AMINA KRUCK: So how you are doing? Yay! Woo hoo. Ready to go. They are going to be fixing this amazing lunch for us, just like the volunteers, we are holding out a carrot for you. This is good. This is the meat of it. This is where you get into details. So great in this sized group where we've had an opportunity for lots of interaction. So you can kind of absorb and understand why we do what we do. And then you'll know us well enough that when you have questions later, you can contact us and we will get, they're going to show us the Web site where you can go to get extra documents. And we will get our general volunteer information to that Web site after the training. Yeah? AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a question about your general volunteers. It's two parts. Is there any administrative things that you won't allow them to do? Like for instance our filing is something that we really, because a lot of that is confidential. We're very, very, we don't want volunteers really doing that kind of work. AMINA KRUCK: There probably are things like working in our financial area that we wouldn't let them do. But we do let them help with filing. They've been fingerprinted and been vetted and they've taught about confidentiality and agreed to it. So we do let them do filing. There may be something, but I can't, I mean, the first step is really the staff to request the help. So they thought about it too. They let us know about any concerns, and then we think about who we are matching them to. APRIL REED: They don't have access to our database with consumer files or mentor files or things like that so AUDIENCE MEMBER: The other part of that is one of the challenges we've had is that our volunteers sometimes they really want to get involved in some of the personal issues that people come in or somebody calls on the phone and they're really upset or in crisis or angry. And so we've had a challenge with our volunteers in training for that. And help them to know what the proper procedure is and to do that. What kind of, how have you dealt with that issue? AMINA KRUCK: The way that a volunteer would come in to that besides working with their mentee, a general volunteer would be if, sometimes we have general volunteers calling to do some customer satisfaction stuff. Right now we actually are paying somebody part time to do that follow-up on our I&R calls and advocacy calls that are not consumer service record related to do follow-up and see if they got what they needed and all that. And he started out as a volunteer and he's actually getting paid to do that now just a few hours a month. So we work with them to understand how to handle those calls and who to pass them on to as soon as possible. Just recently we decided to get him an ABIL cell phone that someone else is turning in because he was using his own phone to do some of those calls and we wanted him to have that privacy in his personal life. But we have to supervise people. AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's a challenge because people come in and volunteers in reception and crisis. AMINA KRUCK: We don't have any volunteers doing reception work at our agency. So I can't address that. We have all paid staff doing reception work. In years past when we were smaller, we'd have one volunteer who helped with reception. But she took the guidance that we gave her well. And so that was okay But this person Crystal I told you about at the desk, she took a lot of supervision to not get into people's business because it's just her nature. And I wanted to apologize, I realize when I asked about her disability. She's a chair user and I didn't know if she had a developmental disability or head injury or what. I knew there was something going on cognitively when I said oh, of course that explains a lot about head injury. I didn't mean to make a stereotype in a negative way. But it informed me because I was kind of curious but I never really asked what all her disabilities were. She was a chair user and our interactions had been in a limited way. So I didn't know if I might have offended somebody when I said that. I apologize. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello? AMINA KRUCK: There you go. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Do you guys provide anything for your peer mentors as far as a cell phone or anything like that so that they're using that as a way of communication? Or do they use their own personal AMINA KRUCK: They do use their own cell phones, the mentors use their own phone. They do. That's part of it. They go in knowing that their willing to do that. So, if they're not willing to do it, then that's not part of what they do. AUDIENCE MEMBER: And then they just need to set boundaries, clear boundaries. You can call me, but APRIL REED: We talk about that in the introduction. So when is a good time to reach you. When do you not call me. How am I easiest to reach. You know? AMINA KRUCK: So just think about how you can start to see the benefits to the mentors being mentors with the kind of supervision and training they get. How much better their lives are going to be, too, because they're learning these skills that are so useful for relationship building. And so, and quite frankly, we have as much trouble with mentees not calling their mentors as we do calling too much. So it's just as much to get them to be a mutual relationship from the mentees in to participate and show initiative as it is the few people who are calling too often and we've had a few of those we've worked with a few mentors to help set boundaries with. We'll move on and there will be more opportunities later for questions APRIL REED: We're going to talk a little bit about groups. I know a lot of us are doing groups and are excited by that. So we're just going to go through a few things about mentoring groups. One of the first things you want to do when you're thinking about starting a group is what kind of group is