Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

What can we to do to foster peaceful solutions to conflicts in our communities? Well, currently, when young folks first begin to display a pattern of serious violence to themselves or others, they are typically placed together to provide some intervention in a group, such as a special education class or a correctional facility. Unfortunately, this often worsens these behavior patterns as the young folks in these programs begin to copy from one another a variety of harmful behaviors.

Mentoring programs, which provide one-on-one relationships, such as the Big Brother/Big Sister Program have demonstrated they can be helpful, but most communities find they have a severe shortage of mentor volunteers. In addition, it has become apparent that some who do manage to get mentors need significantly more time with a positive role model then the hour or two per week that mentoring programs typically provide.

So, after much thought on how to bolster the effectiveness of mentoring, and other helpful community programs, I drew up this idea I refer to as the  One-On-One Program. I got a school district and a college to agree to carry out the program if I could get funding for it, so I quickly wrote a grant without any experience in writing them. Reviewers indicted the program proposal has great potential but I need to have it written up by someone who knows how to write grants. When I got news of this, I was retiring, so I’m here describing the program in the hopes others will pick up this program idea and make it a reality.

Here’s How the One-On-One Program Would Work

It would begin with offering an elective course to high school and college students titled “An Introduction to Counseling and Conflict Resolution.” It would provide lessons on basic counseling skills such as empathic reflective listening. A major unit in the course would be on how to discipline children nonviolently, and another unit would be on how to teach skills for dealing with anger arousing situations.

For those students who master the course curriculum, they would be able to apply for a paid internship. These interns would serve as mentors for younger students at least four years younger than they. For their participation, mentors would receive an authentic sense of helping their community, a modest stipend of about $4 an hour, earn additional course credit, and have an opportunity to receive a sterling recommendation for any future job or advance education opportunity. Survey data that was administered at my school district and local college indicated there would be plenty of students who would agree to become mentors if the program became funded.

Starting when school lets out and lasting until 6:00 p.m., the mentors would work at their local high school one-on-one with their assigned mentee.

On site at each high school would be two adult supervisors, one of which would be a psychologist, the other, a volunteer senior citizen.

Additional supervision would be provided to mentors throughout their internship, by having them participate in a credit bearing course designed to help resolve peacefully conflicts that arise when working with their younger partner.

Because mentors will miss some days for sickness or personal reasons, a few alternate mentors would be on call to fill in when needed.

The daily activities each mentor-mentee pair would do together include:

1. A mile walk during which the mentees would get to talk about whatever they want. During this time, their assigned mentor would employ the basic counseling skills of empathy and reflective listening that were mastered in the course that each had taken to qualify for the internship,
2. When they return from their walk, each of the mentor-mentee pairs would sit down for a ten-minute meditation,
3. Then they would work for twenty minutes doing homework.
4. The next ten-minutes would be devoted to a lesson taught by the mentor to their mentee on how to handle anger arousing situations,
5. The final hour would be devoted to an activity designed to develop some valued talent that both members of the mentor-mentee pair have shown an interest in working on.

So those are my suggestions for the daily 5 major activities.

The lessons that mentors would teach their mentee to deal with anger arousing situations, involve making video recordings. In these recordings the mentees would act out expertise in handling in a peace promoting manner some challenging event such as being teased or criticized.

Every 6 weeks, all of the parents of the mentees would be invited to an evening meeting. The focus of these meetings would be on seeing the little video shows that their sons and daughters had made that illustrate peacefully handling some conflict.

Now, this is an enormously important aspect of the program for the following reason: When I worked with youth at risk before I retired, there were times when I sought to have their parents show up to have problem solving discussions. I found many never came. But once I made these types of video recordings the focus of the parent meetings, not only did the parents show up, they often brought along grandparents, uncles, and aunts.  Apparently, parents and other family members love to see their kids in shows.  So, with this aspect of the One-On-One Program, not only would the mentors and mentees have an opportunity to learn and discuss peaceful, constructive ways to deal with challenging conflicts in a fun, engaging manner, so too would a large percentage of the mentees’ parents.

How would the program seek to enroll youths who can benefit from it? Teachers, counselors, police officers, and judges would be informed of the program’s existence and asked to refer young folks they view as in need of this community option.

So, there you have it, the raw basics of the One-On-One Program. Now, to give you a sense of the real heart of this program, I’m going to tell you two short parables. The first is:

The Parable of Tony

Our tale begins when Tony is 12-years old. Because of several fights that he has gotten into at the afterschool program, Tony has just been banned.

Tony’s mother is furious. While repeatedly swinging at him with her shoe, she screams, “If you get into any more trouble, I’ll beat the living daylights out of you!”

