Americorps*VISTA @ CESA2: Jena

A blog of VISTA struggles, strengths&progress being made at CESA2: The youth experiencing homelessness awareness and mentoring project

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Volunteer Management

For the last few weeks I have had the privilege to aid and job shadow a staple in my hometown community, Julie Hermanson. Julie is a one woman show at the AWARE Community Action Coalition in Evansville. AWARE is a grassroots organization that prides its self on the fact that everything donated to AWARE stays in Evansville. Julie relies on community partnerships, and volunteers to keep the programs at AWARE up and running, and it was amazing to witness as a VISTA Americorps member. This is a one stop human services opportunity for the people of Evansville who need help. Some of the big traditions in town include “Koats for Kids”, “Toys for Evansville”, and the “Easter Holiday Program”. These programs are run in partnership with the Evansville School District and are free to families who qualify.

I had the opportunity to work directly with the “Toy’s for Evansville” Program. This AMAZING program allows each family to request different toys and clothes for their children and volunteers work diligently to make sure the requests are filled accurately and fairly. It was very eye opening to see the work that actually goes into organizing a program like this one, while making sure that the anonymity of the families being serviced is respected. I did things like going through the bags to make sure the tickets matched the donations, inventorying gift cards, reconciling receipts and creating shopping lists for volunteers to help supplement ticket requests that were not filled. I was so impressed with the passion that Julie has for this program. She made it very clear that it is her personal responsibility to make sure that each family being serviced can have the best Christmas that Toys for Evansville can provide, which truly motivated me moving forward in my volunteer experience.  

I learned a lot of priceless skills and information that could help going forward in my mentoring program during my few weeks volunteering with Julie. I learned the more passionate I am about my program, the more motivated my volunteers will be. Volunteers run on “making a difference” juice as I am going to call it. They want to feel appreciated, and they want to feel they have made a difference. Those are two very important things that I can strive to provide during my mentoring program for the mentors. Another thing I have learned that not everyone is going to show up to volunteer. As part of Toys for Evansville I was in charge of organizing bell ringers for the Kettle Campaign. I had a few shifts that were signed up for and the volunteers did not show up. Being flexible and positive during those challenges is most important. I also learned some good organization skills for keeping track of who is volunteering. Google Sheets is my friend. It is so easy to update the schedule in live time, the only challenge is when you are working with older adults who are not tech savvy, you will have to adjust, but for the most part the google sheet was most successful.

All in all, this was an amazing service opportunity and I enjoyed it immensely. I am looking forward to Thursday when I get to help distribute the gifts to the families. Approximately 200 children were serviced during this year’s Toy’s for Evansville program. That is something to be proud of. 

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Food Stamps Continued

I was sent a letter in the mail on Friday, and opened it on Monday after business hours. This letter was very important because it notified me that I had an appointment to talk with them TODAY at 10 am. This is during my work schedule. I felt that this letter was short notice, and not an effective way to communicate that an applicant has an interview. I was not able to get in contact with anyone regarding this issue this morning because of how busy their office is… I was on hold for 20 minutes without talking to a human. I missed my appointment (not only because it was during my office hours, but because my phone didn’t ring and I just got a voicemail from the case worker). This is frustrating. I have now been working on getting food stamps for about two weeks now… with no results. If I were a person living in poverty, what would my options be? How would I get food? How would I be able to feed my children (I don’t have children but if I did)?

We need to think about how much work it is to actually receive public assistance benefits. If I were not a student of social work, and if I were not a VISTA who is used to advocating for myself and others, would I have given up by now? Would I feel intimidated to continue in this process? This is a short blog post today, but these are pressing issues that are on my mind as I continue my VISTA experience and applying for food stamps.

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Hmph.

A lot of people are not aware of how VISTA’s are paid, or what benefits they receive. VISTA is paid a monthly living stipend. The salary or stipend is usually determined by the poverty level in which each VISTA is serving. So VISTA’s usually qualify for services that the people for which each VISTA is serving are eligible for. Right now I am in the process of applying for food stamps, and so far this is what I have noticed….

