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When Beth* first arrived at Bridges, an innovative adult education centre in London, Ontario, she had a simple goal: to read the children’s book Pinocchio. A high-school dropout since the age of 13, when she left school to help her mother support the family, she has tried to complete her studies “a hundred million times” since. Among the obstacles standing in her path was an abusive partner, who undermined her many attempts to achieve her goal throughout the 16 years they were together.
Susan Rodger talks about the Bridges program. » Listen
The only program of its kind in Canada, Bridges launched in Sept. 2006 as a partnership between the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Education and the Thames Valley District School Board. The program boasts several important differences from traditional adult education programs. Unlike most, which have mandatory attendance requirements, Bridges attendance policy is “Come when you can.” An important feature given that many women have partners who try and sabotage their plans—denying them the use of the car or taking their clothes to prevent them from leaving their home.
Safety is a priority, and it’s reflected in everything from the design of the classroom (which sports both a front and a back door) to the fact that the students’ names are never entered into the school register or the school board’s computers.
Dianne Rumney, assistant superintendent of the Thames Valley board, says on the occasion that a partner does shows up looking for one of the students “all of us just have a memory lapse.”
Safety planning is critical, says Bridges psychologist Andrea Carter, because “all of our women have experienced an escalation of violence since they’ve been in the program.” Abusers feel increasingly threatened as their partners become more independent, says Carter, jarring proof of the power of an education.
Despite the fact that attending school puts them at increased risk, most of the original 27 students kept coming back throughout year. In the two years since it began, the program has only lost touch with two students, with the rest attending about 50% of the daily classes. Records show that after 12 weeks in the program, the retention rate jumps to 75%.
“It’s the best thing that’s come my way in a long time,” says Beth.
Bridges was the brainchild of psychologist Susan Rodger, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Western Ontario. It grew out of from her extensive work with women who have been abused and her knowledge that their circumstances are often rooted in their poverty or lack of financial independence.
“In Canada, the No. 1 predictor of a woman’s income is her education,” explains Rodger, who was raised by a single mother and consciously designed the program from a feminist perspective. Half of all the women who disclose that they have experienced violence in their lives don’t have a high school diploma, she adds. Many women in abusive relationships report that their inability to support themselves is the main reason they stay with a violent partner.
According to a 2000 report commissioned by the Southwestern Ontario Shelter Association, more than 40 percent of women using shelter services in the region lack a high school diploma. That’s compared to 29 percent of women across Canada.
For Rodger, the solution is simple: empower women by upgrading their education and provide them with more choices. “If you want to support women, a good place to start is education,” she says.
However, many adult education programs don’t meet these women where they need to begin. Bridges allows them to progress at their own pace. Rodger designed the program to remove each of the barriers women cited as standing in the way of their return to school. They receive bus tickets, so transportation is not a problem. Because many of the women have had their books or homework destroyed, they can keep their work at school. There is even a reclining chair for students who have had sleepless nights to catch a nap if they need one.
“There’s so much of an emphasis on just skills or educational credentials," says Rodger. "We forget that people have to be at a place in their lives [first] where they can cope with daily living,”
Launched in Jan. 2006, the Bridges alternative school is a one-year, five-day-a week course funded through an agreement with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The course itself is a pilot program that is part of a research project, Bridges: Women’s Links to Learning and Success, which is measuring the effectiveness of the course compared to a control group.
The stated goal of the women-only course is “to remove barriers to success faced by women who have experienced abuse.” Success in this case can mean many things, from graduating high school and moving on to post-secondary education to building social networks or financial management.
To help students achieve success, the Bridges has been designed with the emotional, psychological and physical needs of abused women in mind. To give students as much flexibility as possible, the program has an unconventional “come when you can” attendance policy which allows them to make up missed classes on their own time.
Research has shown that abusers will often sabotage a woman’s efforts to get an education, either by directly threatening her or her children, withholding transportation or even hiding her clothes, all of which would limit her ability to succeed in a traditional classroom.
That’s why Bridges measures non-traditional outcomes, successes that mainstream programs never capture.