this going to be? And so some centers are doing groups around specific types of disability, they have a spinal cord injury group, they have an autism group. A lot of us are doing cross disability groups. Maybe we're doing a group around, somebody's mentioned parent groups. So really, knowing what is our center need. What is the need here. It's going to be different for each of us based on what we need. At ABIL we have a women's group that Amina does. We have a men's group. And the group I do is cross disability. So each group is going to be a little different and the dynamics change based on who's coming in that day and who is going to be at that group. So a couple tips when you're setting up a group, we were just talking about this during the break, is we want to start out with, you know, who are we going to invite to this group? Who are we recruiting? What's our intention? Just like we do when we're getting ready to train somebody. What's our intention for this group, laying that out? Some ideas about where do we want to go with this? Who do we want to invite. So for me when I started our group, the motivation for me starting our group was two things. Number one, I had peer mentors I wanted to keep busy who weren't currently matched with somebody. So that was part one of my motivation. And part two, I had a lot of mentors calling and saying I just went to a support group with my mentee and it was bad. And I spent an hour afterwards, you know, trying to pump them up after that because it was so negative. It wasn't IL philosophy. So I wanted them to have a place where no matter what they knew they could bring their mentee there. It's going to be positive. It's going to be something focused on IL and it would be a good activity they could do together. So that was my motivation for the groups. So at the time I went to our two reintegration coordinators and said this is what I'm thinking, what would you guys want to see? They both said we'd love to get our people out for something positive but you're going to have to do it a certain time because people are getting meds and need to get back to get meds. So they guided me about when the timing, when could I do this? What are good days of the week to do this as far as nursing homes. So that was our first group that I did. I would have staff come in. The staff were referring people so I would invite them in to co-facilitate with me in the early days. And I did that strategically because I wanted them to see what I was trying to do and see the interactions that their consumers were having, the mentees were having so that they felt comfortable. And there's one lady, I mentioned her yesterday, Paula, very protective of her consumers because she knew some of them were very fragile and they needed it to be positive. So that was her concern about doing a group is I want it to be positive. So I said, Paula, come in with me, come and do it. She would come in and you know, over time you know, knew that she could trust me, knew that she could trust the mentors there. That her people were going to leave with a good experience and she pretty soon started hauling in soda and treats and did that for me for years. And so that was her hangup. So sometimes we just have to understand you know that people might have concerns and it's our job to kind of figure out a way around it. What's the issue there. So that's how we started the groups. And so that was my motivation. We started in 2007 doing the group that I do now. Previously in years past, we did a group where it was for our peer mentors. And so the peer mentors would meet quarterly and do a group together. And so that was our way of connecting them. And so what I didn't realize is starting this group in 2007, that's been a side benefit of this group is the mentors connecting with each other as they're bringing their mentees into this group. So they're really able to support each other. It also is great experience for new mentors. So it's not mandatory. But every new mentor that I get through the training, I try to get them to at least one or two groups. Because it's great for them to hear the questions, concerns, the struggles people have and it's great for them to watch and see how the mentors respond to that. What skills do they use in order to respond to somebody? So that's been very helpful as a way to kind of get new people more experience. I typical group stuff. You know, we have rules and guidelines. So the first group, you know, poster board on the wall. What are our rules? What does everybody want this group to be? So I will write down you know what's the rules? Be respectful. Listen. No negativity maybe. Might be a rule that the group has. So really giving them a chance to take ownership of this is our group. What do we want our group to sound like and look like? What's important to us as far as the rules and the guidelines? This is typical support group stuff. It's a great way to help people have ownership and take responsibility for the group. And then I also get ideas about do we want to do a discussion group? Are we just going to have open conversation? Do people have things that they need to talk about? What's the group going to look like? Sometimes groups will say well, I want a presentation and I'll say Okay. What kind of topics and people will throw out topics. What do we need to know about? What do we care about? These are examples of topics we've done recently. We talk about resilience which is a fun topic to do with people. We do good coach/bad coach. Those of you who are familiar with Living Well, this is a concept of Living Well curriculum uses. Stress management, time management. We did a whole series on disability history because some people were really craving that information so I did a few groups on that. We used Lives Worth Living video, we used the ILRU video AMINA KRUCK: They did research and came back with history themselves and taught each other. It was really a powerful group. APRIL