Jennifer DeCoste

Jennifer is advocating for an enhanced culture of caring where people feel less isolated and more connected by participating in community-led, barter-based skills sharing experiences. Her grassroots folkschool movement inspires volunteers to engage as “hosts” – leading their own community by organizing community gatherings and creating space for new relationships to grow.

Jennifer is cultivating a culture of hosted caretaking in communities that have limited opportunities for connection and high rates of social isolation. This new culture creates the social cohesion and resiliency required for communities to thrive in the face of social, political and economic transitions. To do so, Jennifer equips community members with new hosting skills and the ability to connect across differences to unite an otherwise fragmented social fabric. These new hosting skills center around intentional care taking, bridge building across difference and holding meaningful conversations. Jennifer’s new idea celebrates the care that many people naturally possess and supports them to build informal learning communities as a way to highlight the assets in their community and to form caring relationships in the authentic voices of each community.

Jennifer’s new idea creates roles for ‘Hosts’ and ‘Facilitators’ in these informal learning communities or ‘folkschools’; engaging volunteers from within community to build social inclusion where it currently does not exist. Hosts are credible messengers in their own community and generally have community development aspirations but are seeking a platform or encouragement to get started. They share existing spaces in community free of charge - often their own home, barn, yard, or garage - to host skills-sharing workshops that are offered by Facilitators from the community. Hosts create a welcoming environment for the connections between attendees to form and thrive. Hosts receive inspiration and training from Jennifer’s organization – the Life.School.House (LSH) and can share their own experiences in the growing “LifeSchoolHouse Storybundle: A fieldguide", and community of practice support.

By opening their doors to strangers from their own community, Hosts demonstrate an act of genuine trust that sets a new standard for others to follow. Offering personal space as a place for community to convene also changes the conversation about who can lead community engagement and what kind of resources need to be available to get started.

Facilitators are also integral to Jennifer’s model; they are members of the community who offer to share an activity they are passionate about, as a means to connect diverse groups of learners together. Knitting classes, cooking, brewing, carpentry, etc., can form connections through a shared interest area. Skills sharing helps find existing connections and shared interests that neighbours may not have recognized otherwise. The goal is not to master a skill but simply to be in a learning and sharing space where hosts can then work to ensure connections will form. Unique to this model, facilitators are compensated exclusively with barter items brought by participants who register for classes, removing the financial barriers many people face when trying to access education. It also avoids potential power dynamics between facilitators and participants that could come with paid and/or free events. The informality of the venue and diversity of people coming together through an act of sharing enables an environment where everyone has something valuable to contribute, in a circular, non-hierarchical way. This reinforces to people that no matter their level of education or socio-economic background, they can be an engaged community member with deep connection with neighbours with the ability to contribute to positive change.

Communities where the Life.School.House model has been launched are reporting stronger connections and greater sense of resilience as a result of the trusted Hosts and the new relationships that have formed. Participants exchange contact information and relationships are sustained beyond the classes. As a result of this network building, collective initiatives are born. Unlike top-down community development such as efforts by municipal or provincial institutions, Jennifer’s model is deeply grounded in the community. Because of that, her model is authentically living and growing, responding to the specific needs and interests of neighbourhoods, versus those identified by institutions. Jennifer envisions a society where grassroots community-led projects are recognized as a part of a healthy community ecosystem. She is catalyzing a movement of Hosts celebrated as leaders in their community who are engaged as trusted contributors to community development and care efforts.

People are living alone in record numbers around the world. Over the past century, Canada has seen one-person households increase from 7% of the Canadian population in 1951 to 28% in 2016. During the same period of time, Canada has experienced a significant decline in participation in church services. With the decrease in institutionalized community gatherings occurring at places like churches, and fewer interactions with family or shared household members, Canadians have been reporting insufficient opportunities for social connection.

This problem is particularly prevalent in Canada’s Atlantic Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland/Labrador)where Jennifer’s new idea has its roots. Communities across these provinces are small and dispersed across large areas of land with few urban centers. The Provinces have a rapidly aging population, low birth rate, higher rates of out-migration, and lower rates of interprovincial migration than other parts of the country. Since 1971, the Atlantic Provinces have been losing people to other provinces and many young people have left to pursue opportunity in larger urban centers across Canada. As a result, government, employers, colleges and universities, and immigrant-serving organizations have been working to welcome and retain immigrants, international students, and temporary foreign workers. In the last twenty years, Atlantic Canada has experienced a fourfold increase in immigration. The region is now experiencing more than 14,000 newcomers annually compared with just 3,000, two decades ago. As these newcomers settled in rural eastern Canada, they take residence in neighbourhoods where they don’t know anyone and are not accustomed to the local culture. With few institutional community gathering spaces it can be hard to make new friends. Furthermore, the 2020/2021 impacts of COVID-19 increased pressure on municipal budgets, making it harder to rely on local government infrastructure to connect neighbours to one another.

