Low Vision Focus Presents: Vibrant Vision Loss Support Web view · 2016-07-29... and perhaps even did they understand everything they were told. Now, a word of caution, if you design

Low Vision Focus Presents

Vibrant Vision Loss Support Groups Part 2

Seminars@Hadley

Low Vision Focus PresentsVibrant Vision Loss Support Groups Part 2

Presented byPolly AbbottEd Haines

Moderated byEd Haines

June 16, 2016

Ed HainesLet me officially welcome you to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Ed Haines. I’m an instructor at the Hadley Institute and a member of the Seminars@Hadley team. Today, Low Vision Focus at Hadley presents part 2 of a two part series on vision loss support groups, and we’re very lucky today to have with us Polly Abbott, who is an expert on this subject. Starting and maintaining a vision loss support group can be an enriching and rewarding experience, and good preparation and planning are essential practices for good support leaders to be effective. So today, myself and support group expert Polly Abbott, who is the Director of Rehabilitation Services

©2016 Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired Page 1 of 34



at Second Sense, will be discussing the elements that work together to create a successful group. In this second session of a two part series, aspiring support group leaders will hopefully learn about the nuts and bolts of running a group, meeting content, using speakers, planning for leadership transition, and delegation of responsibility. So, without further ado, it’s now my pleasure to hand the microphone over to Polly Abbott.

Polly AbbottGood morning everyone. I’m gonna start out by talking about some things that you need to do to make your group comfortable, the nuts and bolts of actually running a group meeting. In the first seminar of this series, we recommended that potential leaders ask themselves some questions about whether or not they were ready to do this job. Things such as do you have time in your schedule to do this or are you comfortable speaking in front of groups of people. This is where it becomes clear that being a group leader is a very different experience from being a group member. It is basically the same thing as being a good host at a large party, or, if you have ever been a student where you had a really good teacher with great classroom management skills, that is the same kind of job that a good support group leader does.

Let’s talk about some things that you can do to give your group members a great meeting experience. Number




one, you want to make sure that you are at the meeting location early enough to check the room setup. Now, how you set up the chairs and tables can actually influence how the meeting runs. For example, if you are having a speaker come in, you might want to set up the chairs in kind of an auditorium style setting in rows, because this keeps everyone facing the speaker and focusing the attention on the front, and it can discourage sidebar conversations that might crop up. If, however, you are running a meeting where you intend to have a discussion and you wish everybody to participate, you might want to set everything in a circle or around a table so that everyone is close to each other and facing each other, and this keeps the attention focused on what is happening with the discussion.

There are some other things you can do also to make sure that people are comfortable. You can make sure that the room is nice and bright. Pay attention to any windows or glare producing light sources. You might want to make sure that, if you are doing an auditorium style seating, you’ve got everybody’s back to the window so that no one’s looking in to the light. These are just some little things that you can do to set the tone and get things going.

Before the meeting actually starts, you might want to designate some people ahead of time to help you be greeters. Usually when a meeting starts, everybody piles




in and everybody is going to want to talk to the leader, and you can split up that attention by assigning people to help you. As you have members sign in, have someone else who can show them the refreshment table, introduce them to other group members, and generally make them feel welcome.

Keeping an attendance list is also pretty important. It will help you keep track of who comes regularly and might be a potential person to take on that job of being a greeter or other tasks. It will also help you identify any members who have not been attending regularly and might need a phone call or some extra support to encourage them to come back to the group.

When it is time to start the meeting, I do encourage you to start on time as much as possible. As a leader, you are really the one who sets the tone and the pace of the meeting. Starting on time all the time encourages everybody else to be punctual as well. When it’s time to get started, make sure that you say “hello” and “welcome,” and then wait; do not continue saying anything else until you’ve got everybody’s attention. This is, I would say, the number one mistake that people make, and that is not waiting to get a quiet room and everybody’s attention before continuing on. You need to, in essence, treat it almost like a classroom. I think if you think back to when you were in school, the teacher kind of trains the students




to stop talking and listen when the teacher starts talking. That is what, as a group leader, you can do with the group so that they know when you say “hello” and “welcome,” it’s time to quickly finish their conversation with their neighbor and start paying attention because the group meeting is about to start. If you make the mistake of saying “hello” and then launching into whatever it was you were going to say, you’re gonna have group members who feel disappointed that they’re not hearing what you want to say, as well as those who completely miss the information that you wanted them to pay attention to.