REED: I give assignments. We have the peer mentors there, might as well use them. So one of our ladies did a fabulous presentation, nothing big, just based on some research I gave her and some articles on Justin Dart and I felt like I knew more about Justin Dart and understood more about him than I ever had. AMINA KRUCK: And that peer mentor team knows more about that than any of our staff. So the next step is to do that with our staff. APRIL REED: One time we had them do, because we'd been talking about creating sanctuaries in our lives where we're stressful that there's a place we go where it's just about us and refreshing ourselves and taking care of ourselves. So we had people, the mentors came in and did presentations on how they take care of themselves, about self-care and their sanctuaries. So somebody brought in, like, the gardening that they do and somebody else talked about, you know this hobby that she does with painting and brought in artwork and shared that with everybody. So we're always trying to find ways to get them the mentors presenting. So sometimes they're hesitant about this. It's not for everybody and that's okay. But once I find somebody that I know is comfortable and willing to do it, you know, those are the people that I go to give assignments. The group this month I have this brilliant lady, she's 91 years old and she has low vision. And she teases me because she said, "91 years and I never gave presentations until I met you." She's fearless because she definitely not something she's done a lot but she'll come in and she did a really moving presentation and a talk with the group about progressive disabilities and how she has dealt with the loss of her vision and how that changed her as a person. Because she's a very, she's one of those mentors who will sit down and Amina mentioned the treasure box thing yesterday. She does this better than almost anybody I've ever met. She is like you feel like you're a rock star when you're talking to her because she just is so interested in you and wants to learn about you. And she told the group that she wasn't like that before her disability. That when she had her disability, she lost the visual cues about people so she knew she was going to have to engage them by listening. And so she did this whole great presentation and then we moved into group discussion about what do we struggle with in communication. Some of the people in the group have social difficulties and diagnosis, where they struggle with that. And so they kind of got to pick her brain and then we broke into groups and practiced. So there's all kinds of things we can do at each group based on, you know, do I have a mentor who can present that? Can we come up with activities for them to do and what are they interested in? AMINA KRUCK: I'd like to say something again here about your volunteer coordinators. The other piece with your staff is how do you keep them from getting bored at their jobs, you can see how this has kept April excited and engaged by letting the program evolve the way it's been evolving. And how it is stimulating to her to get this interaction coming out and watch this leadership being developed with the mentors that she's working with. So it gives her more job satisfaction. APRIL REED: If I don't know, I get somebody in who does. Recently we had several mentors talking about mentees that had been involved in scams. We had one lady that the mentor did a conference call with me because the mentee just found out that her bank account had been cleared and she was hysterical of course. So the mentors were like we need something on this. And so I brought someone to talk about that and really addressed that issue since it was something that the mentors were seeing come up with their people. We also have staff come in. That's one of our favorite things to do. Just for the staff to come in and Amina will come in and do voter registration, self-advocacy AMINA KRUCK: Get out the vote. APRIL REED: David will come in sometimes. Some of our staff come in and talk about their personal stories, which really helps the mentors engage with them. So that's always fun to do. We did a really fun group recently because you never know who is going to come in your door. That's the exciting thing about mentor recruitment. So I had a professional chef that suddenly became part of our program and was like I'll do a cooking and nutrition class and I'll cook a meal for everybody if you'll pick up the ingredients, I'll cook it. I was like that was cool. I had another mentor you never know who is going to fall in your lap. She has lupus and she changed her life and the way she eats and is now a fitness trainer and does nutrition so she came in and did a whole thing on smoothies and healthy eating. You sometimes get resources in and you think oh, I can't wait to use you. So that gives you ideas for groups and workshops to have. AMINA KRUCK: Just, and the mentors themselves, this treasure opening up, you may have known somebody for quite a while but you know them around their disability and what they're looking for. And there's this whole other hobby or interest or years of experience they've had that you're not aware of until they have that kind of opportunity to come out with that and revisit that now with their disability. So, the thing about the group as we all know that's so valuable is it helps people become aware of themselves in a way by hearing it reflected in others. And then be willing to explore things in themselves that they hadn't even thought about before. Or had avoided on purpose before. APRIL REED: That's one of the benefits for me of doing a cross disability group because it gives people a chance to interact and understand and learn about each other. And their disabilities. Again for us, what's been unexpected, unplanned or unrealized benefit for me is that you know, when I started this group, I had somebody tell me well you'll know you're on the right