his dissertation is a narrative account of the enduring outcomes for teachers of their participation in a 3-day professional development workshop. MESH Support Group Facilitator Training is part of a suite of programs, known as Student Assistance Programs (SAPs). The SAPs initiative has been the focus of studies investigating student outcomes over a number of years, primarily in the US. The focus of this study, however, is the outcomes for teacher participants in SAP Support Group Facilitator Training workshops. As the name suggests, the purpose of these workshops is to educate people to be able to facilitate support groups for their students. Support groups are groups that “meet for the purpose of giving emotional support and information to persons with a common problem” 2 (Kurtz, 1997, p. 4).
T
The purpose of this chapter is to provide accounts of the development of one SAP in the US by Cheryl Watkins,3 and of how the program was adopted by Nairn
1 (Kegan, 1982, pp. 16–17).
2 During the training, the use of the word “problem” is avoided, because of its negative connotation,
and the assumption that for problems there are solutions. Instead, the use of the word “issue” is favoured.
3 Cheryl Watkins, MA, is now executive director of the Chemical Awareness Training Institute in
MESH Support Group Facilitator Training Walker, a Tasmanian school teacher, who has since become the Australian trainer for this program. This chapter also provides a descriptive account of the processes that participants experience during the 3-day workshop, and contextualises this study in relation to studies that have investigated the influence of SAPs on student participants.
The Prologue and Introduction have introduced two of the protagonists in this account – Nairn Walker and me. This chapter begins by recounting the experience of Cheryl Watkins,4 another protagonist.
Being recruited to the welfare of another – Cheryl’s experience In October 1980, Cheryl Watkins was a teacher in Arizona, with 12 years’ high school teaching experience. One day, as part of a prescriptive state curriculum offered by her school, Cheryl had shown a video on alcoholism to her year 10 health class.
The story was about an alcoholic mother and her daughter. The movie had me in tears! At the end of the film, a girl named Kay, who was in the top 2 percent of her class academically, was crying in front of my desk and pointing to the screen, saying, “That’s my mom, and it hurts so bad. Can you help me?”
I had no training and didn’t know what to do, so I referred her to the school counsellor who also had no training in this matter and referred her on to the school social worker. The school social worker pulled out her 12-step meeting book and told Kay there was help for her. “Just go to an Alateen5
meeting!” she said.
Kay was very bright. She asked the social worker, “How can I get there? I don’t drive. Will my mother let me out of the house to go to a meeting to deal with her drinking? I don’t think so! Most of all, when could I go? Do you know who the mother of this house is? I’m the mother! I take care of my brothers and sisters, make sure they do their homework, and stay up all night watching my
Programs and Professionals (NOSAPP) and been a board member of the National Association of Leadership of Student Assistance Programs (NALSAP). In 1987, she was named National Student Assistance Professional of the Year. Cheryl has also published articles on Student Assistance Programs (see, for example, Watkins, 1989; Watkins & Chatfield, 1995; Watkins, 1986).
4 I recruited Cheryl Watkins to the study via Nairn Walker (third-party recruitment). Data for this
narrative was generated from a single interview conducted by e-mail (see p. 328 of the Methods chapter for further details). Cheryl consented to being identifiable for the purposes of this study.
5 Alateen is part of the Al-Anon fellowship, and is a recovery program “for the younger relatives and
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mother when she drinks and smokes so she doesn’t burn the house down. When could I go?”
Kay did not come back to my class for 2 weeks and when she came back it was like looking at the walking dead – a body with no-one inside. I asked Kay, “Where did you go?” I was not asking about her absences, but where did she go inside? She proceeded to tell me about her suicide attempt and waking up after 4 days in a coma. She went on to tell me about the psychiatrist who asked her why she would want to take her life. She said for the fourth time – “My mom’s an alcoholic.” The psychiatrist went next door to ask the mother if it was true. Kay’s mother denied the accusation, said she loved her daughter, and was not an alcoholic. The psychiatrist returned to Kay and told her that her mom was not an alcoholic, because she told him so!
I often wondered how Kay must have felt after reaching out for help so many times. So much for education and the helping professionals! Did we all look at her as the problem? Or could we have the courage to know that we all let her down and didn’t know how to help her. I also wonder how many educators were at one time in her shoes, and no one heard their cries for help.
I felt a tremendous responsibility as her teacher and the adult she reached out to. Her story and pain deeply touched me. My principal said, “Why did she not come to me?” He was baffled! I asked him if I could start a small support group to help Kay and other students, who, like her, were desperately struggling. He was open to letting me start a group, as long as it was kept quiet. That was brave, because no-one else in the state had ever sought to address such an issue.