Another thing that you might want to do at the start of a meeting is just go through a couple of maybe common rules for ensuring good communication within the group. For example, reminding people that everyone needs to keep their comments to a minimum or brief so that everybody gets a turn, and things such as keeping on topic with the discussion. This will allow you later on during the discussion, if you have someone who is off topic, to bring them back to that agreed upon rule of staying on topic and giving others a turn.

Another thing that you are responsible for as a leader is to keep the discussion moving. And this is what I just talked about. If you have an agenda for each meeting, that is wonderful. Groups of people, even adults as much as children, need to anticipate what is going to happen over




the next hour or two to feel comfortable. After you start the meeting, if you have that agenda to kind of let them know, well, today we’re having a speaker, then we’ll have some time for questions, and then we’ll have time to socialize with refreshments, everybody can settle in and enjoy the meeting because they know what is going to happen.

As a group leader, you’re also responsible for making sure that everyone has a chance to speak and keeping the discussion on topic. Please don’t be afraid to interrupt someone who is going on too long or, if someone starts to get off topic, to bring them back. It is a challenge. Many leaders find that this is the hardest thing that they have to do is to interrupt someone who is going on and on, but usually just a polite little, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have to give the next person time to share their comments,” is enough to stop someone who is talking. Or, if you get someone who is off topic, you might be able to say something like, “Excuse me Mrs. Smith, perhaps we could continue this discussion after the meeting.” So you’re still letting people know that you want to hear them, but you’re gonna have to do it at a later date for the sake of the group. And that really is what you are focusing on as a discussion facilitator. You have to stand back from the information that is being shared to kind of oversee the ebb and flow of the conversation as a whole and you are




the one who is saying yes and no in terms of keeping people on topic and on time.

Just as you were responsible for starting the meeting, when it comes time to close the meeting, it is good to have some sort of little ritual or phrase or some way that you can let people know that the meeting has officially ended so that people who want to leave know that it’s okay for them to do so, and that anybody who wants to stay and chat because they’ve met someone, that they’re allowed to do that too.

As you’re closing the meeting, you might also take a moment to state the date and time of the next meeting and give the topic of discussion for the next meeting. This will stimulate some excitement amongst your group members, and usually at that meeting, they’ll already be mentally making plans to come back to the next one now that they know, again, what is gonna happen and what they’ve got to look forward to. If you can, if you have a budget and are able to print up a large print reminder that has the meeting date and time and perhaps the topic, it’s a nice thing for people to have that they can put on their fridge.

Once you’ve closed the meeting, you still have a little bit of paperwork to do as leader I’m afraid. That is the time, after the meeting is done, to spend in the next week a little




bit of time confirming your speaker, doing reminder calls, and of course, any other additional marketing.

Those are just some simple things that successful group leaders do to keep everybody feeling comfortable and the meetings running smoothly. Leading a group is really a skill in and of itself and it is one that can be very rewarding for someone. I’m gonna turn it over to Ed now for some tips on facilitating discussions and what you can actually do as meeting content.

Ed HainesThanks, Polly, those are fantastic suggestions. I am gonna talk about content now and I think that’s one of the most common questions that support group leaders have is how to find enough content for monthly meetings. It really does seem to be a constant concern and maybe even kind of the biggest headache that a support group facilitator can have, especially if other group members don’t take the initiative to help out.

I want to recommend right now Polly’s manual for support groups. It’s called Starting and Maintaining a Vibrant Vision Support Group, and that can be downloaded from Second Sense’s website. It’s fantastic and I want to talk about a few suggestions she has, so thank you Polly. One of her first suggestions is to have each member of the group bring an adaptive aid or an object that helps them




accomplish a task independently, like a magnifier, or perhaps a jumbo remote control, or bold lined paper; essentially, show and tell. So you can ask each member to bring an object and then talk about some of the following issues about it: how they discovered it, how long they’ve been using it, what it does for them, etc.

