This is a fictionalized account. All resemblances to real individuals and situations are merely coincidental.
Notes from today's meeting:
Maya leans toward Meadow- who is dressed in red shoes, red belt ( as if we don't know anything about gang affiliation when we see it)- on the corner in front of the PACT, a shelter for homeless youth.
"My roomate has got a dick..." says Meadow in a low voice, "and I can't stand her."
Turns out, Meadow's talking about Kye, a tranny from Pennsylvania, who showed up at the PACT, and into our "leadership group" one week ago.
So, when Today's discussion on the demographics of homeless youth in Hollywood begins, Meadow gets up, and walks out after Kye takes over the discussion, leaving an unsigned contract on the table.
It's not resolvable, says Simon, the PACT clinical director, who says,"we place clients in housing according to their self-identification, so even if Kye is biologically male, she's going to be placed in a woman's dorm room, with a female room mate."
"There just aren't any other rooms available...and imagine if we just let people change rooms for whatever reason they wanted to...this place would be chaos," continues Simon.
It's another in the litany of reasons for lack of cohesion, lack of follow through in our group. The task of putting together a speaker's bureau of homeless youth, with a long term goal of creating a council to ponder policy issues is looking a bit dubious today.
Now, we're in week 7, and at a point where there should be camraderie, some group dynamic, some trust, but every week there are these reasons.
Today's include Meadow's, but Kareem is also MIA. Apparently, he's in Lancaster, meeting a newborn child that's his.Funny, I thought he was having a kid with Meadow, who three weeks ago said SHE was pregnant, but that it was time for her and Kareem to go separate ways- "I just don't see him being a good long term partner," she said.
As we move past Meadow's absence, a discussion of education and homelessness takes place.
Kye was in five high schools.
"Do we count schools we went to while locked up?" asks Pepe, knee high white socks up to his plaid shorts.
"Of course," I answer.
"OK," he says,....."Then, 6."
"And how about you DJ?" I ask an African-American man, who is as close to lying down as possible in his chair as one can be while still sitting.
"Me?...I was in 5."
Training others, or just teaching others, is a lesson in both transparency and manipulation.
ReplyDeleteThere's the motivation- which, if genuine, is tying the training's goal to the trainee's personal goals and interests. That's the transparency.
Then there's the urging of students past their comfort zones, which is, generally accomplished by manipulation. False praise, turning those missteps into learning moments, etc.
Today's training was to wrap heads around the fact they'd be running workshops in high schools in LA. Workshops about homelessness, that break open the stigmas attached to being homeless, and in doing so, deal with the pain that it caused each participant in our group.