track if you can leave the room and the conversation continues and they keep going. And this person said and you'll really know you're on the right track when they start talking outside of ABIL. And then you'll really, really know you're on the right track when you get somebody who calls and says hey so and so is sick, they're not going to be in today and they asked me to call you and let you know. Where you're completely out of the loop and they're the ones communicating and supporting each other. So that's how you know you're on the right track. AMINA KRUCK: Welcome to Facebook. APRIL REED: Anybody else have comments? I know a lot of you guys do groups. Tim you and I were talking about groups and how much fun we have. And how much we enjoy doing it. Anybody have comments or thoughts before we move on? AMINA KRUCK: Microphone. AUDIENCE MEMBER: When you spoke about the group you had was that people still in the nursing home or people who had been integrated. AMINA KRUCK: We had both. In the beginning was the one who were still in the nursing home. APRIL REED: The mentees were in the nursing home and had the goal to move out but were still living there. We brought a couple mentors in who had been in the nursing home and so we kind of did a mix. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Who was the group though, the people there in the group. APRIL REED: It was a couple mentors and then consumers. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. Consumers that were out in APRIL REED: Yeah, they didn't have, they were in the nursing home and they were working with a staff person on moving out. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I see. Gotcha. AMINA KRUCK: In fact, there were a couple mentors who really hadn't been in the nurse home other than to transition from rehab but that was a good place to get them going. So it was a mix. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. APRIL REED: One nice thing about having training and doing training for people that are in your support groups. I always have a few of the mentors there. And so that really balances out your group and people are able to get a lot of good information that way. So that's why, I knew I was bringing people from the nursing home. I wanted to have a few of those mentors sprinkled in there to really be able to share stories and speak specifically about that experience. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Speaking of sharing good information, I know I monopolized your time earlier. APRIL REED: That's okay. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I just would like to get a little input of people trying to develop agendas, at least initially for groups. And I'm curious, I don't want to force anything down anyone's throat. I also want the group to be largely self-directed and entirely autonomous eventually and even splinter off into a second group, third group, whatever. But I want to set people up so they're in a position to succeed instead of fail and that they have a general idea for how the group will be outlined or what to do if you stall. So does anyone have any suggestions? Initially it was going to help in the development of the first agenda and have the next two kind of e-mailed and they can look at potential suggestions later. But does anyone have any experience developing an agenda, what's worked, what hasn't? APRIL REED: Tim. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Am I on? Oh. I could tell you what we did with our cross disability group. It's very popular. Like I was telling April, they wanted to meet once a week instead of every other week. So we'd meet on a Friday, every Friday. And the way we have it outlined on a typical month on the first and third Fridays, it's kind of an open forum where it's a positive atmosphere but we let people discuss whatever they want. The second Friday I usually present a topic or have a guest speaker come in. Again, it's directed by them. Whatever they want. And the last Friday of the month we always go on a recreational activity. We'll go to a bowling alley. Last month we went to a putt putt golf place. We try to do something recreational even if it's just going to a park and having a barbecue and taking them out. It's very effective for us. AMINA KRUCK: Tim, you have a great example and I think we've been sharing that too about how you start with one thing that you're comfortable with as a group. And then it goes in the direction that the group goes. Doug has talked about his group. They have a riot if somebody started to impose something on them. I know we have a men's support group that started out like that but then they started wanting to bring people in as resources. And that came from the group, not from the group leader. So it's, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable as a group leader to live through those unknown moments to get to where that group is going to go. Because every group is different and it changes over time based on their needs and the group members. I've always done, I've done different support groups. And sometimes I'm really comfortable with a recipe for the group. And because I came from a co-counseling background, one of the things is I don't like to interrupt people and you always have some people who talk more than another, I had one women's support group that for a while what I did was actually time so everybody got an equal amount of time. I've done groups with a talking stick that help people go around and have a chance to share. I did a different group where what we were doing, it was living, it was the healer within group. And so the focus was on accessing resources. So I would bring in things that I would read or, you know, relaxation practices. But then after I taught some of that, they started bringing things in. Where I would ask them which relaxation practice do you want to do today or breath practice or whatever. So that's part of it is you have to be