I called the help line and was greeted by a friendly voice on the other end. This person did a small screening to see if I am eligible to apply for the program. I explained that I work for VISTA, and my income was very small. He acknowledged right away that I do in fact qualify for the program based off the unique situation that I am in.

Some challenges that I have noticed already: I was asked to come in for an in person meeting to apply for the program. This was scheduled to be 20-30 miles away from where I am living. If I were a person in poverty without a way to get to the meeting, how would I get there? I explained that I have a job, and am not able to make the appointments that he has suggested, and we decided that a phone session would work best. HOWEVER, he did not offer this opportunity, I did. If I were a person living in poverty who was not as assertive as I, would I have felt comfortable making this suggestion? My appointment to apply for the program is on Wednesday morning over the phone with an outreach specialist. This person is going to advocate for me, and help me navigate the process of the food share program.

Another observation I have made is my own personal emotional response as a result of applying for public assistance. “How am I going to use my food share card in the community that I live in? Everyone knows me… will they judge me?” I am legitimately worried about the stigma attached to using government assistance. Yes I qualify… but I do not consider myself to be in poverty or poor. I have an iPhone and I drive my own insured car. I live in a home with my parents who provide meals, shelter, and utilities. My nighttime residence is fixed, adequate and regular. What right do I have to use this benefit? I am part of a privileged group in our society: I am educated and employed. Sure my income is well below the poverty level for our area… but does that still entitle me to these benefits? These are questions I am grappling with. I am sure I am not alone in this internal struggle that I am having, and I am sure the thought process is the same for the majority of people who are applying for these benefits.

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Beginning Strides

An observation that I have made during my school visits and assessments is that schools in rural communities are kind of on their own little island. There is usually a 20 minute drive to the next town, or any sort of community supports to help their homeless populations. This to me is troubling and problematic as a VISTA…. How are these families getting the resources they need to provide a safe and productive education for their children? Another observation that I made during my visits is that Wisconsinites are in full practice of the mid-west polite. This is a good and bad thing. The good thing is that schools are always willing to help children and families when a student self-identifies as homeless. The bad thing about the mid-west nice is that we are too polite to put ourselves in someone else’s business. We are afraid of uncomfortable situations because we do not want to offend someone, or hurt their ego/feelings. If these families are out on the island of Small-town USA, with everyone ignoring their situation because they are afraid of being rude, could that come across as ignoring the issue? Or providing the invisibility with a cloak that this family is used to wearing? Could ignoring the issue because of fear be perpetuating the cycle of poverty in our communities? I am going to be bold and say yes.

We as a community we are only as strong as our weakest link, and if we are letting our children sink to the bottom when we should be building them up and inspiring them to build a future that we can all be proud of, then are we really educating our children?  I heard great advice, and I am not sure where I heard it from: as an adult you have the power and the privilege to be who you needed as a child. Can you recall how many times you were asked as a child what you wanted to be when you grew up, and asked why? How about asked how you planned to get to that goal? Children need mentors to help form the maps to their futures.

As I said previously, rural schools are on an island and it takes some effort to move around to different communities for the resources that they need. Homeless students and their families need a resource that is easy to access, and that is where mentoring for students experiencing homelessness comes in to play. I am trying to figure out how to facilitate a mentoring program to the rural districts who have a small homeless population. These districts have identified very few homeless students, and have about 2-3 identified students at any given time. In order to increase graduation rates, and make students college and career ready, I plan to provide graduation coaches to students who qualify to receive benefits under the McKinney-Vento Act. The challenge with rural communities is that there is not a strong resource of young volunteers available like there is in metropolitan communities. A solution to this lack of young people could be Intergenerational Mentoring.

There is an interesting project with the Seniorcorps branch of Americorps: The Foster Grandparent Program. Description:

This program is part of Senior Corps, a network of national service programs that provide older Americans the opportunity to put their life experiences to work for local communities. Foster Grandparents serve as mentors, tutors, and caregivers for at-risk children and youth with special needs through a variety of community organizations, including schools, hospitals, drug treatment facilities, correctional institutions, and Head Start and day-care centers. In fiscal year 2003 more than 30,000 Foster Grandparents tended to the needs of 275,000 young children and teenagers.

