Community schools in Ghent: Strengthening neighbourhoods in Belgium (Flanders)

Abstract

This chapter describes how the City of Ghent, a city in Flanders (Belgium), has uniquely developed and scaled up the concept of community schools. Inspired initially by the community schools movement in the Netherlands, leaders for this innovation developed their own design and implementation strategy. These leaders’ developmental story covers 15 years and identifies key features of this approach as well as the different phases in its development. One noteworthy feature of this exemplar is the neighborhood-oriented model of community schools. In this model, all primary schools and participating organizations in the selected geographical area (neighborhood) are included. This chapter provides valuable insights in the pioneering work at the local level in which bottom-up initiatives in different neighborhoods, jointly developed by educators and human services providers, are progressively supported by local policy makers and aldermen (local politicians). Ghent’s leaders opted to provide funds for infrastructure supports and resources, with a special priority for the community school coordinator, emphasizing the importance of cross-boundary work, coordination and resource maximization. The authors conclude with an overview of lessons learned, pointing to factors that can further support the development and sustainability of the community school initiatives that serve children and adults, while strengthening their schools and neighborhoods.