Initial Thoughts and Session 1 At Gracehaven Home

Our team conducted the first session of our emotion management workshop on October 12th. A few days before the workshop, we were given a list of names of the youth, both boys and girls, who would be joining us for the session. As I read the brief information given about them, I recall wondering how the youth would be as we met them in person. Would they be hard to manage? What were their problems? Would they be like 'normal' youth? Would they overshare? Would they not like the fact that they are sitting in for a emotion management workshop? What will they think of the fact that they have been picked to go for the workshop? What would they think of us, the facilitators?

I have had experience working with many groups of people including children and disabled adults as well as the elderly. I recall that before meeting the various groups, I would have moments where I wonder if I would actually be able to connect with them and to impart skills or be of purpose to them. Especially when I was working with the disabled adults during my internship, I felt inadequate at first, questioning if I firstly, had the skills to communicate with them and secondly, if I could see past their 'disability' and treat them as adults who just need a little more support? Similarly, before meeting the youth-at-risk at Gracehaven Home, I questioned myself if I really knew how to communicate with them and if I knew how to treat them in a way that will not be patronising to them. It helped that I did some research about youth-at-risk and how best to work with them. That gave me some initial confidence as to how to relate to them better.

Before interacting with the youth and conducting the session, I came up with a few personal goals that I wanted to achieve besides imparting knowledge to the youth through the 3 sessions. Being a service learning project, I not only wanted to give back to my community but I also understood the importance of my own learning and how it helps me give back in better and more effective ways. I hoped to understand how to facilitate workshops as well as how to assist the main facilitators by being observant and thinking on my feet. I also hoped to gain insight into how to relate better to various groups of people and how to engage them effectively with the content. I hope to develop a better sense of empathy for the youth-at-risk and learn to see beyond their label.  

Since the sessions were gendered, we had the first two-hour session with the girls. The girls walked in and I immediately sensed that there was some tension between the girls. There were 3 girls who walked in together while the other 2 were somewhat distanced from the others. I felt a bit awkward as I was not sure how to start talking to them and how to get engaged with them. The facilitators were each paired up with a resident and my partner happened to be very loud and boisterous. At first, I found it hard to talk to her as she was not as responsive to me. It was only after the first activity that she (and I) warmed up. I realized that it was important that I was also a friend figure to them and not an authoritative figure as they would find it hard to open up. What struck me during the session with the girls was how open my partner was about talking about her self harm scars. I found it hard to react to her especially as it was out of the context of the game that we were playing. I knew about her scars as it was written in her profile but I did not think that she would talk about it so openly- her radical honesty and her ability to talk about it with a tinge of dry humor rendered me speechless. Nonetheless, I kept my expression as neutral as I could and talked about another topic. It was at that moment I understood how important it was to be trained well to work with youth-at-risk and knowing how to respond to them talking about sensitive issues. I wished I could have reacted in a more supportive manner and I admit that I lacked the emotional resources to react in a more suitable way other than to switch topics.

During the second session of the day, this time with the boys, I found them to be much less passive aggressive and in some sense, easier to manage than the girls. While the younger boys were a ball of energy and were running around, the older boys were more subdued in their mannerisms and were more reclusive, in terms of not wanting to participate in the activities. My partner, an older boy, was very quiet at first and it was very awkward for me to strike conversations as he was not as chatty as the girls. When sharing their stories about how they dealt with anger, I could see stark differences in the ways the boys reacted. They were more violent and they were not afraid to show their anger in physical forms. What shocked me that session was that during the Alternative Game, where the participants were given scenarios and told to talk about ways to deal with it, they almost always gave very healthy ways of dealing with anger. This led me to realize that it was probably that these youth knew of some ways in which they could deal with their emotions healthy, but when in the heat of the moment, they often reacted in rash ways as it was the first thing they could think of. When I asked my partner if he had tried walking away from the situation when he was angry, he said that when he has, the people around him will laugh at him and taunt him for being a 'loser', which often made him more angry and fight back instead. For me, walking away when I'm angry helps me to manage myself but for him, the thought of him losing in another's mind by walking away makes him even more angered. I found this very thought provoking as it is not always that a perceived 'healthier' way is often the best way for all. It is very much dependant on the individuals and the people they surround themselves with.