 I want to model something like this in our communities that have a plethora of older adults who are retired and willing to volunteer. This mentor could provide a different perspective on situations that could arise in high schools across our region. These mentors have been there and done that and survived to tell about it. I think this would be a great opportunity for the children in our community who are experiencing homelessness, but it could be beneficial for the older adults as well.

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The Lost Art of Face-to-Face Communication

As a typical Millennial, I am very comfortable and attached to technology. Millennials do the majority of their communication from behind a screen, via email, social media and text messaging. As I am going into the world of professionals; I am confronted with how comfortable it is to sit behind a screen. The professional world is all about the lost art of face to face communication, building real life genuine connections, and overcoming intergenerational communication challenges. As the youngest person in the office, I am observing and appreciating the modeling of professional boundaries and normality’s of an office setting.

I am conducting a survey of the school districts in CESA2 at the moment, and I am trying to see what each schools strengths are, and what each schools needs are in order to move forward with the ultimate goal of a mentoring program, as well as creating awareness and sharing resources surrounding youth experiencing homelessness in public schools. My first attempt to conduct this survey was the typical millennial response to the need to survey: a google doc. I sent out the google doc to a handful of schools and received ONE response. I was so confused and frustrated, why was no one filling out my form? It was easy, click the link, fill out the information, and that was it! What I failed to realize was, “Why would they? They don’t know me.” My second attempt of surveying the strengths and needs of a school was to invite them to meet with me in their district to talk about what is happening with McKinney-Vento, and every school responded with in a day, and set up a scheduled time to meet with me. This is my first week of school visits and I think things are going well; by the end of the week I will cross 5/72 districts off my list.

The lesson to be learned is that technology is a blessing and it is very useful, but the skills and experience we are learning in REAL, LIVE, LIFE are the most valuable. We must gain confidence in face to face communication, because the generations before us were not as dependent on passive communication through a screen, they were dependent completely on direct contact with their peers, colleagues and families. As millennials, we must master the lost art of face to face communication to be successful in our professional futures.

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Beyond Diversity

I had the opportunity to attend a seminar called Beyond Diversity I. It is the first of a two part series on systematic racism in our culture, but most importantly in our schools. I came into the seminar with knowledge that I had studied in college a year previously for a semester. The most important lesson I had took away from the two days was: You don’t know what you don’t know. I think most people are not trying to be oppressive and do not have intentional malice, but it is what we don’t know or don’t say that is most harmful to those in “minority” status, or people who are a part of a non-dominate group in society. I think this lesson is important not just to racism issues in our society, but to all social issues, including poverty and homelessness. If we cannot see our homeless, how do we know they are there, and how do we give them a voice? How do we give them supports with dignity? How do we have a conversation?

During the seminar they talked about a “compass” and this was a four quadrant model of talking about racism; believing, feeling, thinking and acting. When we were talking about issues surrounding race, we were constantly referring back to the compass to talk about where we were coming from in our process. From what I noticed was a lot of people had a hard time in the believing quadrant. Being a person who is white, we usually do not see racism because it is not happening to us, pure ignorance.  Just as we do not experience racism so we have a hard time wrapping our head around its implications and its truth. Once being informed, it is possible to identify racism in our society. As a person who is working in rural Wisconsin, our homeless population is not as visible as they would be in an urban setting. In my experience so far, a lot of people have a hard time in their believing quadrant that homeless people in our communities are going unseen and un-served.

I think the seminar had practices that can be used for more than having a courageous conversation about racism, but for all social issues in our society. I have learned skills in order to facilitate courageous conversations regarding racism, homelessness and poverty in our communities better than I had before. Knowing that people don’t know what they don’t know, it is easy to come in from that perspective because it enables me to be more patient when having conversations surrounding poverty, and more productive when working with people in the community.

