Location: Grace House
Date: Tuesday, July 09, 2013; 6:15-8:00 pm
I had not done any projects for a
long time, having been away for the holiday weekend. Thus I was enthusiastic to participate in
this one, though the ‘Computer Skills’
portion of the title was a bit worrisome. According to the project description, “Grace House provides comprehensive residential and case management
services to formerly incarcerated women so they can rebuild their lives. Volunteers will work directly with residents
to help them learn basic computer skills such as Microsoft Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Internet, and resume writing.” While I knew that nobody expected me to be
proficient in HTML programming or Java script, at minimum I was expected to know
a bit about the Microsoft Products and the Internet. In terms of the destination, I thought that I knew where I was going but lo and
behold, my old habit of getting lost caught up with me and I got off at the
wrong train station. Fortunately, I
realized that before I left the platform, but had to still wait for the next
train to arrive. Having disembarked at
the right station and following the directions on my phone, I finally arrived
at Grace House.
We had a stand-in leader this
evening, Gabriella and she told me how the project would unfold. Each volunteer would be paired with a
resident and rather than coaching without an agenda, we would be working off
their personnel file. Well, it’s not
like the file was a detailed profile or anything like that, but a list of
things the ladies had covered in the previous class and what the volunteer’s
recommendation was for this evening’s session.
I was paired with Shirley and the immediate thing that you noticed
about her was that she smiled a lot. It
is always nice to be working with someone like that because it means that both
of us would have a good experience. I
looked at her file and saw that at the previous session she had opened an email
account via Gmail, and this week’s recommendation was for her to use it,
especially to learn more about typing.
 |
| Facebook Coaching |
We went to Shirley’s Facebook
profile and saw that there were several updates. She looked at the messages on her wall and
was confused why people were sending her information and pictures about someone
else. I quickly explained that he wall
was a common place for her to see what all of her contacts were doing and so
the messages were not necessarily meant specifically for her, but being
broadcast for everyone who was connected to the person posting them. I learned that her son was also on Facebook
and she said that he had a new image as his profile picture. She said that she wanted a new picture as
well and asked me to take her picture with my camera. Now this request required me to get
permission from Gabriella and she said that it was fine as long as I deleted it
after transferring the picture. I took
her picture, sent by email to her account and then downloaded on the computer. Next it was a challenge to figure out how to
upload the photograph on her profile and after a bit of searching we managed to
get it done.
Shirley then wanted to post
something on her son’s wall. Seeing that
his picture was some sort of music album cover with cash, she asked if we could
type, “Can I get some of the cash?” Since he was online, he responded immediately
at which she said something in return.
She was impressed that her son ‘liked’ some of her messages and was
thrilled at that. After exchanging a few
messages, I said that the wall was public and perhaps we should chat with him privately. We figured out a way to chat in real time and
she exchanged a few messages with her son, including asking him to look at her
new picture with her hair cut shorter.
At the end she concluded with “I
love you”. I showed her how to use
the emoticons and she added 4 hearts.
What followed was a priceless look on her face when he responded, “Love you too”. Getting to see her reaction is what makes
this all worthwhile, why I love what I get to do.
Shirley has two son’s, both
living together in Minnesota. We sent
her other son a message as well, though he was offline. We then saw pictures on her son’s profile, including
some of her mom, grandma as well as her grandson. It was fantastic to hear her talk about them,
especially her grandma from all those years ago. Another resident wanted to add her as a
friend and once again we spent some time trying to figure out how to look for
friends and add them. We then went into
her Gmail account and deleted all the messages from Facebook. Finally we added her newly taken picture to
her Google profile and we were done for the evening. I filled out her file saying that she had
learned how to use Facebook, chat, delete emails and upload pictures. In recommendations, I wrote that for next
session she should learn how to do emailing.
She thanked me for helping her and asked if I would be coming back. I replied
that I wasn’t sure when, but she should keep practicing.
I gave the file back to Gabriella
and she said that we should let the residents use Facebook only at the
end. The main objective is for them to
learn skills like email and Resume writing, but I believe today we had made some progress
with Shirley. Gabriella said that after
a few weeks training the ladies had to give a test to demonstrate their proficiency. I said that Shirley’s chatting with her son would
help build her skills for sure. Furthermore,
from what I saw when she was chatting with him, it brought her immense happiness. Isn't that the ultimate goal for everyone
anyways? By that account, we had been successful
all right.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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