June 22nd NEO Literacy Corps Training

Agenda
1:00-1:45pm Introduction to 2100 1:45-2:15 Large group icebreaker & capacity building 2:15-3:00 Service hygiene 3:00-3:15 Break 3:15-3:45 Civic Reflection 3:45-4:10 Story telling/listening 4:15-5:00 Kailey: conflict resolution

Large Group Ice Breaker

Share your name & something from this past month of service you are grateful for (pass the wand). Volunteers take the wand and remember what another member is grateful for.

Capacity Building Project

Are you guys excited for August 3rd yet? Don t freak out!! We re just going to have a quick conversation about this and then STOP. Describe the August 3rd event: 5:30-7:30 at Downtown YMCA: We will invite everyone from your mother to the mayor s office to recognize our members for their contributions this year. We ll thank everyone individually, involve your host site supervisors and have a surprise of something special we will present to you. Before all of that, we would like to invite members of the community to come in and see your posters that represent how you have helped your host sites in a sustainable way. Who has done a poster presentation before? Poster Presentation sounds like a big, academic power word. And I know not everyone s capacity building project worked out. What I want you do is tell a success story of something really awesome you did this year above and beyond the daily grind. Your story needs a title and should tell what you did, how you did it, and what you learned from it. What questions do you have about August 3rd or the project in general?

Does anyone need help brainstorming to create your poster? [If yes:] Try to ask people with different roles who have been impacted by your success story in some way, like students/learners, staff, volunteers, and administrators. Here are some questions you can ask people in

your organization to get you started on your poster (you have to take notes; I m not giving this to you as a handout): Start with the title or name of the success story you want to highlight & explain how you will be sharing this on August 3rd. If you were to tell someone else the story, how would you describe what we did? (introduction) What are some of the highlights of this (easier phrase) story/project/process that you d want to share? (design/method) Are there any tips, techniques, lessons, or resources we found or developed that we could share that might be helpful to others working in literacy? (results) What are some things we learned during this story/project/process? (conclusion)

Service Hygiene
One of the goals of AmeriCorps as a national program is to promote a lifetime of service. Consider this year an invitation to participate in direct service to those who are low income, vulnerable, and underserved. In addition, we want to make sure we present to you the skills you need to be able to do this work for a lifetime. I want to emphasize that it is a privilege to be of service to others. Each and every one of you are privileged with the resources and abilities to serve. But because you are dealing with people who are vulnerable, the possible capacity to do harm is also much greater. In addition, you are exposing yourself to possible harm through this work, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I m not talking about getting beat up, screamed at or having an isolated traumatic incident, though there is a small risk of that happening. What I mean is the physical, psychological and spiritual toll of being exposed daily to the suffering and trauma of other people, animals and the planet. Any service has elements of stress to it, but having an open heart and hands to those most vulnerable requires that you care for your mind, body and spirit not just for your own sake, but also for the sake of those you serve through NEO Literacy Corps, not to mention the full & involved lives & service you have outside of this setting: family, friends, religious congregations, etc. The practices that enable your heart and mind to remain open and compassionate to others is what I call service hygiene. We have tried to introduce these tools throughout the year by talking about vicarious trauma, stress management, and meditation, but I realize I never explained how or why all those pieces fit together. At the same time, we have seen fewer people show up for training and when you are physically present, fewer people are showing up in terms of participation and engagement. It appears to me, and I remember from my own experience in AmeriCorps, that you are hoping and waiting for someone to throw you a line, to draw you up out of the exhaustion that is much more than just tiredness. You are looking for a healing salve for an inner soreness, but you can t remember how you injured yourself to begin with. You re beginning to feel like you are not just serving people in poverty and hardship but are becoming a person in poverty and hardship. This is the cumulative toll of being exposed daily to suffering.

