

Family Services’ Clarissa Tufts leads the team. She oversees its direction and day-to-day operations, and works with the clinical counsellor, guidance counsellors and members of the contact assistance team (referred to as CAT) who provide support to learners, families, educators and other members of the SelfDesign community.

We talked to Clarissa about her journey to SelfDesign and her work with Family Services.

SelfDesign (SD): How did you come to SelfDesign?

Clarissa (CT): When I finished my teaching degree, I taught in Mexico for a while. The experiences I had teaching there really made me think deeply about my teaching philosophy. Shortly after returning to British Columbia, I saw a flyer posted at the local café in my community for a talk about SelfDesign. I went to the talk, and this whole new world opened up for me.

I started a small contract shortly afterward with SelfDesign and just fell in love with the philosophy and the people. Then, when my daughter was born, it just felt very natural to be engaged in the SelfDesign path with our family. SelfDesign has always felt like a deep, organic way of being for me.

I started working as a member of the contact assistance team in 2007 and took on the Family Services team lead role in 2015.

SD: What do you see your role on the team?

CT: Family Services is like a counselling office at a high school. When you walk into the counselling office, you might see a brochure rack on the wall, there might be some couches and a coffee table and some magazines on the table. And there would be three main doors – there’s the school counsellor door, the guidance counsellor door, and the contact assistance door for supporting folks if they’re having issues with participating in the program.

I see myself as a conduit and facilitator and a liaison between the various Family Services teams on the ground and the other SelfDesign Learning Community support teams. For example, how do we translate SelfDesign’s values into our day-to-day work? How do we draw on them when we’re developing a procedure or working on supporting a complex learner-centred case?

SD: What do you love most about your work with Family Services?

CT: There’s so much going on all the time and it’s always changing. There are always opportunities for creativity and newness. That stimulates me and keeps me interested. This experience of constantly learning and constantly being fed by the learning that my colleagues are doing is so empowering and renewing. I feel like we have a really wonderful opportunity in Family Services, because my work is directly impacted by the experiences of so many learners,  families and educators. I’m in this really amazing place of getting to connect with a large network of people who are also in an iterative learning cycle.

It’s an amazing blessing.

SD: And now for something fun….  If you could have dinner with anybody, who would it be?

CT: I think I’d like to spend an evening with one of my ancestors. He left England when he was young and came to North America to start all over with barely anything. What a huge life change! What was he thinking when he made that decision? What drove him? What were his fears? What was it like? I’ve often wondered.

And, also, what could I learn from him? It’s fascinating.

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