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Recently I presented information about student’s experiencing homelessness at the Title 1 Network meeting, and I learned that it is ok to say I don’t know. Here’s some background into the situation. I had spent the first three weeks as the first and only VISTA at CESA2 educating myself on the topic of students experiencing homelessness. I literally read about the topic for three weeks straight, I was studying and trying to become an expert on the topic, which I naïvely thought was possible. I put together a short power point based on my research and presented to a room of about 20 professionals on the topic of rural homelessness.

I was so nervous and sweating, that I thought for sure they saw the beads of panic rolling down my face. I presented the information relatively faster than I should have, left out valuable information about McKinney-Vento (the law that supports homeless students), and was asked a question about a topic I knew nothing about, for which I simply told the woman, “I don’t know”. I was mortified. I sat in a room with this group of education professionals all day, and according to me: embarrassed myself beyond recovery. I had lost all confidence in the materials that I had studied for three weeks straight preparing for an opportunity like this to show my knowledge and put it into practice.  

To my surprise and shock, I was complimented by two of my supervisors and told me simply that it is ok to mess up as long as you learn from it, and it is ok to tell someone that you DON’T KNOW. Everyone appreciates honest and genuine feedback to their questions, and sometimes the answer that is most honest and genuine is “I don’t know, but I will find out for you”. It is helpful and simple, and better than talking out your backside to a group of educated professionals.  I also learned that my horrible sweating accelerated presentation did not turn out as horribly as I had presumed it had.

Things I would do differently next time? Present a mock presentation to people who are willing to participate in the office. This is helpful because you can time yourself, and get critical feedback that can save you from having a full-fledged, self-torture session after the fact. When someone asks a question that you aren’t sure of? Tell them, “Hey, I honestly am not sure about that one, shoot me an email with that question and I will get back to you on it ASAP”. Don’t depend on your notes to present, thoroughly memorize what you are presenting, have a conversation, and don’t lecture.

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The Struggle.

Something to know about me: I have my undergraduate degree from UW-Milwaukee in Social Work (BSW). I am very motivated to serve my community, and ALL of my field work and volunteer experience has always been in direct practice (which means working directly with the client). I love direct practice because it is easy to see progress, and it is nice to see the client appreciating the work you are doing, instant gratification. 

VISTA is different than direct practice because it is about big picture changes in the community. VISTA is here to create sustainable changes in the communities that it has the privilege to serve, which stems from indirect practice. I have never been involved with the indirect, macro practice of social service. This is an entity so large and intimidating to me that I come to work some days and I don’t know where to start. There are so many directions I can direct myself to go in, that it is hard to pick just one and stick with it. 

I feel that it takes maturity to be able to be patient enough to serve a community from behind the scenes. You have to be patient and realize that the instant gratification that you are seeking is self centered and self serving, and the work you are doing is not about you (me). Being self aware is important to the success of the project as well as my own future in public service.

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Introduction

Hellooooo

I have been here at CESA2 a month and a week. It has been interesting learning the dynamics of working in an office and being the only VISTA for miles and miles. Most people here have never heard about Americorps, let alone VISTA (Volunteers In Service to America). I am the first VISTA at my site, and for most I am the first VISTA many people will come in contact with. This is a big responsibility. 

I am here to serve this community on the social issue of youth experiencing homelessness. It seems like this would be a clear issue to the community, but in rural Whitewater, WI, it is not. There are many definitions of homelessness, but the homeless population I am serving is defined by the McKinney-Vento Act. Which means, any child who lacks an adequate, fixed and regular night time residence is homeless (this includes families that are doubled up). Thinking back to high school, I could name a few peers that would have been defined as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Act. 

This project is important because this population is under-served and not easily identified. As of now I am working to increase awareness about this population so that they are on the community’s radar as a pressing issue. We eventually want to make a mentoring program for homeless youth, but this is a goal that is in the future and not ready to be implemented. I am laying the ground work to pave the way for the next VISTA to implement.