By: Karinna Hershberger and Tyrin Johnson
Some St. Louis Center residents and staff participating in the welcome committee’s learning circle on July 12, 2024.
As first-hand witnesses to one of the St. Louis Center Welcoming Committee’s first ventures, we can confidently say it was a success. Despite being in its early stages of development this incredibly beneficial committee, which includes the residents who participate in a day program called the Taylor Program at St. Louis Center, has truly created something that makes the new hires and new residents feel exceptionally welcome.
New Beginnings with Montessori
Robin Smith, Training Coordinator and Supervisor at St. Louis Center, is the bright mind behind the idea of the committee. She recently attended a conference covering Montessori principles. During which, she gained a newly ignited fire for integrating the principles into almost every aspect of life at the center. One of the results of her passion is the resident-led welcoming committee. She felt that, as the training coordinator of new employees and direct care workers, she could implement the Montessori Philosophy’s principles through a program that gave residents control over an aspect of their community that would enhance the integration of new individuals.
Generally, the nerves of starting a new career can be hard to overcome. However, it is noticeably easier when someone (or in our case, many someone’s) sacrifices their time to take you to lunch and show you around. On June 24th, we arrived at St. Louis Center as new hires, not knowing what the week would look like. As it turned out, the first week here consisted of hours of training before we could jump into our new roles. However, breaking up the daunting cloud of training, bright and welcoming lights shone through in the form of several residents.
Jerome handing Kristinlee, a new hire, a welcome goodie bag before her campus tour on July 16, 2024.
A Winning Welcome
The welcoming committee of St Louis Center is comprised of the friendly individuals Albert, Antoine, Bradley, Cathy, Jacqui, Jerome, Joey, Kevin, Kyle, Linda, Matt, and Ray. As a part of the committee, it is their responsibility to show the new hires and residents “the ropes” of the community. Their jobs consist of taking you to lunch every day, as well as escorting you on a personalized tour of the facility, taking special care showing off their homes and rooms.
These residents also prepare goodie bags for each individual, which contain a lunch schedule, water bottle, magnet, pen, highlighter, notebook, and laundry schedule. They also designed a quick personal survey in which they ask questions about favorite hobbies, foods, and movies–these are turned into profiles and shared so that everyone can get to know the newcomers. The committee makes decisions, like what to include in their goodie bags, based on the suggestions they get from each other during their meetings referred to as “learning circles,” one of which we had the opportunity to attend on, July 12th, 2024.
Antoine sharing his opinion on how things are going with the welcome committee during a learning circle on July 12, 2024.
Learning Alongside
We met Friday morning and our first learning circle did not disappoint. Once everyone was seated, Jacqui P., the appointed leader of the schedule, began with an icebreaker question, “What is your favorite summer activity?” The residents then went around the circle passing the microphone and answering. Many of the residents said their favorite summer activity is swimming or walking, among many more exciting things. Jacqui kept us on schedule as she went through the rest of the questions one at a time, making sure everyone got a chance to voice their opinion after each question. Some of the other questions covered in the meeting include, “Who would like to go on Tuesday’s campus tour with the new hires?” and “What questions would you like to ask the new hires?” This meeting was informational and fun to sit in on as we learned the decision-making process of the welcoming committee and everyone made suggestions on how to integrate new individuals into this caring community.
Jerome, Matthew, and Albert, welcome committee members, giving Kristinlee, a new hire, a tour of the Center on July 16, 2024.
The learning circle is an exciting and different way for the residents to lead the discussion with control as they pass around the microphone. It is important to the staff who sit in on these meetings to only help by providing support for the residents because it is their wish, based on Montessori principles, for the welcoming committee to be completely resident-led. A way for that to be possible is the inclusion of these learning circles where residents can make critical decisions regarding the functionality and future of their organization. Robin made it clear that all ideas so far and those moving forward will be led by the residents. This will allow for the program to grow and change in ways that the residents see fit. Moreover, the staff involved in this program ultimately have the goals to nourish the residents’ ideas and help their committee grow.
Moving Forward with Montessori
As the residents look forward to the future of their committee, they hope to one day include tours for donors and prospective donors to give them a personalized experience of the beautiful facility. The residents also expressed interest in name tags for future welcoming events so new people and other individuals could remember their names. Overall, the residents of the committee hope to persist in growing their ideas in order to continue creating a welcoming and joyous atmosphere here at St. Louis Center.
While talking to Robin we asked how the residents responded to their first official welcoming week with us. A large part of the Montessori doctrine is asking the individuals questions like “Did you like that?” or “Would you like to do that again?” So after implementing those questions into the process, Robin told us that a couple of the residents were nervous that newcomers wouldn’t like them or have a good time. But after a few days, those residents responded very positively, saying that they really enjoyed the experience and would like to do it again.
Additionally, we wanted to get some personal perspectives from some of the members of this committee so we paid special attention to the residents’ answers when Jacqui asked “How are things going with the welcome committee?” during the learning circle. Many of the residents positively answered with good, but one answer stood out. When asked how he thought the welcoming committee was doing, Joey enthusiastically said “Great, awesome, tremendous, excellent!” We think that is the perfect way to describe this committee because it certainly has been a great, awesome, tremendous, and excellent experience for both of us and we are excited to see what the residents will do next!
Read the entire issue of St. Louis Spirit here!
