Being There Now

Being There Now
The Being There program arose out of a need for non-professional people to be trained and empowered to help others who were in need of care and assistance. At the same time, there was a growing awareness on the part of many professionals that the ever increasing demands for their services could not be met because of the lack of personnel and the lack of resources. These professionals were also aware that much of what they did could be done by others who were appropriately motivated and trained.

Originally, the program seemed to be a crash program in pop psychology. When Dr. Derek Smyth was asked to assume the responsibility for the program by Riverside County in 2001, however, he quickly realized that the program was in need of significant overhauling. Dr. Smyth asked Mr. Robert Jones, a licensed clinical social worker in California, if he would join him in rewriting and redefining the curriculum and goals of the program. Mr. Jones agreed, and there began a six year collaborative process of writing, rewriting, testing and retesting, presenting and adapting the program.

During those six years, Dr. Smyth and Mr. Jones had the opportunity to present their program to groups of volunteers in parish work, to the volunteers and staff of the local Desert Aids Project, to the chaplains and nurses and Eisenhower Medial Center in Rancho Mirage and at the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, to those aspiring to be Deacons in the Archdiocese Of San Bernardino, and to numerous others who found themselves in situations where they were asked to be in a helping relationship of some kind. Although the program was designed primarily for non-professional people who wanted to learn the skills necessary to work effectively in a care experience, many professional people who have participated in the program have found the program helpful in their professional lives as well.

Unit 1 - The Care Experience: Most people have a desire to help people. This desire requires the skills to respond appropriately. A genuine desire to care requires an investment in time to develop the skills necessary to be effective. Otherwise it may be just about you! There is an emotional component to caring that is not innate to helping. Writing a check to an organization that feeds the hungry is helping. Caring requires skill. The danger in helping without having the skill to care is that it can cause damage. Often times a person’s desire to help causes them to take over a situation, attempt to fix problems, organize someone else’s life, and remove obstacles using their own agenda. The door opens up and the neighbor rushes in with their solution.

Unit 2 – The Core Qualities of The Care Experience: Caring requires an understanding that the skills to care aren’t necessarily natural for most of us. It requires identifying and building upon the core qualities for providing an effective care experience. Keep in mind that you are NOT here “to fix a person!” Developing qualities for a particular line of work is easier said than done. The reality is that every quality a person possesses has underlying skills and abilities that cause the quality to manifest and develop. Some of the qualities you may already possess, while others may take some time to develop. The key here is keeping top-of-mind the qualities that are not innate. They may be qualities that you have to develop and hone, so that as you develop your skills, the qualities become more natural. An effective care experience is often about not doing what your normal reaction or response might be. It’s about putting aside what comes naturally. If we truly wish to be with someone, we must learn to go deeper. This process can help them attend to their core pain, fear, or distress. Realize that a person is his or her own best authority. Remember that when you give advice and it goes wrong there will be only one person to blame -YOU!

Unit 3 – Hearing is not “Listening”: Unless born with a physiological impairment, everyone can hear. It essentially never turns off. But there is a real distinction between hearing and listening; not unlike the distinction between helping and caring. Our ears are in a constant state of picking up all the sounds and noises, chirping and barking and of course dialogues and conversations occurring around us every day. However this does not mean that we are actively listening to something specific that we purposely dial into. Hearing is a sense, listening is a skill.None of the core qualities of the care experience can be realized unless listening skills have been developed. Many believe they are good listeners mostly because hearing comes so natural. But, without the training to listen actively, the natural process of hearing is not sufficient enough if the goal is to Be There for someone you care for. Listening involves whether the person receiving care believes they were heard.

Unit 4 - The Five Pillars of a Care Experience: This unit deals with qualities that are more innate, intuitive, if you will, and, in a sense, deeply personal. The pillars are truly about “Being” This unit assists a person who has a call to care to go deep inside themselves and tap into the core of how to Be There.The Five Pillars are:Understanding the connection between thoughts and feelingsAccurately empathizing with the care recipientHaving the capacity for spontaneity and genuinenessCreating a non-threatening, safe and non-possessive environmentDeveloping unconditional positive regard for the care recipient

Unit 5 – Culture: In Culture we explore the importance of cultural awareness and the impact of cultural prejudice when caring for someone. Each one of us grew up within a particular family, tradition and culture. As a result, we have adopted ideas that were shared by our group concerning the ways to act, to think and to feel. In other words, we have learned a system of shared beliefs and values that characterize our relations with other people, with our environment and with ourselves. This “system” is often referred to as our culture.However, culture can quickly become a liability to a relationship when we narrow our vision to believe that a single culture is definitively the “right” one. When one is blind to cultural diversity, good judgment regarding how to respond, react, or engage with someone whose culture is the polar opposite of one’s own, cannot only be impeded, it can even be destroyed

Unit 6 – What is Self Esteem? This unit explores how having self-esteem is central to an effective care experience. One absolutely essential thread, which we all require, is self-esteem. People seeking help often feel their self-esteem is bruised or shattered by what they have experienced or are enduring. In grief work, for example, a woman who has lost her husband may feel becoming a widow reflects not only the loss of her husband, but the loss of some of her self-esteem as well. Through personal work on self-esteem, one can learn to support such people and help them gain or re-gain their self-esteem.

Unit 7 – Loss: In this unit we will raise your awareness level of how to help someone who is experiencing loss and processing their grief. When providing counsel, engaging the “less is more” philosophy is really what’s core. Author Derek Smyth has said, “The measure of our loss is the depth of our grief.” We all experience loss at different levels. Whether it’s financial, personal, physical, emotional, or familial, loss affects people in different ways and can manifest behaviorally in a variety of ways as well. Your role is not to react to the way someone expresses his or her grief, but to facilitate ways to help him or her work through loss.

Unit 8 – Crisis Intervention: This unit presents the tools and resources necessary to address a crisis situation responsibly. A crisis is an intense emotional reaction to a situation that a person perceives to be seriously threatening or destructive to their well-being and stability. When people believe they are in a crisis and others do not share that perception, this may intensify feelings of isolation and deepen the crisis. It is important not to negate someone’s perception regardless of how you may perceive the same situation. Crisis intervention involves providing emergency support to those in need in order to help them re-establish their own coping strategies in a healthy and productive way. In many crises situations, one may function as a conduit to professional help. Sometimes the support at the early stages of a crisis may prevent its escalation

Unit 9 – Self Care: This unit explores the importance of self-care for anyone who is being leaned on. It also helps you identify signs of burnout and gives you practical ways to implement self-care in your life. Many people in our society seem to live their lives having lost the zest for life. People can become so absorbed in their work that they fail to recognize the sign of approaching burnout until it’s too late.People are defined not by who they are, but by what they do. The consequences of this are that people care more about work than themselves. You literally run yourself into the ground through your work commitments. The litany of work-related illness continues to grow: back injuries, heart attacks, depression, high blood pressure, premature aging, obesity, anxieties, ulcers, migraine headaches, etc. It is said of Western culture that people spend more time taking care of their possessions than of themselves. If you consider the time, money and effort spent on maintaining your home, car and possessions, you can easily conclude that there is very little left for self-care.