willing to live through it. Will anybody show up? What will it be like? Oh, my God, what's going to happen next feeling? And just breathe through. And if you're not too scared, you can stay present to the group, the group will help you guide. And if you need a recipe to get started, then have a recipe. And I love recipes. APRIL REED: And like you said, be willing to let it go. I have an agenda just to keep me on track and half the time we get through it and that really annoys me from a planning perspective. But from a social work perspective, that's great. Because that meant people talked and shared and got what they needed. So it's not about me as a planner. It's about them as a group getting what they need. And, like, with Tim's group, we were laughing because I said, you know, this is the dream that you'd have 15 or 20 people that want to show up every week and be together and support each other. That's incredible. AMINA KRUCK: It morphed into wanting to go out in the community and do recreational things together. Bravo. APRIL REED: Groups are going to ebb and flow. If you get down to it where it's like, we have all had that where nobody showed up or two people showed up, so then it's like, well, maybe we do something new. Maybe we do a different group. Maybe we try something new. It's okay for it to be small. I've certainly seen a group of three people sit down at a table and have life changing in-depth conversations. So – AMINA KRUCK: Support groups with three people in it. And think about if you're worried about productivity, three is more than one and things happen in that little group that don't happen ever when it's just you and another person. Because even when as much as I'm committed to this kind of egalitarian relationship because I'm a staff person, it's always different than what can happen between two people who are not in that kind of a role. APRIL REED: I think groups are a good idea for some of us who are dealing with a small staff. You know? So, if you have 10 people on your case load that need budgeting and your coworker does too, get them in, figure out a way. Can we offer this? Can we get people in groups? Let's do a budgeting class versus you driving out and doing 10 different meetings on budgeting. So sometimes groups help us as far as a resource manage what our limitations are and be there for people in a more efficient way as far as staff time, too. So we kind of hit on this. I just want to just really be clear about as far as how we're thinking about matching people. Is it a consideration of a bunch of different factors. Skill, goal, experience is important for us. Disability is a consideration and it depends on the type of match. So obviously if I have somebody in the hospital who is a new amputee, I am not going to send somebody in with CP, right? So sometimes disability is the most important thing. But a lot of the time it's not. It's more about what's the skill the person needs to learn. So we want to be careful about really looking at each match individually and what are they asking for? What's important to the mentee. AUDIENCE MEMBER: So, am I on? Okay. You just said and it caught me. And so why wouldn't you send somebody with CP? I think that's kind of negative I understand where you're coming from, somebody with a new disability is shy about disability or upset about the fact that they may be called disabled or might be considered, but I if you're training your mentees, your mentors to do their job appropriately and you have somebody with CP, I think that getting them to understand that perspective may be, I mean, I don't know. APRIL REED: I get what you're saying and let me tell you why I said that. So with somebody who is in the hospital just had a surgery, what they need the most is resources particularly about that disability. So I can do a lot to educate my mentors with CP about what somebody's going through about grief and loss. They're going to be a good match to talk to people about those kind of things. What I probably can't do is educate them enough about some of the medical issues that are going on with that individual. So my mentors with amputees are going to come and take off their prosthetic leg and be able to show people this is the bolt. This is how I screw it in. This is the type of thing you're going to be going through the next few weeks as you are getting fitted. This is what therapy is like. As a person with CP, I would be able to understand the grief and loss but I wouldn't be able to be that medically specific. So some things I can train the mentors on but when we're talking about real specific medical experiences like somebody might have, when they are in the hospital, that's who I want to get them to. Later on they might learn a lot more from that person with CP about how to deal with grief and loss and moving on and living your life well and I'll get them with that person. But, if somebody is in the hospital, might be the most important goal is more of those medical kind of things AMINA KRUCK: Especially reaching out to the rehab center, when I started in this work, people were in rehab for months. Now they're you know leaving in halos and out in two weeks and going to the skilled nursing places and so that's a very particular circumstance. And I'll give you a couple examples of one that just has always stayed with me. One of our mentors was a young guy who drove a red convertible that was a paraplegic. And he was, and the other piece is mentors often that want to work in the rehab centers are people who went through rehab center and they want to give that back. And some of them we actually rope in that are doing it on their own anyway. And do that for us, I think of Sal, Spanish speaking and just was dedicated to this. APRIL REED: 15 years with us, he's an amazing guy. AMINA KRUCK: And learned to speak English a lot better over the years and all kinds of things. But he didn't want anybody that was Spanish speaking to go through