Communication, Resilience and Growth in the Face of Disaster

This year I have been fortunate to work with an amazing group of Middle School students, who attend East Side Community Middle School.   East Side is normally located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and is historically a neighborhood school, with the vast majority of students walking to school daily.  This September, unfortunately, there was a structural snafu, and the entire ceiling began collapsing unto itself, not only causing fear and temporary evacuation, but also exposing the entire building to asbestos, undiscovered prior to the collapse.  The result was a yearlong relocation of the entire Middle School, of near 300 students, to one half of the 6^th Floor of P.S. 1, located in Chinatown, and historically a neighborhood Elementary School with a predominately Asian student and faculty population. 

Following the initial evacuation, mass texts from teachers and faculty informed every parent of the evacuation and need for early dismissal.  Even in chaos, the digital age of communication prevailed, and quickly and efficiently at that.  Following immediate texts, a flashing red message was put up of the school's website, and a Post up on Facebook, alerting the parent “friends” of the Facebook page to see the alert by push notifications on Smart Phones immediately.

As the school transitioned to P.S. 1, similar notices were again found on the website, alerting parents of special entrances, new hours, and transportation options for students.  Also sent to parents via e-mail was a link to the Principal’s Twitter feed, where he was able to Tweet any special directions or updates immediately. 

Since the students have transitioned, they have faced some bizarre new obstacles, including lack of desks or chairs, lack of traditional classroom space, and what some experienced as an initially hostile rapport with the faculty of P.S.1.  The students have done a remarkably good job of working with all of these new circumstances, and also tolerating being in a new neighborhood, up many flights of stairs, further from home, and in a school not identified as their own.  The resilience of the students has been magnified in comparison to the staffs’ reactions.

This displaced community found themselves in even more unfamiliar ground on October 29^th, as the City of New York was struck by Superstorm Sandy, and suffered unprecedented devastation and loss.  Amongst the many organizations, companies and agencies disrupted, was the disruption of the entire NYC School System, with those schools located south of 23^rd Street identified as the most vulnerable. 

As students and faculty of East Side alike sat home awaiting news of school re-openings and any further displacement, I found myself anxious and hoping that these students would not be displaced once again, fearful that they were at their limit of disruption.  Texts to faculty's phones came in from the Principal, alerting that there had been damage to P.S. 1 but students would likely be able to return.  Mass e-mails followed up with the instructions to navigate the NYC Department of Education website for up to date information.  Again a link to the schools Facebook page and the Principal’s Twitter feed included. 

The NYC Department of Education used a drop down menu, predominately and purposefully placed on their website’s homepage, to encourage any users to locate a school on the drop down menu, and select, to see the return date, any displacement, or special notices.  East Side’s Facebook page was up to date, and encouraged any family who was in particular need to contact the school’s Parent Coordinator via e-mail, phone or Facebook message.   The Principal kept his Twitter feed positive, with notes of support and encouragement for the student body, many students followers themselves, and also reminders to “take advantage of the time to rest and read!” 

In past weeks, the response had from the families has been overwhelmingly positive.  While many families did not have access to television, and could not see Bloomberg’s continuous stream of updates, most were able to retain phone power for some period of time, and eventually recharge at other locations. 

Because of the need for many on the Lower East Side to relocate, and if not then surely be without television or landline, it was the Smart Phones, equipped with Facebook, Twitter, texting capabilities, and e-mail access that saved the day and provided not only an outlet for the school system, and this specific school to communicate, but also an invaluable resource for the families and students affected to have some sense of knowing and connection in a time of emergency and extreme disconnect.

As the students at East Side have shown me over and again these past few months, the resilience and strength of children is unquestionable, and I have no doubts that those students, as they continue to grow and live in a world of ever evolving technology, will bring their strengths to this table of social media, and expand our digital world even beyond our current comprehension.

Tanya Simon

Hurricane, social media and more

My agency is Gouverneur Health Service http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/gouverneur/html/home/home.shtml, an outpatient clinic under NYC office and member of HHC (New York City Health and Hospital Cooperation http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/html/home/home.shtml ). I am working in the behavioral health department http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/gouverneur/html/services/behavioral.shtml . (The hurricane-related posters are already removed on Dec 6th, so unfortunately there is no evidence for what I am talking about.)
   
