Job Coaching

Location: Open Door Shelter

Date: Monday, February 22, 2016; 6:45-8:30 pm

My roommate Jason was attending this one with me and we arrived at ODS to see that other volunteers had already assembled.  Susan, who had impressed me as a volunteer, had now graduated to be a leader and that was great to see.  She mentioned that Chicago Cares had finally moved to a curriculum based system and had partnered with “Junior Achievement” to have a more structured approach for the youth. She showed us how it was a 7 session program, starting with 4 sessions on the 4 “C’s – Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity”; and then proceeding to sessions on getting hired, knowing who’s hiring and finally, building your own brand.  It sounded terrific to me.  Every session came with materials and guidance and the youth had already been through one of the modules.  Today we would be doing “Communications”, more specifically geared towards “Conflict Resolution”

"Conflict Resolution" again

We went upstairs and as it had been a long time since my last visit here, everyone was new to me.  We got the 7 youth who were present together, and they looked enthusiastic.  The first order of business was introductions, where we had to tell the group about our current as well as our first job. During my turn I said that my first job definitely appears to be more exciting than the current one.  I said that my first job was making miniature sensors using wires thinner than a human hair.  Now, I just keep the lights on.  But nothing was as relevant when one of the volunteers said that he was a pilot in the “Air Force”.  I mean, the only way to beat that would be to say that you’re “Batman”!

We then started with the “ice-breaker” game, where Susan split us into 4 teams of 3.  She would walk up to the team and hold an object on top of one of the members.  The other 2 then had to give one word clues so as to let them guess what the object was.  The main thing was not to give out the word which was included in the object. For example, one of the items was “nail paint” and they could not use the words “nail” or “paint” or “polish”. I was assigned to be the person who would count the number of words used to guess the object and for every “taboo word”, there would be a 2 word penalty.  It was fun, though many kept using words that drew a penalty.  For my team the item was a “Scented Candle” and despite giving out clues like “flame” and “dark”, our team could not identify the object.  But we had all enjoyed this activity.

Unlike the previous sessions, today we wouldn't have different groups, but it would be a joint exercise.  While the pros are that we get to share the experience, the biggest con is that some volunteers may not get as involved, since we really needed just one person to conduct the activity.  We started discussing examples of “Good vs Bad Communication” and Susan was encouraging the youth to participate…and they were.  I was also chiming in with some examples on working in a professional environment.  The volunteer who is a pilot was taking notes on “post-it sheets’ and we started by writing down some “do’s and don’ts” of communication

We then played a game where 2 sets of 2 youth would role-play a scene where in one example both parties would be communicating poorly and then a scenario where only one of the parties would communicate poorly while the other was more professional.  The first scene was in a “cell phone store”, where a customer came in with a complaint on their bill and got into an argument with the sales rep who was indifferent.  The next scenario would be them coming back, and this time while the customer was still upset, the sales rep would be more reasonable.  The 2 youth who did this were fantastic and the one who played the customer was as flamboyant as they come, delivering on both scenes with great panache and even taking a bow at the end.  It was fun to watch and perhaps acting is their true calling. 

The next scene was in a “Car Wash” where the supervisor wanted one of the part-time employees to come in for some extra shifts.  The problem was that the employee was a student who was being forced to be late for classes due to these extra shifts.  During the first scenario both weren't being very communicative and thus it didn’t go anywhere in terms of a resolution.  For the next scenario, the supervisor became more communicative, while the student was still the same – though the youth playing the student was actually quite soft spoken and a nice person.  This duo did a good job as the one before and I certainly felt that the youth had learnt a lot through this exercise.  We did a quick reflection with the youth and they confirmed that it had been a good session.  During the volunteer reflection I mentioned that we had probably not given the volunteers a good experience and Susan agreed.  She said that the other modules should be conducted differently so as to allow the volunteers a chance to participate more.  The fact that she acknowledged this makes me think that she will be a terrific leader.