Always a topic of interest, I think, for – and Polly mentions this – for every member of a support group is individual experiences at the offices of eye professionals. You can design a whole meeting built around each person talking about their eye care professionals, what they like about them, how often they go, do they take people with them to appointments, and perhaps even did they understand everything they were told. Now, a word of caution, if you design content around this subject, you don’t want the discussion to devolve into a complaint session about doctors and you especially don’t want group members to start practicing their own amateur diagnosis. But you know what? Interactions with eye care professionals are usually – and I know from personal experience – they’re very important and sometimes traumatic events and they are experiences that have unique characteristics to persons with eye disease that results in low vision. It’s not an experience that the larger population can normally relate to, so I think it’d be certainly very helpful for a group to talk about that.




Finally, I’ll mention a third thing that Polly talks about in her manual, and I think it’s an important one, and that’s socialization. It would be really helpful for individuals in the group to share their experiences about dining out or attending a worship service or attending a meeting of, say, the Lion’s Club or the VFW, etc. What kinds of problems do folks have when they socialize, like when folks wave and they don’t know who they are, who’s waving, or people come up and speak to them but they don’t know who they are because they haven’t identified themselves. Folks can share about how they find out who else is in the room or what tricks they use for getting around social gatherings and even meeting new people. I think socialization is a terrific topic.

Now, I’m going to talk in a little bit about speakers you can invite to your meetings and they, of course, have a lot of content to offer, but while I’m on the subject of content, I really think it would be great for support group leaders to start thinking about accessing content online. And I say this because there is really so much excellent stuff out there that group leaders can draw from and use and it’s all free. Much of it has already been specifically created just for this purpose. It’s nice to have a live speaker, but there are online audio and video resources that can provide you with instant content and subjects for discussion.




I wanted just to talk about three different sources for meeting content that perhaps people haven’t considered. The first source I’d like to talk about is the website VisionAware. Now, VisionAware – many of you are probably aware of it – but VisionAware is part of the American Foundation for the Blind, the AFB, but it has its own separate website and it offers all sorts of excellent audio and video that can generate lots of amazing discussion within a group. I want to give you some examples so those of you who have not looked at the website will know what I mean. There are 10 videos on the VisionAware website that are personal stories. In other words, interviews with persons with vision loss, biographical videos. Any one of these biographical stories can be used as a jumping off point or as a theme for discussion in a group.

VisionAware has a lot of practical resources like videos related to making your home safe and accessible, creating a home office, kitchen safety, organizing medications, managing finances, orientation and mobility. Each one of those topics can be a subject for a monthly meeting. There are videos related to hearing and vision loss. And one I think is incredibly important, there’s a video about fall prevention and adapting the home to prevent fall prevention. Great, great topic. I think VisionAware has at least 9 or 10 videos on lighting. If you can’t find something




there to provide some interesting content for your group, I’d be surprised.

Finally, I want to mention one more thing, they have a couple of radio dramas, which I think are terrific. They’d be really entertaining content to listen to and they’re radio dramas related to working if you have low vision. One’s called Finding a Job Can Be Murder. Again, fantastic resources. All of this content is free.

One more thing, VisionAware even has a special section called “Free Presentations for Individuals and Groups.” So guess what? There it is; they’ve spelled it out for you. The various topics include diet and nutrition, low vision devices, low vision rehabilitation, motivational talks, practical living, and research and treatment. VisionAware is a terrific website. There’s tons of content that can keep you in content for years to come, or at least for quite some time.

Now another great source for content is the website MD Support, M-D Support, and that stands for macular degeneration, of course. This is the website of an organization started by Dan Roberts, and it is also a wonderful source for support group content. It has lots of content related – and I mean presentations – related to health and nutrition topics, like aging, inflammation and antioxidants. There are recordings also that are




motivational in nature. There’s a terrific one called “Helping Others Understand,” which is suggestions of ways to increase understanding of vision impairments by family members, friends, and caregivers. That’s always such a critical issue, so that’s a great recording. There’s a recording on keeping fit. In addition, the website has links to presentations for low vision groups who want to understand the more sort of physiological or medical aspects of common eye conditions, like macular degeneration, cataracts, retinopathy, glaucoma, etc. MD Support, another just fantastic resource.