I m here today to tell you there is no rope. There is no healing salve. Your hope lies in your disciplined exercise of service hygiene. Some service hygiene is a monthly practice. One method for this is to regularly meet with and support other professionals in your field, which we are facilitating for you every month in training. We want you to prove to yourself that you can leave your site for four hours every month and everything didn t just fall apart with you. Once this year is over, promise yourself to leave the daily grind on a regular basis and meet with others to support, reflect and improve together. I d like to take a moment now to recognize those who have been faithful to training this year (hand out certificates with names). Other service hygiene has to be a daily practice. Every day when you come home from service, you are tracking in the accumulated junk that you have been exposed to. Some days that is more than a little bit of junk and you come home knee deep in excrement. So today we re going to practice how to take off and wash off your souls (get it? Shoes? Soles?). In healing from trauma, whether firsthand or vicarious trauma, you literally have to retrain your brain. So we re going to start with a 60 second exercise we ll call Being of Service to Myself. You re going to sit up straight and comfortable, put your hands in a position where they won t clench or tap or wander, make sure all cell phones and other communicative devices are not touching you or otherwise in your conscious realm. When I ring this bell, you will pay attention to your breath. Don t change your breath, just notice it. It helps to close your eyes. Your mind will wander off. You ll start thinking about what s for dinner, did I remember to tell Jodie about August 3rd, I wonder if Johnny emailed me don t berate your mind, just gently call it back to your breath. It will wander again, bring it back to your breath. If you need a word to focus on, try the word breath in English or another language, like ruach the Hebrew word for breath of life. After 60 seconds I will ring the bell again and you can open your eyes and let your mind return to whatever path it wants to run down. Bell Notice the effects of the practice. Did this help you at all? And it is simple. Find an object that makes a gentle noise, you can get these bells at City Buddha on West 25th for $12, and just focus on your breath for 60 seconds at the end of your day. Now that your mind and heart is hopefully a little more open, we re going to do a short assessment to see if you re showing any signs of vicarious trauma. These are just symptoms, and the antidote to all of them is to get this accumulated junk up & out of your system every single day. As we talk through these symptoms, this is meant to be an introspective exercise. Keep this about yourself, and not from a place of blame or guilt, but just be very gentle and curious about yourself, like Wow, check me out avoiding my work by being on Facebook all day hmmm isn t that interesting. It s just like noticing a tightness in your shoulder, and it s just a sign that maybe you need to work this out a little bit, work your way back to being flexible. Don t make this about Oh, my coworker really needs to hear this, or Oh, that s why that tutor is such a big grump, okay? This is about you. The second thing I want to say is these brief exercises we re talking about today are just that: exercise. This is not meant to be a magical talisman against any kind of difficulty or heart break. It s also not a

replacement or even supplement to genuine psychological counseling. Just like a physical athlete needs to confer with medical professionals, you may need to do the same in your lifetime of service to tend to your mental and psychological health needs. If you look at this whole list and say Gee, most of this applies to me! then I encourage you to just ask yourself the question, Maybe I need a little help. There are two ways we can do this: 1) You get into groups of three and rotate through the stations for each activity. Or Groups of 3 volunteers for each symptom come up front to read a few lines. Each activity gives a scenario with a narrator, member, and someone else that talks about a symptom of Vicarious Trauma and then talks through how to work out that area to be a little more flexible. Each person take a role & read it out silently to yourself first, then read it out loud as a group. You can just read the line as written or you can improvise based on the character.

GUILT (Gratitude) Narrator: In this scenario, your sibling gives you a Kindle for your birthday. Sibling: I know you love to read and are becoming this literacy guru and all, so I thought you d love one of these eReaders. Member (feeling guilty): Wow, my learners don t even have computers at home. I don t know if I can take this. Sibling: C mon, I even got you a $150 gift card to go with it. You can get started with your favorites. Member (feeling even more guilty): $150 would buy meals for 10 families where I work. Narrator: Now the antidote for guilt is gratitude. Obviously, you are already doing what you can to live simply and share resources. So start with an appreciation that even life itself is a gift, and be intentional about noticing and being thankful for every little thing that you have & that goes well. Let s try that scene again with gratitude. Sibling: I know you love to read and are becoming this literacy guru and all, I thought you d love one of these eReaders. Member (feeling thankful): I do love to read and am more thankful for that ability every day. This is a very thoughtful gift. Sibling: I even got you a $150 gift card to go with it. You can get started with your favorites. Member: This is amazing. I m going to have to really think about what books I want to get first.

ARROGANCE (Curiosity) Narrator: In this scenario, your coworker who works in accounting has printed an article for you. Coworker: I read this article in the paper on tutoring students in poverty and I thought you might be interested. Member (arrogantly): I work with students in poverty every single day. What is some journalist going to say that I don t already know? Narrator: The antidote for arrogance is curiosity. You can never know everything and appreciating other perspectives can really enhance your work. Let s try that scene again with curiosity. Coworker: I read this article in the paper on tutoring students in poverty and I thought you might be interested. Member (curious): What paper did you find this? I wonder what they have to say.