When the hurricane came, the Gourverneur website posted a notice that all appointments of the week are canceled and employees are not required to come for that week. Directors and some of the staff came to office to call their patients and help handle the patient who walked in.

During the first week after hurricane, our department director made several announcements on staff meeting: reporting to the staff the loss of our department and the temporary closure of Bellevue hospital (with which we have a close relationship); therapists should help patients with disaster processing; setting up a group for patients processing hurricane; taxi fees reimbursable during the hurricane week for employees who came to office; employees who volunteered at Brooklyn shelter were acknowledged and the hours counted for working hours, etc.

Our agency use the computer system regulated by HHC. Since the first week after hurricane, the screen-saver was updated saying "call this number if you need to talk about hurricane", etc. In addition, the information of hurricane processing group was posted on Gouverneur website (but was removed on Dec 6th, so now there is no poster related to the hurricane there).

During the second staff meeting after hurricane, which took place on Dec 3rd, our department director announced the newly established emergency plan: 1) Every employee filling out a chart of basic information of all his/her patients, keeping hard copies in office, in case of power off and co-workers can help contact patients; 2)Every employee filling out a form including their personal contact, address and zone code (zone are divided for car pool); 3) Establishing an emergency leaders' group; 4) Handing out the contact tree that have been established, requiring two-way active communication. 5) Will test the contact tree in the preparing process for the coming Christmas party (Everyone communicates through the contact tree about who brings what to the party).

Some comments about the using of social media: 1) During and after Hurricane, we posted relevant information like when our clinic is closed or open. I found it is important but it may not really relieve patient's anxiety, especially those who ran out of medicines and those who are severelly affected by the hurricane. So it will be more humane if we could put some brief information like "If you ran out of medication, you can..", "If your home is affected by the hurricane, you can...", etc. 2) In addition, I found the information was only posted on the homepage of Gourverneur, not on the sub-pages like mental health department. I think it is better that the sub-pages has some announcement from the department director, which can help relieve patients' anxiety. 3) Furthermore, as we work close with Bellevue hospital, we could provide some information about Bellevue and a link to the Bellevue website as it is severely affected by the hurricane. 

Some limitations of using social media for our agency: 1) Most patients don't use the website as a main resource for information; 2) All the agencies under NYCHHC share the same format of Website, so I think there maybe some technical difficulty if we want to put some instant information. 3) The staff may overlook the use of website as they prefer to contact patients personally and consider it as a more reliable way of communication.

    

Social media and DV

The beauty of social media is it gives people the ability to spread and receive information instantaneously to others anywhere in the world.  With websites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Blogger, sharing ideas is easier than ever. And in the digital age, social media has become a crucial part in agencies’ development plans.  

The agency where I am place at is Urban Justice Center’s Domestic Violence Project. The organization's ultimate goal is to promote social justice and bring about social change. They recognize the importance of giving the oppressed a voice and to share to the public the realities of intimate partner violence. In order to do that efficiently and to "cast a bigger net", DVP turned to Facebook and Twitter. On our Facebook and Twitter pages, we share any articles on the latest updates on any social issue, ranging from how to identify an unhealthy relationship to marriage equality to immigration issues. Our Facebook page also provides our address and hotline number.

In addition to educating our followers, we are able to promote our events such as our latest fundraiser. Staff members shared the page's invitation on their own private account thereby extending the invitation to friends of friends. The "tagging" feature on Facebook allowed us to thank and promote our sponsors who donated gifts for our raffle which helped attract more attendees. Lastly, we were able to announce last minute to our followers that 50% of what we raise would directly go to our clients who were affected by Hurricane Sandy. As a result, we impressively raised about $6,000 that night. I do not think this would have been possible without the help of our media pages.

Another benefit of social media is how easy it allows organizations to work together. For example, after Hurricane Sandy, Safe Horizons, another domestic violence agency, had the chance to report to BuzzFeed, a popular social news organization, to speak about the effects of Sandy on domestic violence.  Since domestic violence itself is often a hushed subject, it was very important that this article was published so that this oppressed group is not forsaken during this catastrophe.

