Going Virtual — A Checklist for Success
/by Ellie Rabinovitz
Flexibility and adaptability are two of the most revered skills taught at The Meeting House. In fact, they are key ingredients in our SEL model and are emphasized on a daily basis. Little did we know how essential these skills would be over the past four months, as we instantly shifted from our “normal” in-person sessions to our virtual reality Zoom chats. As a volunteer at The Meeting House and Ph.D candidate in psychology, I found myself utilizing these skills heavily. Learning how to work on Zoom required me to continually adjust my teaching style in order to engage the teens on video as easily as me and the team did in person. The teens were then able to model our flexibility and adaptability skills and in a short time we were back on track and had successfully transitioned to our new “normal.” Being flexible and easily adapting to new circumstances may have been the basis of our accomplishments but there are several other ingredients that aided us in our transition. The other factors listed below are equally important in guiding your venture into a rewarding and thriving virtual
• It Takes a Village: The Meeting House model has always been a team approach, only now this approach involves a lot more planning over Zoom than in person. As a team, we have learned that in order to keep students engaged, each staff member must take on a different role. While one of us may be leading the viewing of a video, others are prompting with conversation starters, providing a quiet space in Zoom “breakout rooms,” and monitoring the technical aspects of the session. At times, learning how to balance the flow of these sessions as a team has been challenging, but these obstacles have turned into valuable learning opportunities.
• Using Tech Skills to Launch Social Skills: As 12 to 16-year-olds, our teens have grown up using technology. These tech skills have not only helped immensely in our transition to a virtual program but have also aided in the teens’ social development. Having the ability to stay engaged over the screen has allowed our staff to help scaffold key skills that apply in both virtual and live environments.
• Virtual Engagement: Because we currently lack the physical proximity for engagement, this unique time has allowed us to become creative in our development of high intensity and high engagement activities. From touring the African savanna to riding the Mount Everest roller coaster at Disneyworld to visiting the zoo, the wonderful tool of screen sharing has provided us the opportunity to explore exciting places with our teens that we were not able to do before. and given us new topics of conversation that we would not have had before the transition. The team has also incorporated fun movement and dance parties into each session as to offset some of the sedentary screen time that comes with a virtual program. One of our favorite new activities is having the teens analyze The New Yorker magazine covers; the results are often quite smart, comical, and poignant.
• The Power of a Community: Although we may be miles or even states apart, our sessions have retained the important group dynamic that we so crave every week. For some of our teens, this is the only time they can see their friends from The Meeting House. This space has allowed us to make new memories while also building onto old ones. The new faces that join us during this time are welcomed by the group and offer new friends, new experiences, and new perspectives that continue to let us thrive.
• Creative Skill Building: While our platform may be different, the important skills we strive to develop have always remained the same. Teaching conversation skills, timing, and patience is perhaps even more important as we converse and learn together over Zoom. We sometimes rehash older sessions and reflect on how skills we learned then may be used or looked at differently now in our new online medium.
• What Happens on Zoom Stays on Zoom: Above all else, our teen program has always been built on a foundation of trust. Our teens keep coming back week after week because everyone truly wants to be there; this is the key to creating our virtual therapeutic space. If someone is in need of a quiet or one-on-one space, a staff member is always available to enter a private breakout room. Our lessons, mistakes, laughs, and bad days remain confidential and safe, and we believe this is what sets our teen program apart.
In a time replete with so much uncertainty, we are grateful to provide our teens with fun, friendship and community each week. We look forward to, hopefully, continuing in-person at our new upper east side location this fall and always welcome new friends to try us out at any time.
About Ellie:
Ellie is passionate about social emotional skill development and has been volunteering her time at The Meeting House for almost one year. She is an essential part of the virtual Teens program and a great resource.
She is an incoming second year student at the Ferkauf School of Graduate Psychology in the Bronx where she is obtaining her Doctorate of Psychology in school-clinical child psychology. Her experiences as an undergrad at Emory University, as well as her job as a research assistant at the Duke Center for Autism, helped develop and further her love of working with children and teens on the Autistic spectrum.