A few weeks go by and then Tony’s mother gets a call from the police and learns that he has been picked up by them for being a lookout for a gang while its members engaged in various illegal activities.  “What else could I do,” cries Tony, “it was the only way I could get the gang to stop doing mean things to me!”

At a judicial hearing, the judge refers Tony to the One-On-One Program.

Shortly afterwards, Nick, 17-years old, begins to mentor Tony every day after school. Nick had been bored before beginning to work with Tony, and without this constructive activity available, he could have easily gotten into trouble. But now he finds that the way Tony looks up to him very rewarding, and Nick gets great satisfaction knowing he’s helping his community. And he also likes the money that he’s earning from the stipend.

Meanwhile, with Nick’s help, Tony’s aggressive school behavior has clearly improved, more of his homework is getting done, and his behavior in the larger community has seized to be a problem.

For talent development, Tony showed an interest in the game of chess, so both he and Nick have begun to play every day after school.

The next school year, Nick has gone away to college, so Tony’s mother is planning on getting a new mentor for Tony.  But Tony has heard that his community has an afterschool chess club and he convinces his mother to let him give this a try.

To his delight, Tony finds that after a whole year of playing chess with his mentor, he has become pretty good.

Best of all, several of the players have begun to call Tony to play chess on the weekend or to go to a movie. Because of Tony’s training during the program on how to deal non-violently with anger arousing situations, he finds that he gets along with these students in a positive manner. Soon, he has, for the first time in his life, some real friends.

Well, there you have it, the Parable of Tony,

Here’s the other parable I want to share with you.

The Parable of June

June, 11-years old, is wearing a cute pink dress. She has been brought to see Dr. Shure, a psychologist.  Leaning forward on her desk, Dr Shure asks,“Do you know why your mother asked me to meet with you, June?”

“I’ve been awfully sad,” June replies, “and mom, well, she hates it when I cry out that I want to kill myself. I’m so terribly lonely.”

“Lonely,” says Dr. Shure, concerned and puzzled, “Hmmm.  You go to school where there’re lots of kids your own age. You could go to the afterschool program where you don’t have to be lonely, but your mother told me that you refuse to go.  What’s up with that?”

“At school and the afterschool center,” June replies, “I feel lonelier than when I’m alone.  The kids make fun of me.” Tears begin to form in June’s eyes.

“I see you are feeling sad,” says Dr. Shure softly.  “Are there any times when you don’t feel lonely?”

“Yeah, when my cousin Marissa comes for a visit.  She’s a few years older than me, but she really likes me.  And I play the flute and she plays the piano, so we play duets, and we love being together.  It’s just that she lives up in Rochester, so I only see her once every few months.”

Dr. Shure nods her head and says, “June, we have a program in this community called The One-On-One program.  If you join, someone a little older than you would do some fun stuff just with you every day after school including playing music together.  Would you like to give that a try?”

“Does the older person play the piano?” asks June.

“Hmm, let me look on this list.  Ummm, well we don’t have any piano players, but I see we do have a 17-year old named Rachel who plays the guitar.  She would love to do duets with you every day after school.”

“Really!” exclaims June. “She’d be like a big sister! I’d love to try something like that!”  A delightful smile is now lighting up June’s face.

As this parable illustrates, in addition to children and teenagers who are at an increased risk of becoming violent toward others, some are so lonely, so down on who they are as a person, they begin to display very concerning signs of harmful behavior toward themselves.

So, In Conclusion

In this One-On-One Program, the mentors would benefit because it would give them something constructive to do instead of getting embroiled with some harmful groups of bored students looking for trouble. They would learn useful skills taught in the counseling and conflict course and be given an opportunity to apply peace promoting skills in real life situations under supervision, skills that they would be able to use later in life and to a time when they become parents. They would also earn some money, and work daily on developing some valued skill.

For those who are mentored, the One-On-One Program would resolve the problem of a shortage of community mentors, relieve those who are suffering from loneliness and boredom, provide opportunities to develop valued talents, and engage them in healthy constructive activities in a supervised setting. And the program would also provide a forum for parents of at-risk youth to come together to observe peace promoting approaches to deal with conflict, and to participate in community problem solving discussions.

Now, as to the cost of the program? For thirty mentor-mentee pairs, the cost would be approximately the same as it would be to send one young person to a juvenile correctional facility or prison for one year. So, if the One-On-One Program was to succeed as a violent prevention program, with fewer folks going to residential programs or prisons, and fewer folks being rushed to the emergency room to be treated for a violent injury or attempted suicide, communities would actually end up saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course it is my hope community members will think beyond the money that can be saved, and act to make the One-On-One Program a reality because this is in the best interest of our youth, and our entire community.

preventing community violencePreventing mental illnessPreventing suicideThe One-On-One Program