DVP's upcoming project is also a collaboration with a news-worthy organization called Help-Portrait. Help-Portrait was started by a celebrity photographer named Jeremy Cowart who had a vision of fellow photographers around the globe giving back to their local community. Their mantra is simple: find someone in need, take their picture, print their picture and give it to them. The goal is "to give the family something they may have never had before—a portrait together".

We are extremely excited for this event because it fits so well with our mission. We aim to help survivors of intimate partner violence continue to live a life free of abuse and violence. With Help-Portrait's photographs, our families can make new memories and have a mark to new beginnings.

I think a great project for the future is starting a blog for survivors to share their stories. This is both therapeutic for clients as it is a great educating tool for the public to learn about the realities of intimate partner violence. As we know, blogs are a great tool to start conversation. It would serve as an open forum for anyone to speak openly and anonymously about the issue. Perhaps it can be an inspiration to those to leave their unhealthy relationships and to seek help.

One of the most important role of a social worker is to advocate for those who do not have a voice. We are lucky enough to live in an era where we have these tools that can help us broadcast ideas so freely and efficiently. With the help of social media, change might come about sooner than we imagined.

In today’s society, working in groups or in collaboration with others is a highly valued method.  Groupthink is widely employed by the workplace and in schools.  It is believed that by sharing thoughts and thinking aloud would increase creative flow, to keep each other motivated, encourage communication, etc.  As a manager, I would think that this is very important in a workplace because it would help build relationships among coworkers and help build a culture for the organization.

However, upon reading Susan Cain’s Quiet, a book about introverts, I learned that Groupthink is a method made specifically for extroverts and that it is not applicable to all kinds of temperaments in society.  In fact, this form of collaboration can be detrimental.  A psychologist named Solomon Asch’s experiment demonstrated this astutely.  He had a group of students take a vision test in which 95% of the group answered correctly.  Later, he had an actor join the group to state a wrong answer and 75% of the group went along with the actor’s incorrect answer.  This experiment was conducted again in 2005 by Gregory Burns-- this time with fMRI’s to scan the brain while the group answered similar questions.  When the group answered individually, only 13.8% of the questions were incorrect; when they were asked to work together to come up with one answer, 41% of the questions were wrong. 

Interestingly, the fMRI’s showed that there was an actual change in the brain’s activity during the group work.  It showed that the people who went along with the group showed less activity in the frontal lobe but more in the areas of the brain associated with perception.  This meant that the conformist’s change in answer was not because he or she wanted to fit in with the group and be well-liked but because he or she actually thought that the wrong answer was correct. 

This fascinating experiment reminded me that as a manager I would need to find a balance in what time of work methods I would like to employ.  When working with so many different types of personalities with different temperaments, it is important to understand what kind of working environment one is comfortable working in and to refrain from any rigid form management approach.  While techniques like groupthink is popular and widely used, it is not, as Asch and Burns show us, always the best way to improve performance. 

Leadership vs. Management

            In my understanding of leaders and managers, the most fundamental difference in the two is that both managers and their employees are chosen, and mandated to both manage, and follow out the tasks assigned, while leaders are followed voluntarily, and without the support of the voluntary follower could not exist.  It seems to me that within the scope of our class and my classmates, many of us may aspire to become managers within agencies or organizations, and perhaps what we can take from this class is that we also aspire to be leaders within those roles, encouraging followership via example and voluntary allegiance, rather than being satisfied with supervisees who are complacent merely by mandate of their positions.

            The articles around President Obama’s current term, as well as his campaign for the impending term inspire me to think more broadly about leadership versus management.  There are interesting observations to be made around the current campaign management, and I wonder myself whether this President, who has inspired followership amongst a great diversity of persons, particularly in the 2008 elections, could have been planted more directly at the center of the current campaign, focusing on his leadership qualities, ad not only the management of the country.  Ideally, we’d love to believe that at root of winning an election is having a genuine and inspiring leader, however in reality, I wonder if the management strategy of the campaign has a larger influence on the election outcome.

           

I also see a great divide in the roles of manager and leader within agency.  In my experience, those at an agency whom I would count as leaders hold a very different position than those merely appointed managers in dealings with the employees.  Those I count as leaders faced issues, problems and concerns with the approach of finding root causes and encouraging the staff to investigate the best possible outcomes.  These are the same leaders who ultimately would carry the burden if the staff’s efforts were not successful, and in best cases use these losses as a teaching tool and a way to move forward.  Those I have encountered who I would label strictly as managers, were much more apt to apply penalty when staff made a mistake, and to blame the staff for any unsuccessful efforts.  While management of programs is instrumental to program success, I have found that solely using this style of management promotes fear within the staff and a lack of loyalty.