DISASSOCIATION/NUMBNESS (Presence) Narrator: In this scenario, you have been tutoring Tommy for months and give him rewards for showing up and participating. Tommy has difficulty with attention and has really benefitted from your individual attention, but it can be very exhausting for you to keep bringing him back to task. Tommy (excited): We got to read a story about a rabbit today and then the teacher brought a rabbit to class and I got to touch it but then it pooped on the floor and Sally stepped in it and Jimmy laughed at her and then she cried about it. My cousin had a rabbit once and it ate carrots and had floppy ears but then it chewed through its cage and got run over in the street. That was the first dead animal I ever saw. Have you ever seen a dead animal? Member (staring off into space): Uh huh. Uh huh. What did you say? Narrator: The antidote for disassociation is presence. To be present to another person takes not only the external motions of active listening, but being open to whatever it might bring them. Let s try that scenario again with presence. Tommy (excited): We got to read a story about a rabbit today and then the teacher brought a rabbit to class and I got to touch it but then it pooped on the floor and Sally stepped in it and Jimmy laughed at her and then she cried about it. My cousin had a rabbit once and it ate carrots and had floppy ears but then it chewed through its cage and got run over in the street. That was the first dead animal I ever saw. Have you ever seen a dead animal? Member (looking in eyes, nodding head): Uh huh. Uh huh. I have seen a dead animal. How did that make you feel to see the rabbit? GRANDIOSITY (Humility) Narrator: In this scenario, your supervisor asked to talk with you as you pass in the halls. Site Supervisor: The staff meeting is next Tuesday at 2pm and they would like you to share what you ve been doing with your tutor training program. Member (self important): I already scheduled a tutor orientation until 3pm on Tuesday and nobody else knows how to do orientation for the tutors. I can t miss it. Narrator: The opposite of grandiosity is humility. Recognize that you are not the only capable and caring human being in the world and that life will go one if you re not there. Let s try that scenario again with humility. Site Supervisor: The staff meeting is next Tuesday at 2pm and they would like you to share what you ve been doing with your tutor training program. Member (thinking): I already scheduled a tutor orientation until 3pm on Tuesday. I wonder if one of the Site Coordinators could do the last section on student folders and paperwork. Could I go later in the meeting agenda? Or could one of our tutors present from their experience?

Let s do a few stretches to be physically flexible and keep our minds open.

Discussion: (handout: Signs of Vicarious Trauma) Do any of those symptoms ring true for you? Anything you have to work out and be a little more flexible about? Next, read through the ideas for contemplative exercises and circle one you might like to try & implement. I want to give you a couple more resources. This last handout is some tips on creating a peaceful home retreat. You can read it on your own & I hope it might be useful. Another major tip & can t underemphasize is to get your heart rate up every single day. Go up & down the stairs, do jumping jacks, ride a bike, jump rope, play tag whatever just get your heart rate up. And we ll close with talking through one other daily practice that can apply many of the above antidotes called Mindfulness. First, I want you to think of one daily chore that you do without thinking or are even a little annoyed about doing. Anyone have one picked out? (If not, use timesheets) First, start off by recognizing you are alive. You don t have to be happy you re alive or grateful, just notice you re breathing and your heart is beating and in other circumstances that might not be true. Next, think about all the things that had to happen for you to be able to do what you are currently doing. Someone had to pass the AmeriCorps legislation, had to write the Constitution so Congress could pass legislation, had to pass budgets to fund the legislation, had to create the Ohio Community Service Council and OnCorps reporting systems, had to write the code, had to invent the code, had to invent the computer, had to harness electricity Notice how you are interconnected and dependent on the entire web of life around you. Next think of something about this practice you want to work out, an attitude that you want to have. Do you want to be less frantic and more at peace with what you have been able to accomplish? Do you want to feel less persecuted and more in control? Then try to apply that to this little chore. You ll be amazed how it can radiate outwards.

Story
You have to write monthly Great Stories, some of which are being highlighted on our NEO Literacy Corps blog. Who has had their story published online to date? Not everyone has been up to date with their great Stories and not everyone feels like they are a great writer or anything; it can be a little intimidating. So we re just going to do a fun little review of what qualifies as a story and practice some story telling. But we really want to be able to tell others about

what you re doing, and no one is more qualified to share that then YOU. We hope we can eventually highlight all of you at some point, with your permission, of course. I m going to share some favorite children s books with you and read the first page or two and you can tell me which of these is a story and which is not a story. (Children s books) So what makes something a story versus just prose writing? (Flip chart with Venn diagram of what is similar or different)

So I want to give you one minute to brainstorm on an index card a list of possible events that have happened this past month that you think you could tell a story about. It can be a success story or a teaching moment, a time you were bewildered or an A-ha! moment. Doesn t matter, just list as many events as you can in 60 seconds. Ready? Go!

Now pick one of those events and take another five minutes to brainstorm things about that story you would tell someone else. Who were the characters? How did it begin? What happened? How did it end?

Now you are going to practice two things at once: story telling and non-verbal listening skills. Get into groups of four. Each person is going to have five minutes to tell their story, just a first draft. And everyone else in the group has to practice non-verbal attention. I will embarrass Matt Kilbane as my example. I never met anyone who is so quiet and yet so completely present in any situation. If you tell Matt something, you know he is totally there: eye contact, nodding the head, and not fidgeting and being distracted by a million other things. So I m going to ask you to be Matt plus right now & try your best to listen to your whole mind & body. Look at the person, nod your head, let them know you re there without even saying mm hmm or okay. Don t just be silent for a few minutes while you listen but then just save up your comments for when they are done. That s still listening to yourself in your head instead of the other person. These are just the first draft of a story and listening to the story, no comments necessary, okay?

Afterwards: each person says My story was heard. Thank you for listening.