spinal cord injury rehab that didn't get a chance to talk to him. The staff loved him. But this young guy that went in was, and our volunteer coordinator was a person that didn't have a visible disability, she did have a mental health disability, it was not a visible disability and she always knew to put forth people with different disabilities whenever she talked about our program or whatever. She took him with her. And there was a young guy who was 16 who had a recent spinal cord injury and his sister pulled aside the nondisabled person and said we just, it was so classic. We just want to get him an apartment with a good view. So Kathy said all right, well I've got somebody I want you guys to meet next week. That can help you with that. So the next week they bring in this young guy and they load up the guy on a stretcher and take him outside to show him the convertible with the hand controls. So this young guy went on River Rampage rafting down the Colorado River. He was a foreign exchange student in two years. So that was early on in my career working with a peer mentor program that just showed me wow, what a difference that that can make. Mostly it's not based on disability unless somebody is asking for that because they want to learn the ropes. But in the case of rehab centers, it's much more based that way because right then that's what they need. It's a short relationship. Those rehab center relationships are short relationships. When they leave there, they move into the other programs that we have and they have different mentors usually. That we know of up front as a peer mentoring relationship. And mostly that's the case because they're in such trauma during that time. This is rules stuff APRIL REED: I think we've already covered actually a lot of this. One thing we haven't talked about. Common reasons for ending the match. Sometimes the mentor, mentee, the health situation changes, schedules change. Sometimes it just doesn't work, people don't click. So that's where we're doing evaluations to find out how is it going, how often have you met? Do you both feel comfortable? We may rematch somebody if we need to. When the match is ending completion, in counseling and social work we always talk about transition. How do we prepare people for the transition. So we're going to give, the mentor might give me a heads up and say hey we're getting close. We've almost got this goal finished. That's a time to celebrate the accomplishments and really talk with the mentor and mentee about wow, look at the work you guys have done together. Let's make a plan for how the mentee is going to move forward. Maybe they do continue working with a staff person or maybe they're finished but we'll make a plan about how they're going to proceed after working with the peer mentor. I've got six minutes to talk about e-mentoring, I'm going to do a marathon with you so bear with me. I'm super excited about , so I am going to at least touch on it. Many of us are having to figure out if we're in a rural area. I talked about my coworker who is on a side of a mountain somewhere right now driving around in the desert. I got to figure out how am I going match her people with my mentors? Some of us at center for independent living we're exploring how do we do this e-mentoring thing? Can we do this? So I've done some research. This is something we're in conversation about. I've done the research. We haven't implemented it but I want to give you guys background and hopefully thoughts and suggestions. So obviously, there's many benefits to using technology to connect people. So I can get somebody together with an individual who maybe they can't drive in. They don't have transportation. It's too far away. They don't have childcare. They don't have the money for the gas or the bus ride. That's a huge benefit AMINA KRUCK: There is no bus. APRIL REED: Like where I live. Connecting people who maybe wouldn't have an opportunity to meet in their everyday lives. I mentioned that mentor that has the GED. I don't have that very often. Great, I can connect him with somebody who lives 40 or 50 miles away from him. That would be a huge benefit. And another thing, more and more people that we work with are having access to technology. So that's a huge benefit. Some of the drawbacks of using an e-mentoring program. How many of us get overwhelmed by e-mails. I logged in to my work email last night and I was like oh, yikes. Sometimes we get that over load. And a lot of us do, we are tired of looking at things on the internet and looking on the computer. Another huge issue is vulnerability. What if we're dealing with somebody who is in crisis and we're not there with them and we're doing this by online stuff. Or what if we have somebody that maybe is somebody we would know and wouldn't trust to do mentoring? We've got to have a way to screen people. Privacy. You know? Are we posting something online that's open to the whole world? How do we have that conversation? Another concern is maybe people just disengage. It's a lot harder to not talk to somebody when they're right in front of you versus when you're online and you can go and come as you want? AMINA KRUCK: Or to write it out. Rather than have a conversation. For some people it's very difficult. Some people may not have the language skills to do that. APRIL REED: Right. We'll talk about that in a minute because you want to think about their disability and is it possible for them to do this type of mentoring? This is just an interesting study I came across and was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Services. But they did a study that found that people's motivation in the mental health community for using some online mentoring programs was because they had a fear of being hospitalized. And lack of medication. And that they had lack of insurance coverage. And so the e-mentoring, this online support group kind of thing, was what they were turning to because of a lack of other