And finally, I do want to talk briefly about what Hadley offers for support groups, because we have a lot of great stuff too. Our low vision focus initiative – and we have a separate website for that, lowvisionfocus.org – we offer 10 free audio recordings on subjects related to independent living with low vision. The recordings are about 30 minutes long and they’re in a radio show format, they’re very easy to listen to, and they’re even recorded with pauses and places to pause the recording to allow discussion of the subject matter at intervals. So they are perfect for group content. Some of the recording titles include: “Making the Kitchen User Friendly,” “Basic Tactile Marking,” “Getting Around The House,” “Going Out For A Meal,” etc. Now, in addition to the recordings, the website, lowvisionfocus.org, has links to companion videos on




these subjects. So there are recordings and there are also videos. You’re all listening to a webinar right now, so you already know Hadley offers a lot of webinars like this one. They’re related to topics concerning low vision and they can easily be used as content for support groups. We have a lot of archived webinar titles, including – here’s some examples – “Diabetes and Your Vision,” “Age-Related Low Vision: the Emotional Impact of Vision Loss Later in Life,” “Lighting,” and a fun one that I participated in earlier this year called “Putting The Grand Back In Grandparenting,” which was all about a panel discussion of persons with vision impairments who are grandparents and how they do that wonderful job of being a grandparent. There are many others, many, many other titles. I don’t know now, but I think we’re getting close to having 300 archived webinars.

Both the low vision focus recordings and the resource materials on the website and then the archived Hadley webinars, they would make terrific content for support groups. You don’t have to depend on speakers. There’s lots of stuff out there and, of course, all of these resources I’ve mentioned are available at no cost.

I’m going to now – we’ve talked about content – I’m going to turn the mic over again to Polly. We’re going to talk




about speakers for a little bit and she’s going to offer some tips in using speakers.

Polly AbbottThanks Ed. Speakers. They are a wonderful thing for a person to invite in to your group. The speakers that you do invite are going to come from the suggestions of your group members. Any time someone makes a comment about wanting to know more about this or that or having trouble doing something or understanding something, that is a moment for you to jot down a note about it and see if you can find an expert to come in and speak on the topic. That way you’re providing your group members with accurate information. Now, I would say, in general, most people who come to speak at low vision support groups are willing to do so on a volunteer basis. They are pleased to share their information, and they oftentimes like to know about your group and can be someone that you can also use in the future to help spread the word about your group.

Some tips on using them. Number one, you do want to book far in advance. You’re gonna be more likely to get the date and time that you want, and you’re gonna have more time to actually promote the fact that a speaker is coming to make sure that, when the speaker arrives,




you’ve got a nice roomful of people for them to speak to. When you are setting up the speaking engagement with the professional, if you can, provide some direction, let them know a little bit about what sort of people are in your group, what their needs are, and give some direction on what exactly the information is that they might be wanting to hear. It could be something as simple as, “By the way, Mr. Speaker, when you come, my group members will not be able to see a PowerPoint projection up on a screen.” You might need to give tips about using large print literature if they have anything to hand out. You’re just giving some advance notice as what the speaker can do to make sure that the information in his/her presentation is accessible to your group members.

Respect your speaker’s time as well. If your speaker is coming a long distance to come to your group, you want to make sure that you keep any group business that you might do to either a bare minimum or save it until after the speaker has completed their presentation. You also want to make sure that you are giving the speaker enough time to talk. Having been a speaker myself on many times, it’s a little disheartening to be invited out sometimes and have 15 minutes to talk when, perhaps, I have traveled an hour or two to get there. So make sure that, if you are having a speaker, that you give him/her enough time to really get into the material and spend that time with your group. And




it’s always nice to have a little bit of time left over for some question and answers.

When you have the speaker at your group, just as you did when you started the meeting, do a little bit of a sound check with the speaker before you let him launch into his presentation to make sure that everyone is paying attention, but also everyone can hear the speaker. Sometimes people like to take a moment and move up closer if they have hearing problems. If you have a microphone available, that is also a really great way to make sure everyone can hear and it does encourage people to focus their attention on what’s being said as well.