Kay then asked her favourite teacher if she could miss her class once a week to attend the weekly support group. The teacher said “NO! You can’t miss my important film today and your grades have dropped from an A to an A-.”
I was extremely upset as I entered the teacher’s classroom, and said “You can’t do that! She almost died!” Her teacher said, “I don’t care, why did you pick my class for her to miss?” I started to cry. I felt totally powerless to help this girl.
Cheryl’s feelings of powerlessness ended that night. Her passionate belief that schools should do more to support students like Kay caused her to begin rewriting her school’s policy documents. In that revised documentation, she included support for a
comprehensive program to address emotional and mental health needs of students. Cheryl’s lobbying also ensured that her initiative would later be taken up by all schools in the district.
The entire SAP program was created from experiencing what wasn’t there. The basic elements were put in place: (1) Advisory Board; (2) District policies and procedures; (3) Education of all staff; (4)
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Identification and referral systems; (5) Support groups that meet in school, during the school day (6) Prevention activities; (7) Education and support of parents and community; (8) Curriculum infusion; (9) Community networking; (10) Program evaluation; (11) Program leadership at the district and school level; and (12) Staff wellness.6
That’s how it all started. I will never forget Kay. We were destined to meet. It was looking at her face every day – not knowing if she would come back alive the next – that drove me to create the program. She was my inspiration to start the program and she was also the inspiration to begin my own healing journey. As I learned how to help Kay, I learned how to help myself, my loved ones, my staff and my friends.
As Margaret Mead said so well:
The solution of adult problems tomorrow depends in large measure on the way our children grow up today. There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing when we save our children, we save ourselves. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
It’s been an amazing adventure!
Since that time, under Cheryl’s guidance, the program has become a state and national model, recognized by school districts throughout the US. In addition, Cheryl has been involved in the development of national and state school substance abuse legislation. Subsequently, the training program she developed has been adopted in approximately 50 states in the US and 30 countries, including Australia.
Cheryl believes that the program she developed changes the heart and our relationships with ourselves and each other. It is a universal program that brings humanity together as a human family. SAP has become my life work. I never dreamed it would go around the world. I also continue to grow and learn more as life changes. I have used everything I teach in my own life with the people I love. So, my life is one of continual growth. I have also had the privilege to mentor others, who are starting where I was 25 years ago.
Nairn Walker is one of those whom Cheryl has mentored.
Seeing better – Nairn’s experience
Since my first experience of the MESH program in November, 2002, Nairn and I
MESH Support Group Facilitator Training have travelled, lived and worked alongside each other, 3-days-at-a-time, during numerous MESH Support Group Facilitator Training workshops throughout the Australian states of Tasmania and Victoria. As a result of the friendship that developed between us during this time, I was already familiar with Nairn’s story of her early engagement with the Student Assistance Program in the US. However, in order for me to be able to re-tell her story for the purposes of this study, we sat together one morning, in the light and airy comfort of her home, and I recorded her story as we talked together about her experience.
Like me, Nairn had a serendipitous introduction to the program.
In 1997, Nairn was teaching at Smithton District High School, on the North West coast of Tasmania. It was a beautiful place, and I loved it; the kids were so good and I really enjoyed being part of the community. I was really enjoying things at school, but had this sense of “I’m just going through the motions;” I felt like I was just “doing time.”
I’ve got a friend who’s passionate about the violin, and I’ve always admired her passion. And for a long time I was really passionate about wanting a passion. I could see that her passion gave her life so much meaning, and she was excited every day. Whenever she talked about the violin she was so inspired and excited. And there was stuff I used to get excited about, but there was nothing that was a driving force.
Looking for new opportunities and experiences that would bring added inspiration to her teaching, Nairn applied for and gained a Rotary Foundation Group Study Exchange scholarship to Arizona in the United States.
Nairn had said to a friend, “When I come back from Group Study Exchange, I’m gonna know what I’m gonna do with my life.” I had no rational cause for saying that, but I had this sense of conviction that that would happen.
Together with other scholarship recipients interested in developing their understandings of their own professions, Nairn travelled to Arizona to study teaching. Her particular interest was in finding ways to increase her students’ engagement with learning.
We had a really nice time, but it was just that; it was a nice time. The people were just incredibly hospitable and so gracious and generous, but it was like one big holiday, and a big party, which was all very fabulous, but at the end of the day, the 6 weeks finished and I felt, “Oh. Oh, that’s it.” I
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was basically gonna go back and say, “Oh, it was really good, but ….” And I was feeling a bit guilty that I hadn’t, vocationally – given that it’s a vocational exchange – that I hadn’t actually learned that much.