supports. I think that's really interesting. That worries me that people are being left out of services. There's a gap. And so they're having to turn to other resources. So again, it's not going to be beneficial for every group of people with disabilities. If you have somebody that needs to learn the bus, you can't do that effectively by talking on Facebook and email. Goals where you're trying to get somebody out in the community. If they're isolated and they have social phobias, then you're just feeding into it by doing e-mentoring with them. It's not going to work for this type of group. And of course, individuals that do not have computer skills. If I've got somebody who is maybe 65, 70 years old, I don't want to make the assumption they feel comfortable. I want to ask them are you comfortable. Would you enjoy this kind of interaction? There's a couple things to think about when you're thinking about e-mentoring programs. There's kind of structured versus unstructured. So structured is just like with our mentoring groups. If we're structuring things, if we have a preset topic or idea what we're going to do, agenda for the e-group, the e-mentoring. So somebody, the facilitator might post this is the topic today. So the topic is using public transportation and everybody could post their questions and offer answers and support to each other. That's an example of a structured group. Unsecured groups would be like what Tim said, open forum. People would throw out issues, they have conversations. You can do that online. Close to what you think of for a traditional chat room or chat group. Moderated versus un-moderated. This is going to be a huge issue for those of us thinking about doing this. Same thing with groups. There's always the debate about do I need a staff person to co-facilitate or should a staff person be nearby in case there's an issue with the group and someone needs support. So I always err on the side of caution and I always think, you know, I want to be there if there's an emergency or I want one of our staff there if there's a crisis. I don't want to throw my mentor volunteers into situations that they're not equipped to handle AMINA KRUCK: I just want to point out if you notice the reference on page, that the reference is, it is people looking at peer support in the mental health system. So you know, this is research we've done but I just wanted to point that out that's where the research is coming from. APRIL REED: So, again, there's moderated. There's professional, somebody providing support, supervising. And then, obviously, there's unmoderated where it's just the consumers, mentors, mentees chatting. We're just providing the information. This is something that you know I think that any of us doing mentoring programs are going to be looking at. So this is debate that we have back and forth and things worth thinking about. I just want to give you a quick overview of what's out there so that you can at least think about the concepts and think about some of the barriers and some of the positives. AMINA KRUCK: As we're looking at and exploring real world work, one thing to think about is the use of Skype. I don't know how many people use Skype. I can talk to my girlfriend in Kazakhstan. Hello, how weird is that. That's something a lot of people have now the smartphones that have accessibility in that way too to use those things. And getting computers. ABIL has been working with a program at ASU Arizona State University that they refurbish computers and then do some training for people and then give people computers that's one way they've gotten computers into the hands of some people who haven't had it and then have some classes, I know like Raymona talked about the classes she does to teach people. Sometimes you have to think whether what other resources you need to make it possible for people to do this. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I just wanted to share I have the experience of both sides. I'm a counselor during the summers at the California Youth Leadership Forum. And what we do, because the forum is structured to where there's small groups and then they go into a large group where all the small groups come together. But in the small group which is where we're at about 80% of the time, the group forms this bond within the five days that we're there. And a lot of the youth ask themselves, you know, after we leave here, are we not going to see each other any more? Are we not going to talk to each other any more? Because you know, they, all the youth see the counselors and the peer counselor as mentors, that's why we're there. So what we do is we stay connected through Facebook because you're able to create closed groups on Facebook. So each small group creates a closed group on Facebook. And we, you know, if they want to publicly share something with the group, they, you know, they post it on there or they'll post it in a private message to just one specific person AMINA KRUCK: You can use LinkedIn in that same way they have a way to do a closed group like that for discussion, too. APRIL REED: Just a second we have a slide on that ILRU's technology consultant has given us some instructions, directions about each of those. But yet, that's, I mean that is definitely Facebook is something that people are using to kind of do these closed private groups, yeah. Thank you. So some groups are choosing to, like Facebook, that's free, it's not a cost. So some people are choosing to use systems like that. Other programs may pay for a third party kind of option. Because there is more security features. But it may be that some of these programs that have more security features, they might not be as user friendly or as modern. So it's something to be aware of. So I've given you a couple of the third party options if you want to check them out. But one of them is ability online or mentor net is another that has more security features but you might pay for