As we continue to move forward in the field, I have faith that continuing to learn and examine the most fruitful strategies of management and leadership will allow my classmates, and myself, to one day manage efforts in ways that will prompt not only compliance, but rather dedication and loyalty within the agencies and programs in which we will have opportunity to work.

The article with the interview with Inwood House’s executive director brought up the issue of boundaries within an organization.  Linda Bryant states that it is important to not fall into the idea that the organization is a family but rather as a team.  I understood and completely agree with Bryant’s distinction on the two.  While it is nice to have the compassion for employees, it is also important to not completely focus on the relational aspect with them-- becoming too emotional would muddle the professional boundaries.  Another point that I liked was that in thinking the agency as a family, the executive director would be a parent thus relinquishing your power to the “parent”.  However, using the term “team” I think of more of a horizontal leadership where everyone holds accountability.  

However, personally I think I would have difficulty finding that balance between friend and manager.  I understand what the role of a manager should be on paper but putting it into action is a different story.  Oftentimes, to be a good supervisor, one might get into deep and personal issues.  For instance, as Bryant talks about conflict resolution and even mentions discussions of “underlying psychodynamic issues”, which may lead to intimate information on an employee’s life.   It would be difficult for me to not get too involved with my employees’ lives.  I imagine appearing lax because I understand where they are coming from and what in their personal lives are causing their behavior.  What can I do to that says “I understand but you have to do your job”?  Negative reinforcements such as warning letters, write-ups?  Or is this something that has to generally be nurtured with team activities or some merit system?  Or a mixture of both?  

Binders Full of Women: Gender in the Governors' Cabinets

I'm not the only woman seriously irked by Governor Romney's story at the last debate about having asked for "binders full of women" when he objected (or so he claimed) to the fact that his aides had brought him only names of men as possible appointees. First, as it has now come out, he did not "go to various women's groups." One non-partisan coalition of women's groups, MassGap, which had been working for some time to get more women in top government jobs, came to Romney with binders they had put together themselves. That is the factual account--not the mendacious pile of fudge that Romney tried to pass off on voters on Tuesday. Of course as the entire social network universe knows his "binders full of women" became the meme of the week with one inspired blogger soliciting and posting hilarious takes making fun of the expression. My favorite--and it was really hard to chose-- is Hillary Clinton in her sunglasses peering into her phone with the caption "Romney still uses binders? LOL"

So thinking about these binders of women I thought it might be fun to take a look at a couple of Governor's cabinets. First up, Ohio's Governor John Kasich. Kasich's Cabinet has 21 men and 5 women (one, the Lt. Governor, is elected). As I suspected, on closer look, there appear to be some possible race and gender tokenism going on in the group. No surprise that one of the women heads the Office of Aging Services and another Mental Health. I'll leave it to you to guess who among the men and women are likely to be African American (hint, look at the agency title). As you would expect all such groups that report directly to the guy in elected office are hierarchical and have a clear pecking order. Those who work with the money--Management and Budget--for example, will be at the top of the heap, those who are responsible for service provision at the bottom. Based on their positions and the level of authority they have over actual financial and other resources Kasich's cabinet could be arranged according to probable importance to him. If I had time to dig deeper I could arrange them according to agency budgets and find similar patterns. 

Now for another swing state governor, Scott Walker of Wisconsin. I was not able to find a neat listing of his cabinet but this news article from the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel about Walker's initial appointments is perhaps even more telling. Fourteen members, three women. And yep, two of the women are in the "girl" jobs, Tourism, and Children and Families.

I could go on. And I know I would find similar patterns irrespective of the party affiliation of the governor. My hope is that this whole affair will wake up some of those men and women in higher office that many of us women are well-qualified for cabinet positions and not just those that are the traditional girl jobs. Me (I have an MBA BTW), I want that finance and budget position. And I'll send you my cv via email.

At just this moment I got a robocall from Todd Akin for Senate. If he has a job to offer. I think I'll pass.