Landmark Education Part I

Back when I first started this fellowship, Mad invited me to do the Landmark Forum, an intensive weekend of philosophical education and self-work. All three ITL co-creators did some variation of the program and they all seem to speak the same language during planning meetings. I check out the website once and promptly forgot about it.
Mad brought it up a few more times. I was wishy-washy. It seemed creepy and expensive and not-for-me. It seemed vaguely religious, and too good to be true. Mad invited me a few more times and then in May she told me that there was going to be an introduction meeting in Pittsburgh led by someone she really admired. I decided to go with and check it out, partly so Mad would quit asking me. I appreciate that she warned me, "Now, people here are going to seem a bit more happy and shiny than the regular session" so I knew to take it with a grain of salt. The marketing of it is pushy and annoyed me. I didn't like how everyone anticipated every negative thought I was having. But Mad shared some thoughts with me personally that made it more about a gift she was offering me to offer to myself. I was also struck by some observations she had of me that seemed really "confronting" and really showed me that she was paying close attention.
Furthermore, the speaker was really good. He was excellent and eventually was like, "Oh, I'm sure I could tell you a bunch of reasons to do this, but why not just do it 'cause what the hell?" I liked this. I decided to do it cause "what the hell" and because I felt like I needed something big and totally different in my life to shake me up. Also, it seemed uncanny that the next Pittsburgh Forum was over my birthday weekend.
I was told that the Landmark Forum starts when you register, however, I did do my immediate ambivalent ramble: "Oh no! Why did I just sign up for this thing on my birthday weekend? Everyone is going to think I am a big weirdo and voluntarily brainwashing myself...I'm going to start talking in annoying jargon and blah, blah, blah..." But then really started to see how it was true for me: it did start once I registered. June was an awful month and I kept thinking how I really needed a new perspective on things, needed something to shake me up. My b-day weekend came along soon enough and I really worked hard to get as many things out of the way and taken care of before the weekend really began. Knowing I was about to do this motivated me in a way I really needed. I wasn't looking forward to 13-hour days in an overly-air-conditioned room in Greentree...but I was optimistic.

Sharing Larkin Street Stories video

[Shout out to the folks at the Transgender Response Team in Baltimore for passing this info along!]

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has made a series of brief videos available for youth-serving organizations, intended to assist providers in building their capacity to serve LGBTQI2-S (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and two-spirt) youth. The collection is titled "Larkin Street Stories", and all videos are shot at Larkin Street (a homeless drop-in center in San Francisco) using real agency staff and clients.

The third installment is "Neither/Nor: Working with Transgender Youth".

Description: In Episode 3 of Larkin Street Stories, Toby coaches a transgender youth who is preparing for an important job interview. During staff meeting, Larkin Street staff members discuss the importance of never making assumptions about a youth's identity and allowing youth to self-identify. Loch shares Larkin Street's approach to creating an intake form that is inclusive of all identities.

Next Phase!

Due to some shifts at the Regional Internship Center, I am shifting the focus and structure of my project and the next four months will look quite different from the past 6. Things have been a little up in the air, as makes sense, because of these changes, but now I'm on the ground again and excited about what comes next. For the next 4 months, I will be focusing on the following areas:

1. Design and presentation of a comprehensive series of recommendations for Coro's organizational structure (including ways Coro influences its network and community) to ensure Coro stays far ahead of the curve when it comes to LGBT diversity and inclusivity. The recommendation plan will include a timeline of implementation (ex. what should be done by when).
• Examples of recommendations might include: requesting Coro alumni to include sexual orientation and gender identity when filling out surveys to keep track of LGBT people going through the programs, standardized informational packets of LGBT issues/best practices to be distributed among Coro partners and affiliates, procedures for ensuring transgender people's preferred names and pronouns are used when applying for programs & placement, etc.
2. LGBT community involvement and consultation for LGBT organizations in and around Pittsburgh:
• For those organizations who serve the LGBT community interested in strengthening or creating internship programs
• To create a LGBT community 5-year plan informed by LGBT organizations, community representatives and community members. This plan to be included as part of the overall 5 year plan for the region to be created at the 2011 Building Change conference. More info: http://trcfwpa.org/news-events/building-change-convergence/. Also planning an LGBT workplace issues training for employers as part of the conference.
3. To ensure continuity of responsibilities with the RIC and the ITL including social media work, tracking internships created, presenting another workshop on internship programs for employers, and creating and presenting a final presentation of my fellowship experience on November 18th, 2011 (save the date!).

Would love to chat about any of these projects with our readers. You can email me at rsorock [at] coropittsburgh [dot] com. More updates to come!