For some students, like Beth, success was gaining the ability to read her monthly bank statement and catch a $20 a month withdrawal that she never approved. For another woman, success was making eye contact with the teacher and fellow students after more than two months of sitting with her head down.
For Destiny*, one of Beth’s classmates, success was learning to read the bus schedule and mastering her anxiety so she could take public transportation to school, on her own. The first time she rode the bus, a classmate met her at her final stop. She gave Destiny a hug when she arrived. Now Destiny is the person her fellow students consult when they need to know how to get somewhere.
“Now I can go places on the bus,” says Destiny. “I love it.”
Before attending Bridges, Destiny had trouble reading anything—not just the bus schedule. She grew up in a house with no books, and left school before she completed Grade 9 to take care of her father. Now she writes in a journal regularly and reads the newspaper. “I can actually look on the front page and understand,” the 49-year-old explains. “Then I can get into conversation with another girl, and I’m fitting in.”
Destiny can now read a recipe, and have her meal turn out right. She no longer feels uncomfortable or isolated. For one of the first times in her life, she has friends who understand what her life has been like.
“It’s done wonders for me,” she says of Bridges. “I feel I’m smart. I love getting up in the morning and going to school.”
The community that the women have created is one of the program’s major strengths, and another measure of the program’s success. The students support and encourage each other. Teacher Barb O’Brien has been known to help her students move, and has rounded up furniture and clothing from her friends. Either she, Rodger or Carter are available at the other end of the phone when a student needs them.
Often, it’s the first time any of the women have experienced that support, since their abusers isolate them from family or potential friends.
They may also be struggling with memory and concentration problems caused by blows to the head or choking injuries that were never treated. For the first time, they come to school in an environment where the teacher, counsellor and researchers understand that reality.
O’Brien went into the program knowing that she needed to set realistic expectations. As wonderful as it would be if all of her students ended up getting their high school diploma and going on to college or university, she knows that is unlikely. Some of the women will probably never get their Grade 12; others may indeed go on to post-secondary education. All are making measurable progress in learning.
O’Brien can see it in the journals, the novel studies, the collages and the presentations that her students make. She knows it’s happening when a woman tells her she was finally able to talk to her lawyer without crying, or when student can speak up in class.
“What we have seen is a bigger sense of independence,” O’Brien says. “Some of them have discovered they really are capable.”
Beth has discovered that capability in herself. “This class has helped me get some confidence,” she says. “I knew I wasn’t alone. I’ve connected with other women. We balance each other’s strengths.”
Beth credits O’Brien as being one of the chief reasons her confidence has grown. She told her students that if they wanted to learn, they could. Beth describes O’Brien, Rodger and Carter as her “everyday heroes.”
“Barb is the best teacher there ever was,” she says. “She’s not judgmental. She doesn’t look at you like you’re beneath her. I have always felt that I’m beneath everyone.”
That attitude, which Rodger and Carter share, is one of the reasons the students say they keep coming back. Despite the lack of an attendance requirement, the women have averaged a 65 percent attendance rate, and there is an 85 percent retention rate in the program. Even more importantly, for the hours that they are at Bridges, they are in a safe place.
One of the challenges for the counsellors, teacher and researchers involved with the program is to know that the students will not necessarily go home to that same safe place. Although most are no longer living with their abusers, many of the men still seek them out.
Still, the Bridges’ staff are comforted by the fact that the women have learned that what was done to them in the past was wrong, and that they don’t deserve the abuse. “It’s amazing to see their growth and the building of their self-esteem and worth,” says Carter. “It’s been a real privilege.”
She hopes she is a part of what has helped the women survive the escalating violence, and she tells them “I’m there when you’re not safe.” O’Brien and Rodger hope that other communities will replicate Bridges’ success. “What we’d really like to do is show other communities how doable this is,” O’Brien says.
What Beth wants is to be the reason that her three-year-old son stays in school. “I can’t say to him ‘You have to stay in school’ if I can’t prove to him that it’s doable.”
* The students’ names have been changed to protect their identity.