Make sure that you introduce and thank the speaker as well as let people know in some official capacity – usually the thank you comes at the end – to know that the presentation is over and that they are, in effect, released or the meeting is going to continue on. And lastly, and this relates to planning, keep records of the speakers that you invite and when you invited them. This is gonna save you time later on because most groups will want to hear the information again in a year or two. You will have turnover of group members, so when a year or two is past and you realize that the people you started the group with are no longer there, you have now a great opportunity to invite that speaker back again and the people who’ve never




heard that presentation before will benefit from the information. In addition, you have just saved yourself a whole lot of work trying to find a speaker for whatever month it was. You can even create somewhat of a rotating schedule of topics to have on hand when you’re looking for some inspiration as what to do next month or what do to in a couple of months’ time.

I would just conclude by saying using speakers just boils down to planning in advance and continuing to facilitate and control the group when the speaker is speaking so that everyone enjoys hearing their information and is able to do so comfortably without undue interruptions. I’ll hand it over back to Ed.

Ed HainesThanks Polly. I’ve had that same experience where I’ve traveled quite some distance and then, because of just other business in the group, I had a chance to speak for just about 15 or 20 minutes. Disheartening is the right word. I am looking at the time, so in the interest of time, I was hoping we could pause a bunch of times for questions, but I think, to make sure we get our content in here in the time allotted, we’re going to keep going with our presentation. I apologize for that, but there should be time for questions and answers at the end.




Polly talked about tips for using speakers and I just want to go over some suggestions for speakers. Some you folks have maybe already thought of, but perhaps there’s a few you haven’t. First of all, there are a range of speakers from the medical professions. An optometrist would be a good speaker, perhaps an ophthalmologist, someone who can talk about maintaining eye health or the signs and symptoms of eye disease, particularly of macular degeneration. And an optometrist who’s also a low vision specialist would be a terrific speaker if they can spare the time and group members then could have the chance to learn about the nuts and bolts of a low vision exam if they haven’t had one.

Another medical professional that I think would be helpful to invite at some point would be a diabetes educator. These folks really are a wealth of knowledge and they have a lot of important information to share regarding both diabetes prevention and maintenance. Along the same lines, a nutritionist would be a good choice of a speaker as well.

Now, outside the medical profession, there are a lot of community resources that can provide speakers for your group. You could ask a representative from the local library, for instance, and they could talk about available library materials and services of interest to persons with low vision, and maybe talk a preview a bit about events




that are coming up at the library that might be of interest to the group. If you are lucky, and there’s one nearby, a branch, a representative from the National Library Service, the Talking Book Program, would be a terrific choice for a speaker.

Probably yearly you should receive a visit presentation from a representative from the state services for persons with blindness and vision impairment. Those state services, each state – they have a different name – but each state has them. They should be a yearly speaker, and I say that because things change with state services, so they can explain eligibility criteria for services, they can be there to sign up new group members who are not receiving services as yet, and they can describe any changes in the scope and the length of services provided. Also, these folks usually are tied in to other resources and they probably have some basic knowledge of other community resources that might be relevant to group members.

The Social Security Administration has representatives that speak to groups about Social Security benefits and specific programs for people with disabilities and programs for people with vision loss. From the world of rehabilitation, an O&M specialist would be great to have as a group to talk about traveling safely and cane usage and maybe demonstrate a talking GPS. They could




provide some basic human guide training to new folks who have not been involved in rehabilitation before. And along those same lines, a Vision Rehabilitation Therapist, like myself or Polly, certainly make terrific presenters. In fact, it’s really part of a Vision Rehabilitation Therapist’s job to do outreach. So, without tooting our own horns, they certainly are a wealth of information on topics ranging from fun ways to use braille, low vision cooking, crafts, accessible technology, basically everything from A to Z; we always say everything from A to Z except O&M, which is Orientation and Mobility.

If a dog guide school has an ambassador in your area, they’re always a fun speaker. They usually bring a dog, so that’s an icebreaker, and it’s a lot of fun. They can describe the process involved in obtaining and using a dog guide.

Now, outside of the low vision community, it’s not a bad idea to have representatives from your city or municipality to meet with your group. Persons like transportation managers or city managers or city engineers, it depends on the size of your town. These folks are really helpful to dialogue with regarding issues of accessibility. I attended one support group meeting and a city manager was present. It was a fairly small town, but the group members were able to provide him with information he didn’t know about, really valuable input regarding things like broken




curbs, sidewalk problems, snowplowing issues. The city manager was thrilled he came because he just didn’t know about these issues, and that meeting actually resulted in some concrete changes that helped everybody in the community, not just the folks in the group.