Words of Wisdom: What I've Learned So Far

Looking ahead to November 18th. Just over four months to go and using this time to take a step back, assess what I've done and learned and regroup to get to the next level. This is really just a list for me to take stock, but it may have some useful tips, especially for folks struggling with professional development.

1. You can't know if you can do something yourself until you do it. Especially apparent when you see someone else doing it not as good as you think you can.
2. Inviting someone personally to your event is more efficient and effective than sending out 1,000 emails.
3. Use a variety of methods to outreach an event: in person, over the phone, email lists, personal emails, snail mail, social media. Follow up & follow up again.
4. Share stressful feelings sooner rather than later (useful in many areas of life).
5. Use checking in and meeting up in person to keep on track and stay accountable. It's easy to hide behind an email.
6. Embrace organizational change to stay ahead of the game and stay relevant. These things happen all the damn time.
7. Visual organization helps mental organization. Tidy up the desk! Put business cards in one place!
8. Planning events effectively always takes more time than you think.
9. Share what you know, what you've learned. Ask for what you need, seek out people who have skills & connections that can help you.
10. Speak up for communities you don't see represented in research, in meetings, etc.
11. Give people the benefit of the doubt. They may not know what you are talking about or be aware of your perspective. They may be afraid of speaking from a place of ignorance. They may just be having a bad day.
12. Listen.
13. Emails can always be shorter. Less text on that flier is better.
14. A good presentation means a lot.
15. Having that tough conversation clears the air.
16. Say out loud when things should be kept in confidence and get acknowledgement.
17. Real change takes time, but much can be done now.

Making Strides and Thinking Ahead...

Last Wednesday, June 22nd, I got the chance to see the fruits of my labor in the form of a workshop on internship programs for organizations in Pittsburgh that serve the LGBT community. This is something I started to put together back in April and went through the steps of:

• generating an invite list;
• securing the room;
• feeling confident enough to assist in leading the workshop;
• developing a discussion about our lgbt-community;
• email, phone and face-to-face outreach for the event;
• buying snacks for the event;
• DOING IT!;
• thinking ahead to what happens next...

so...the sunday before the event I had no confirmed RSVPs and was kinda freaking out, but I am really happy to report that 8 people attended from the following 7 organizations: New Voices Pittsburgh, Delta Foundation, Planned Parenthood, GLSEN, GLCC, ALPHA, and PATF! What a great mix of organizations and perspectives. It seems like the most helpful part of the workshop is the discussion between organizations: what they need, what works, what doesn't.

I see the "Creating a Successful Internship Program" workshop as offering assistance not only in comprehensive internship program creation but also in just taking the time to take a hard look at the organization's goals for the future. What is the work that needs to get done? What work would we like to get done? How can we provide a great experience for an intern and also benefit from the intern being there as much as possible? There is much potential for brainstorming & breakthroughs.

The discussion following the workshop was prompted by sharing my personal perspective of our LGBTQ community's assets and challenges and how creating better internship programs can help the community. Workshop attendees provided additional assets including: cultural history of people of color, labor rights and challenges including: HIV/AIDS stigma, neighborhood segregation, inadequate transportation.

Transportation kept coming up and that was a surprise for me: I know our transportation system is seriously lacking, unstable, and unreliable. But I never had considered it a queer issue before. But of course it makes sense: for lower-income LGBTQ people, especially youth and people living outside of a major city, access to safe, reliable and affordable transportation means the difference between having access to services & a queer community and not being able to participate, to their detriment and our community's. Plus for queer youth who may not be out to their families, they especially need independent means of transportation to get support and attend community events. Here is one issue just about every community in Pittsburgh can rally behind: TRANSPORTATION. We need it to be more affordable, more reliable, offer more transportation options (water taxis, car taxis, trains, trolleys, bike lanes, etc.).

I also want to respond a little to another issue that come up when discussing one major LGBTQ community challenge: divisions within the community. Namely, how do we actually build community and do it responsibly? For example, if I see that the group I work with is not serving the African-American/Black community as we should, I could go to where the community is, talk with various people, get new perspectives, etc. What often happens is taking one person's perspective as representative of an entire community, expecting that person to be the educator all the time, and not taking responsibility for the pain that might arise when talking about these issues. I have experienced the fatigue of being a community representative--people asking me questions that are not appropriate or relevant and maybe something I absolutely do not want to talk about right then and there. Feeling that need to speak up for my community when I see it isn't represented in a "representative" study...There is a lot of discomfort and pain associated with these conversations. Seeing each person as unique and only a representative of one may be helpful. Taking a stand and then responding respectfully to critiques, changing behavior, speaking up for those with less privilege, using one's status to advocate for others. These are ways to build community.

Stay tuned for another post about what happens next...