What I’d come out of the 6 weeks with was a recognition that Tassie was way ahead of the ball. That we, educationally, were practising a lot of what they were just coming to – struggling to just start articulating around criterion-based learning and collaborative learning and all that sort of stuff. On my Rotary “wish list” I had put that I wanted to see a particular author, Dick Sutfin, who was based in Scottsdale, Arizona. He’s a new-age guru, but I’d really wanted to see him, ’cos his books I just loved. I’d thought, “Awesome! What an opportunity.” Believing, at that time, that Rotary was a reasonably conservative organisation, Nairn had been careful to couch her request in terms of education. Rob, the Rotarian appointed to make sure that the people on exchange got their wish lists met to the greatest degree possible, had done everything he could to find out who Dick Sutfin was. He’d asked people everywhere. No-one knew him. And 5 weeks into our 6 week exchange there was a big cocktail party; the District Conference. We hadn’t seen Rob for a month but we met up with him, and he came over and he apologised profusely. He said, “Look, I am so sorry. I did everything I could to try and find that man. I’ve asked literally hundreds of people, but yesterday I came across a guy who’s heard of Dick Sutfin.” And Rob’s wife, Rose, who was standing next to him, said, “Dick Sutfin? Honey! I go to his retreats. All his books are on our bookshelf! What are you talking about? He’s in Sedona!” She said to me, “I could’ve got you to meet him.” It was just amazing. Rob couldn’t believe it. It was so funny, ’cos he’d asked everybody BUT his wife! He could’ve sorted it out instantly. But we’d already been to Sedona.
As it turned out, Rob’s contact had said, “If she’s really into all that kind of stuff, I know some people in the education department I could hook her up with for a vocational visit.” And so that’s what happened. The second-last day of the exchange, Rob and I spent the morning with a music therapist, Sammi Whytecap, and the afternoon at a different school, with an art therapist, who worked with kids in schools to address their emotional needs.
Sammi Whytecap, the music therapist, showed us around a school and talked about it, and they were doing great stuff, and right at the end of the meeting she said, “When does this exchange finish?” And I said, “Tomorrow.” And she said, “Oh, that’s a pity!” And I said, “Why?” And she said, “Oh, there’s just this thing and I thought you might’ve been interested in it.” And I said, “What is it?” I don’t know what it was, but something just, I just kept on asking, and she said, “Oh, it’s just this support group program. I’ll find the flyer for you.” On the front it just said, “Student Assistance Program,” and it had the date, “11-13th June, 1997.”
MESH Support Group Facilitator Training Nairn recalled that at the time that she had booked her flights to and from the US, the Rotary travel agent had asked, “When do you want to come back?” She hadn’t minded, except that she was expected to be back in Smithton for the start of Term 2 on the 16th June. The agent had said, “How does the 14th sound?” I said, “Yep, okay.” We just pulled
a date out of the air.
Anyway, this was the 11th, 12th, 13th of June, and I was coming home the next day. So, I just
knew, I said, “Yep, okay, I’m going.” Didn’t know what it was. Opened up the flyer and it had all this stuff: children of dysfunctional families, feelings, meeting the emotional needs of kids. “Yep, I’m definitely going.”
And so for the next 3 or 4 weeks I hung around, basically waiting for this group. I was so homesick, and I think it was probably because Shane and I got together before I left for America, and I remember saying to him the night before the course, “This course had better be good, because I’ve basically hung around waiting for it.”
I stayed with the District Governor of Rotary, and he dropped me off at the course, and picked me up that afternoon. And he said, “Well, how was it?” And I said, “Oh, Rob, it was fantastic! It was really good!” And he said, “You should take this back to your schools in Australia.” And I said, “Rob, I’d be happy if I could just get this into my school.” And he smacked his hand on the car steering wheel and said, “You Tasmanians, you’re all the same! You think like this!” Nairn circled her forefinger and thumb around each other making a narrow window. He carried on about the natural resources, the business opportunities we have, and he got so frustrated. I was like, “Rob, Rob, you don’t understand. I’m just, you know, I’m just a teacher.”
When he said that [about thinking in too narrow a way], it didn’t mean anything to me. I see now what he means.
Nairn returned to Tasmania, and her teaching position in Smithton, and trialled support groups with the kids in Grade 8, through the MARSSS program, 7 and my Grade 11 class. A few teachers at the school were interested in the student outcomes they were observing, and asked, “Would this lady teach us? Do you think she’d come out from America