Police officers and/or firefighters, they usually have outreach folks. They can discuss issues of safety, emergency preparedness, etc. A lot of communities have senior service agencies and representatives that can be invited to speak about the programs they offer. And this is also true for representatives from senior housing programs. Also, Congress persons or state legislators often have staff available to meet with groups, and civic administrations usually do as well. And, finally, there are lots of services or organizations of interest to older adults, like the AARP, or your local area agency on aging. And these organizations may be able to provide speakers.

I guess what I hope you can come away with is just a picture that there are lots of different places you can draw speakers from. There are lots of entities out there. It is a bit of a headache to get all this scheduled, but if you do your homework and plan ahead, you can find quite a few options. I’m going to hand the mic over to Polly at this point, and she’s gonna be talking about some safety considerations for the group.




Polly AbbottI’m gonna talk about safety considerations for your group members when you are at your meeting location, as well as one or two tips if you are doing trips offsite. Many groups in the summer time, they like to do something a little different and go out for dinner or to a show or something, and that is a whole other set of safety considerations.

First of all, let’s talk about when you have your meeting at your usual location. I would say the number one thing to do is to practice good communication yourself about where the tables are, where the chairs are, so that people get a little bit of a description when they first enter as to where things are, because they may wish to move about independently and, from any description you provide, they will feel more comfortable doing that. Most importantly, what you might find is that you have to spend a certain amount of time encouraging the group members themselves to communicate with each other when they are moving about. Most people who have a visual impairment are the only one in their social circle who may have that problem, so when they come to your group, it may be the first time that they have ever been in a room that is full of people who also have trouble seeing and they may not realize that extra communication is absolutely essential so that people stay safe, especially if you have refreshments. You are gonna want to encourage people




to get in the habit of announcing that, perhaps, they’re on the move and they have a cup of coffee in their hand. Something like, “Hello, Betty, I’m walking your way. I’ve got coffee in my hand,” so that people know where the hazards are.

You will probably want to encourage people to do things like push in their chairs when they get up, to get in the habit of that, as well as finding a safe place to stow their cane, be it a mobility cane or a support cane. Sometimes, especially seniors, they have trouble folding up their canes and may get in the habit of just propping it against the table, and sometimes they’ll extend out and cause a trip hazard. So you want to be alert to trip hazards like that. And cords, if you are doing something that requires an extension cord, you might want to wait to plug that in until you are ready to start and everyone is seated or, at the very least, post a guard over the cord or near any trip hazard to make sure that people are aware. Lastly for that, as much as possible, try to keep the arrangement of chairs, tables, and location of the refreshment table, consistent. The more you keep things the same, the more people will feel encouraged to move about on their own.

Let’s talk about, now, when you want to go offsite for a trip. I think safety when you are traveling with your group boils down to not rushing. You have to plan for extra time. This can be tricky, particularly if you have a bus to catch or




if you’re trying to leave on time for a play, or if the play has finished and you’re trying to get everybody together to get back on the bus to maybe catch a train, it can get a little bit stressful. I would encourage you to build in lots of time so that nobody gets stressed out trying to travel when they are on the trip. Try using a buddy system as well. If you actively encourage people to have someone that they are with, you’re more likely to be able to safely stay together.

If you can get some volunteers to come along and act as sighted guides, your group members are also gonna feel additionally comfortable, they’re gonna know that there’s extra assistance around. You should, as a group leader, and perhaps to the group as a whole, provide some human guide training. And this you should get from either a certified Vision Rehabilitation Therapist or an Orientation and Mobility Instructor. However, there are some really good descriptions of the technique online, and, in the manual that I have, there is a link to the VisionAware website, which has a really great description of how to walk with a guide.

If you plan for the trip and alert the group of – again, using your communication skills – of what is going to happen, what the terrain is going to be like, having extra volunteers, make sure people are protected for the weather by encouraging them to bring their sunglasses or magnifier or whatever they need, you’re gonna have a




very successful trip. Again, communication and don’t rush people would be the two thoughts I would leave you with. Okay Ed, back to you.