that. Specifically on youth, something for us to be cautious about. When working with minors, we're talking about under 18, online conversations between mentors and mentees, there's a real strong argument that they need to be monitored. So it's mandatory reporting requirements according to what your state has. You want to look at those. You absolutely have to get parental consent. I've given you a couple examples of different programs so that you could kind of look at what people are doing differently. One research program that I found is, does not have their mentors and mentees exchange any personal contact information. Again this is with minors. And so what they do is, all the contact is with the chat room they set up, the system they use and they assign them email addresses in order to facilitate that conversation. So the conversations are monitored by a supervisor who is in charge of the program and runs the program. So that's kind of interesting. Here's some examples. There's Do-It mentoring. It was created by the University of Washington. One thing that's nice is any youth with disability can apply to this program. It's open to any of us across the nation. And there is also e-connect which was created by the University of Minnesota. This is a mentor training program around employment. So they have recruited employers from different large corporations and they work with students in special education classrooms. The teachers act as the supervisors for the match. So they have literally, an afternoon, day where they're doing the communications and the teachers have to monitor those email communications between the mentor and the mentee. So that's an example of a program where they have a specific topic that they're going to talk about how do you fill out a resume or something and then the mentor corporate mentor gives information and the mentee responds. And again, it's all monitored by the teacher and communication and of course the teacher is a mandatory court reporter. So what's interesting, this kind of seems overwhelming sometimes to me. But what's interesting when I stop and think about it is really e-mentoring services have the same components that our traditional one on one and group mentoring does. You're still going to have to recruit people and still going to have to train them. All the programs I mentioned have their mentors go through training, certification and ongoing training. You still need policies and procedures, what's allowed and not allowed. You still have to do documentation about what was the service we provided. Are the goals being achieved. You still do regular evaluations, one month, three month, whatever. All the same components and you're just going to do an extra level of supervision if it's somebody that's a minor. So that's the main difference there. Interestingly enough, all the same components we talked about for a successful mentoring program all apply to the concept of e-mentoring. Another interesting study I found, and this is new, there's not a lot of research out there. The newest research is 2005. So it's hard to find a lot of new studies, but one study I found from around 2011, 2012, they found that their groups still benefited from having some combination of open discussion and presentation and discussion topics, just like we might do in a support group where we have a variety of that kind of presentation and people still needed reminders to contact each other and stay in touch. If you're thinking hey, we'll start this online group and then I can check out and let them take care of it, probably not going to work, they still need reminders, they still need somebody saying hey, have you talked to your mentee this week? That still happens even though it's online e-mentoring. AMINA KRUCK: So I'm concerned about time. APRIL REED: We have two more slides and I'm done. AMINA KRUCK: I'm wondering if it's important to do those two slides now or if we couldn't do them when we come back? APRIL REED: Tim or Darrell. TIM FUCHS: Two slides do them. AMINA KRUCK: When we come back we can talk about them more. APRIL REED: If you have questions, yeah. Again, there's an opportunity where we can create customized messages. So again, if you have a group that's about autism, this might be a great way for you to customize your message, customize the service around a certain topic. And I've given you a really interesting study that was around mentoring and tutoring, teaching people GED skills. Again, same issues we deal with any other type of mentoring. You want to protect the confidentiality. You've got to explore whether somebody would be able to do this format or whether they need traditional mentoring and just a caution. We're still waiting on more outcomes on whether this works or not. And maybe when we come back, Tim, if you wouldn't mind when we come back and we have questions I want you to share a little bit about you guys are going to be doing to compare outcomes. Again, some centers are exploring using mentors as bloggers. And that's a way that they get a good message out to people. This is one of my favorite blogs and it's by Bob Michaels and Bob is, if you don't know, is a huge leader in our movement and has a lot of great fun information and resources that he puts up on his blog. So that's a good one. But a lot of centers are starting to use mentors in that way to have positive information. And then, again, the main concern is be aware of confidentiality. Have a social media policy. And then walk people through what is Facebook, what are the limits? So this is information that when our online class a couple years ago had questions, ILRU's technical assistant then gave me direction about what you should think about if you're using Facebook. What you should think about if you're used LinkedIn or Twitter. And again, knowing the limits of the system and how to set up the privacy settings is really important. You have all of that information. And we are ready for lunch.