As a species, humans thrive on relationships and social interaction, and without it our health as individuals is negatively impacted. As a result of isolation, Canadian residents are less socially active in their community, have less connection with their neighbours and are not engaging in formal volunteering as frequently. According to the Canadian Wellbeing Index, only 30% of the population say that they regularly socialize with their neighbours and only 18% say they volunteer in their communities. In addition, the lack of opportunity or space to connect and bridge across differences contributes to the rise of a declining sense of trust between neighbours. The global rise of social media platforms, such as Facebook, further perpetuates distrust with those who share different views or experiences due to their media algorithms that promote polarization.

Most projects that address the physical and mental health impacts of social isolation neglect the importance of caretaking and the need to bridge across differences. These projects tend to invest in infrastructure to create space for gatherings, but do not address loneliness and lack of connection in communities. Programs that are led by natural connectors and caretakers tend to be more successful in decreasing social isolation. The provision of “care” has traditionally been a role played by women and those who lead with feminine energy. It has remained invisible and devalued in western societies for the most part. Care-centered leaders create and reinforce strong social bonds and community connection, but they do not have access to training or support to help them, which can often lead to burn out.

In 2017, having recently moved back to her home province – Nova Scotia – Jennifer noticed that there was a lack of opportunities to connect with her neighbours. She personally felt the impacts of this lack of connection both mentally and physically. In response, she decided to host a gathering at her house with friends to talk about these issues. The conversation revealed that these neighbours also felt like something was missing in their community. They were craving greater connection but were lacking infrastructure and opportunities to do so. Hearing this, Jennifer offered her home to try something new: skill sharing workshops as a means for neighbours to foster connection and decrease social isolation.

Between March and December 2018, Jennifer hosted more than fifty sessions in her living-room with thirty-five different facilitators. She started by offering classes relying on friends and neighbours who were willing to share their mother’s Indian Dosas recipe, knitting abilities or leather crafting skills with others. She then gradually spread the work to engage local crafters from farmers markets, online Facebook “Makers” communities, libraries and so on. As demand grew she put out a call to her community asking if people would host sessions in their own homes like she did. Twelve people showed up and eight became the first Life.School.House (LSH) Hosts in the scaling pilot.

LSH classes typically cover a range of subjects from crafting, trade skills, critical thinking, and life enrichment and are based on the availability and experience of community facilitators. Behind the scenes, Hosts with Life.School.House are the lifeblood of the community as their role is dedicated to creating the conditions necessary for the connections between attendees to form and thrive. Hosting principles are simple but well defined. Features like greeting people at the door and welcoming them into the space, providing basic refreshments if possible, ensuring that everyone is engaged in conversation before the class begins, ensuring that no one is left out, meeting in circle when possible to reduce social hierarchy, and opening with a round of introductions that encourage the participants to be vulnerable and sincere (For example, “Tell us your name and where you think of as ‘home’”). Without a Host creating a safe container for people to meet and engage with each other, interactions in a class environment can become transactional and never develop into real relationships. Using this model, hosts open their personal space to welcome everyone across age, gender, culture and language. They are very intimate, trust-centered gatherings. This ‘in-community, by community’ model ensures space for a diversity of participant ages, backgrounds and interest areas which helps ensure the programs are reflective of the diversity of the community. The average number of participants per session is eight and rarely goes higher than fifteen because the intention is to create an environment of intimacy and a space for human connection rather than focusing primarily on skill development.

To make sure the collection of people joining the classes is diverse, Hosts offer a wide range of topics for the workshops to attract different demographics. They are also encouraged to intentionally reach out to immigrant settlement services, libraries, and local cafés. Hosts are trained to be able to recruit and support community-level facilitators and the model organically grows as participants in classes become facilitators for future sessions.

Surveys conducted with hundreds of participants show that 90% experience enjoyment and happiness from attending LSH workshops; 89% report an increased sense of community and neighbourliness; 89% report creativity and idea sharing; and 75% report they met new people and made friends. Beyond the classes, newly formed relationships are maintained between neighbours who check in on each other and develop local projects such as community gardens or food pantries that became integral during the COVID pandemic.

Between 2018-2021, LSH has leveraged the power of over 450 volunteers to create more than 550 community-led workshops with an average of 8 participants engaged at a time. During the 2020-2021 pandemic year the average number of participants was 6 per workshop in over 100 workshops and 300 makers swaps that were organized with modifications due to gathering restrictions. During the pilot, the average class was filling in three minutes after posting and most classes had a lengthy waitlist. 56% of the piloted workshops took place in rural communities, 33% in urban centers and 8% online.

The core purpose of LSH is to establish trust between neighbours, build community connection, and enable a grassroots movement of leaders with the collective readiness for hosting and caretaking. Jennifer’s spread strategy is built around two pillars: 1) developing a community of practice of Hosts through decentralized LSH regional hubs and 2) leveraging like-minded international networks to spread the model outside of Canada.

Jennifer’s goal is to build the hosting movement as a “field of flowers blooming” where Hosts constantly re-organize to best fit with their environment and create feedback loops to ensure the model remains relevant for the communities it is implemented in.