Ed HainesThanks Polly. Now, I’d like to talk a little bit about a subject that doesn’t come up that often, but it’s certainly important. I’d like to talk about leadership transition. If you’re a support group leader, you’ve undoubtedly worked really hard to bring this group together. You may have invested possibly years of your time and your energy in ensuring that the group members and yourself benefit from this experience. But, there will be a time when you can no longer lead the group. Part of your responsibility as a group leader is making sure that the group carries on when you’re not available to be there as the facilitator. I’ll give you a quick example of what I’m talking about.

Some years ago, many years now, I took a position with a state agency for the visually impaired, and that position had been vacant for some time. As part of my effort to kind of get around and get used to my community and get to know who my constituencies were, I met with a couple individuals who had once been part of a support group in my area, but that group had dissolved. When I met with them, I asked them why they’d stopped meeting. Their answer was simple and it was that their previous group leader had been my professional predecessor and when




that individual left, that individual had made no plans for others to assume leadership and the group just simply stopped meeting when that person moved away. Needless to say, they were very eager for me to assume the role of group leader so their meetings could reconvene. I told them I was certainly happy to attend meetings, but I’d prefer to do so as a member, and not as a leader. Really, the responsibility, so that circumstance didn’t happen again, the responsibility for leadership needs to come from inside the group rather than outside agencies.

I give you that story to illustrate that that’s the kind of situation you don’t want to have happen. So, what are some steps you can take as a group leader to ensure there’s a smooth transition when you have to step back? Polly’s already touched on this for other reasons, but the first step you can take is something you should do from the day of your first group meeting and I’m talking about record keeping. Polly talked about keeping records, but there’s a reason for that. The facilitator should keep a written record of all the group’s activities; essentially, a log book. Keep a written record of the meeting dates, what was discussed on each date, if there was a speaker, and that includes probably the speaker’s contact information, the number of attendees, etc. Here’s the important thing. If that’s done from day one, you’re leaving a record of the




group’s activities that leaders in the future can refer to and use as a tool. So, proper record keeping is crucial.

Now, Polly touched on my second concern as well, and this is important, and it should also be done from very early on, and that’s to delegate group responsibilities. Polly talked about delegating people to be greeters, which is a great idea. If group members are given responsibility for the group activities, the facilitator will probably have a fairly good idea pretty quickly as to who has the right skills and commitment to be a future leader. Also, there may be potential leaders in the group who need to practice some of the leadership skills and practice responsibilities before assuming that full mantle of being the head facilitator. Delegation is a way to ease them into the job.

I just want to – really quickly here, I don’t want to take up too much time – the VA has outlined some qualities that make up a good peer group leader and I think they’re relevant to all sorts of support groups. I’ll give you some of them here. The VA feels – that’s the Veterans Administration obviously – that group facilitators should have some of these qualities. They should have an ability to deal with ambiguous situations and people. They should be able to communicate in a concise but caring manner. They, hopefully, would be people who learn quickly and easily. People who have the reputation of being a good listener. People who are persuasive without




being overbearing. Someone who’s sensitive to nuances of situations and people. Someone who’s able to identify teaching moments. And finally, I think this is a great quality, a good facilitator is a person who’s able to recover quickly from change or even misfortune. In other words, they have a – they call it a buoyant personality, and I love that. I love that definition.

Now, when you are delegating, you might consider assembling some subcommittees, like a planning committee, for instance, so you don’t have to decide what future content will be. These subcommittees could have a leader and that person then could experience leadership in a smaller setting with more defined and restricted goals.

Okay, speaking of planning. Third thing that you need to do to ensure that transition takes place smoothly is to plan group activities and meeting content, if possible, at least four to six months ahead. Polly touched on this already for engaging speakers. Really, if for any reason you have to stop leading the group unexpectedly, that will give the group some lead time to continue on with existing programming until new leadership, essentially, can take shape. I’m gonna hand the mic back over to Polly.

