This story was told by a staff member at Centinela.
UCI: That’s great. And what is your assessment of the effectiveness of the lessons now that you’re doing it distance learning? Is it still, I mean, does it have, it doesn’t have quite the same effects but [unintelligible].
Caller: Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t – obviously, it doesn’t have the same impacts of, you know, what I described to you. You’re missing some pretty large components, which is the interaction.
That’s basically, you know, sort of the magic to our program, or the medicine if you will, is that people are connecting with each other and realizing that their stories not only have value but can be a benefit to other people. And other people share their similar experiences, and that in itself is a huge step for a lot of people that have been isolated and who have had trouble connecting and building relationships in their life.
So, that component is not there, but I do think it’s beneficial. I think the connection is still there, albeit it’s more, you know, old-fashioned via the Pony Express, but it’s still is a connection, and the topics that we choose still force introspection and create opportunities for self awareness. Which I think is, is huge.
These guys are, like I said, feeling super isolated and, and forgotten and just knowing that there’s somebody who cares to hear their perspective and give them an opportunity and challenge them to sort of think in ways that they’re not necessarily used to that can be a benefit, you know, for sure it’s advantageous for them.
But I also think it’s important for the relationships, now that we’re moving towards opening up again, at least those guys, you know, the trust that we’ve built with these participants in our class is over the years, they know, and are aware that we’ve attempted to keep it going so that when we go back in it won’t be like we just forgotten about them. So I think there’s still a lot of benefit of having continued the process.