Few resources are needed to start up a LifeSchoolHouse folkschool. The use of residential space and low overhead costs make it an easily adaptable model. Jennifer realized that while she was growing the network of Hosts, the supports Hosts needed were not primarily financial but instead, Hosts were eager to share best practices and deepen their experience through training. This is why LSH now provides guidance on how to start up a local LSH (such as training on facilitated community conversation to identify interest and understand needs, generating a database of willing facilitators, creating marketing materials for outreach efforts, etc.). There is a Field Guide to support new Hosts – written and regularly updated with impact measurement data for and by Hosts. In addition to a guide, new Hosts gain experience through connection to other Hosts as peer-coaches. In this way, the model is passed organically and develops a natural peer-to-peer mentoring community. To mitigate the risk of burn out among Hosts who may engage in this form of caretaking work, Jennifer created the ‘Hosts Table’. By mixing team communication platforms and in-person gatherings, the Hosts Table provides time and space for Hosts to reflect and connect with others doing similar work.

To further support the spread of the model, Jennifer is setting up LSH as a movement. While LSH does monthly “Host Trainings” she is building a culture where Hosts are expected to “pay their education forward”. As such, communities that already have a LSH support new communities that want to start up their own until they’re able to pay it forward and support new ones in their turn. Currently, she has Hosts in the provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. In 2021, Jennifer made an important move to relocate to Antigonish, Nova Scotia - the catalytic grounds for the ‘Antigonish Movement’. This region was responsible for kick-starting a movement which blended adult education, co-operatives, microfinance and rural community development to help small, resource-based communities around Canada's Atlantic provinces to improve their economic and social circumstances. The credit union system of the Atlantic, the rest of Canada, and in some developing countries can trace their origins to the Antigonish Movement. Jennifer plans to build from these strong cultural roots to further fuel the LSH movement.

Beyond the Canadian movement, Jennifer is tapping into international like-minded networks to spread her model and grow the hosting movement. She has partnered with Tamarack Institute, a network founded by Ashoka Fellow Paul Born which develops collaborative strategies to engage citizens and institutions to solve major community issues across Canada. The Institute has a learning community of more than 20,000 members across Canada and Jennifer is tapping into this extensive resource to build a pipeline of potential new Hosts by delivering webinars to the Tamarack learning community. Jennifer is also part of the International Folk High School Alliance where she acts as a thought leader by sharing her experiences about social cohesion and community resilience and using the model as a way to influence popular education and community engagement. In 2020/2021, Jennifer partnered with Edge, a social innovation ministry program of the United Church of Canada - the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada – to train ministry and church staff to become Hosts. In 2021/2022, she is partnered with Fundaçion Share in Mexico for a “train the trainer” initiative with Ashoka Fellow Veronica Escalante. 20 new Host trainees in Mexico are now poised to share the LSH model with youth leaders in their communities. With these partnerships in place, Jennifer now has a network of allies to spread impact across Canada and around the world.

Jennifer imagines that once successful with this long-term vision, iterated versions of informal hosted spaces for learning will be normalized all over the world. These community-led projects will be recognized as a part of a healthy community ecosystem where Hosts will be celebrated as leaders in their community and engaged as trusted contributors to community design conversations where the focus is on wellbeing.

Growing up, Jennifer used to visit her grandmother in rural Nova Scotia. Although her grandfather had passed many years ago, his legacy as a provincial politician meant that her grandmother’s home was always a gathering place. Their front door was always open to let a constant flow of visitors come in and sit around the kitchen table. Jennifer was nourished by these moments of community connection, which contrasted with what she was experiencing at home with her parents in a city. From an early age, she felt the need to connect deeply with people from her community but was lacking meaningful opportunities to do so. After university, Jennifer and her husband moved to an even larger city where they both had successful careers and an active urban life. But again, Jennifer experienced a familiar pattern: coming in and out of their apartment without knowing their neighbours was increasing a sense of disconnection from their community.

After their first son was born, Jennifer and her husband moved back to Nova Scotia to try to find a place where they could feel like they were part of a community. They bought a house in a neighbourhood where the majority of the families had two working parents who commuted and were gone from 7 am to 6 pm. The lack of connection was hard on Jennifer’s family and in 2017 they decided to pack up with their two kids and drive across Canada for a summer, visiting new communities to get a sense for what would work better for their family. Knowing that they had reached this point because they were both lonely and isolated, they opted for an unconventional approach to travel. When reaching out to friends and family across the country they asked: “Who do you know that we should meet on our travels?” Over the course of 10 weeks, they moved from one home to another, staying a few hours and sometimes a few days with near strangers. As strangers opened their homes to share tea and stories of their own lives and community experiences, Jennifer and her family took the opportunity to learn from these informal conversations, shared experiences, and connected across differences. This approach inspired Jennifer to take action and start building the community she had been craving for years. When they returned to Nova Scotia, Jennifer invited neighbours over to talk about what was missing in their community and what could be done. The Life.School.House grew up around their shared ideas and by 2019, Jennifer left her full-time position to spend six months developing the model from her kitchen table. She is also raising her two sons to become the kind of community members the world desperately needs.