Polly AbbottI would just like to say that there are all different kinds of structures with support groups that I’ve seen. There’s a




very good group in Chicago run by people who are, I would say, all in their early 80s, and they take turns leading the meetings, but they plan all together as a small group. It doesn’t matter if one of them suddenly gets sick or can’t make the meeting, someone else has already had some leadership ability and can just pick up where the other person left off. I would also say that, from my experience, most groups have some sort of unofficial co-leader. It’s really interesting how that comes about. Even groups where there is a professional, say at a senior center, leading the group, there always seems to be a group member who is committed to being there to help. And that sort of person is really a great potential group leader for when the main leader is not there. So do encourage that if you can.

Some things you can do to start these leadership skills with people, to engage your group members. As we said in the beginning, just because you are the one running the meeting and booking the speakers and leading discussions, doesn’t mean that you have to do absolutely everything on your own. For example, if you have a couple of volunteers who can make reminder calls before each monthly meeting, you’re gonna get more people showing up and it will take some time off your back and help you out. Having a few people who would like to be greeters to welcome people and get them refreshments. You might also want to target some people who are more




experienced with living with vision loss and be kind of a buddy for new members that you can match them up, and the experienced member can show them the ropes as to where to sit, where the washroom is, talk about the refreshments, answering any questions they have about the group. That can go a long way to making sure that a group member that’s new wants to come back again. Also, as I mentioned before, when meetings are getting started, there’s usually a crowd of people around the speaker. By having a buddy who is alert to any new members, they will be an extra pair of hands and eyes for you who can let you know that someone new has joined for that meeting if they happen to get past you.

It’s nice, too, if you are serving refreshments, to have someone stationed at the refreshment table, and someone who can carry food or drink for anyone else who has mobility issues and might have some difficulty carrying it. It’s great if you can get people to help you with the setup and, especially, clean up. And, as we mentioned before, your group members are your own best source of ideas for planning discussion topics for the future. The more people you can get helping you with the group, the more you can get them involved in different aspects, the more likely you are to have a vibrant group, but also be able to target future leaders to keep the group alive long after you have had to give up the leadership role yourself.




All right, I think I will end there, just in case we have time for any questions.

Ed HainesWe have a text with a suggestion that at the beginning of the meeting everyone can go around and say their names so everyone will know who’s in the room and where they’re seated. Yes, certainly, that’s a great suggestion. Jamal, do you want to try to give your question again? And Ann has written to remember to send thank you notes to past speakers. You’re absolutely correct, Ann. I can hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head telling me the very same thing. Thank you notes are important. Jamal has written that he just wanted to say thank you, so you’re very welcome, Jamal. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Okay, if no one else has any questions, I think we will close the seminar. Polly if you’ll just stay on for just another second here I’ll give you a chance to say a final farewell. But a bit of housekeeping. This seminar recording will be archived on the low vision focus website at www.lowvisionfocus.org, as well as the Hadley School website, www.hadley.edu. And, for those of you who have listened to archive recordings, you know that they are available 24/7. Each Seminars@Hadley is now available also as a podcast which you can download and listen to on your computer or mobile device. And, for those of you on Twitter, Hadley’s Twitter hashtag is Seminars@Hadley.


http://www.hadley.edu/

http://www.lowvisionfocus.org/



Thanks everyone, again, for participating today. We really do value your feedback, so please let us know what you thought of this seminar and, certainly, suggest future seminar topics by sending an email to [email protected], and by completing this survey I’m going to launch right after we conclude today. I’m just gonna hand the microphone back to Polly for a final farewell, and then we’ll be trying to launch the survey.

Polly AbbottHi everyone. Thank you so much for being a part of this seminar. I’m sure many of you are leading great support groups and that you’re obviously here today because you want to continue providing a great experience for your group members. Now, if you are interested in continuing to connect with other support group leaders, Second Sense has a Listserv that unites all of the vision loss support group leaders. It started out just as people in Chicago, but now it stretches across the country. So, if any of you would like information on how to join the Listserv VisionExchange for support group leaders, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I will leave my contact information on the screen here and with Ed as well. Thank you very much.


mailto:[email protected]



Ed HainesWell, thanks so much Polly. This was actually a lot of fun and I think there was a lot of great information here that we were able to talk about today. And thanks everyone for attending. Thank you all so much.

[End of audio 0:55:45]


Documents

Low Vision Focus Presents: Vibrant Vision Loss Support Web view · 2016-07-29... and perhaps even did they understand everything they were told. Now, a word of caution, if you design