About the Project
 

What is the Community Support Group Project?

What is the purpose of the CSG?

What is the philosophy of the CSG?

What happens during a support group meeting?

What is the CSG model?

How can I support the project?

Logistics

what

What is the Community Support Group Project?

The CSGP is a proposed television series intended for live broadcast on one of the local public service TV stations (Hilo 5 TV or Na Leo 'O Hawai'i.

The series will follow the conversations of a communication skills support group. This free support group will consist of ten volunteer Correctional Facility inmates, ten volunteer assistant co-facilitators (Big Isle residents), thousands of Big Isle television viewers, along with a communication skills coach, referred to as the facilitator.

The support group will be referred to as the Community Support Group (CSG).

The CSG will meet for three hours on the same evening, every week, for 24 meetings (about 6 months).

Community viewers will tune in weekly and follow the CSG much the same as they do now for the televised Hawaii County Council meetings.

What viewers will see are the ten inmates (referred to as support group participants) and the facilitator sitting in a circle engaged in conversations. The facilitator will initiate the conversations as well as provide feedback and coaching.

"Coaching" here means: The facilitator, the support group participants, the assistant co-facilitators, and the viewing public will all provide feedback when there is something about a anyone's communication that—

• doesn't feel good
• is inaccurate
• is confusing
• will most likely produce more of the same results—such as way of communicating and relating that led to his incarceration

Viewers may call in during the 3-hr broadcast and provide feedback or advice. They may also express their considerations for or against any participant's upcoming parole.

From time to time an assistant will read phone messages from the viewers. Through discovery-learning participants will expand their ability to communicate openly, and honestly, through to mutual satisfaction.

Inmate volunteers must have a minimum of six months remaining of their sentence, at least six months before their next parole board interview.

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purpose

The purpose of the CSG

The purpose of the CSG is to experience an expanded ability to create mutually satisfying supportive communications.

Participants will volunteer to be guided and coached in communicating and relating in a way that feels good for all concerned.

Participants will share how family members, friends, and community members can best support them once they are paroled.

For example:

"Please don't offer me a drink or light up a joint around me while I am on parole."

"You have my permission to call any one of the ten assistant co-facilitators the first time you have a less than satisfying communication with me that has not been resolved through to mutual satisfaction within 24 hours."

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philosophy

The philosophy of the CSG

A community's communication model (the way its members communicate and relate with each other) produces certain predictable results. In Hawaii our unique multi-cultural communication model determines everything from teacher's salaries to the number of failing students and incarcerations. All results are by-products of our individual support and leadership communication skills.

How we have been supporting each other these past decades has resulted in an increase in incarcerations and the recidivism rate. A two-year study revealed that 42% of Hawaii's parolees had returned to prison, mostly for parole violations.

The objective of the Community Support Group Project is to co-create a new communication model—a way of communicating that supports everyone in being whole and complete.

The philosophy of the CSG supports personal responsibility.

Communication skills coaching is educational, not therapeutic.

Community Communications, the sponsor of the CSG, is a nonpartisan, nonsectarian, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 

The study of communication begins with "putting in" and "recreating" one's integrity.

"Until you put in/restore your integrity you cannot be certain whether a undesirable results or a thwarted intention has to do with how you communicated or if it's a consequence of an out integrity." —Kerry 

Considerable time is spent during support group meetings restoring/recreating one's experience of integrity.

The vast majority of parolees leave prison without being acknowledged for all of life's perpetrations. Therefore their integrity sets up life for them to get caught (again) so as to be acknowledged and to be complete. For example, few people have been acknowledged (caught or admitted to themselves or another) their very first lie. Most have honestly forgotten it, and therefore they are still hiding it, from themselves and their parents. This childhood deceit, and hundreds (possibly thousands) of other unacknowledged lies, affect one's outcomes to this day. Part of why a correctional officer/counselor can't get into communication with a prisoner about the hundreds of "forgotten" childhood perpetrations is because they themselves have not acknowledged all of theirs.

It takes thousands of hours of training for a communication skills coach to be skilled enough to be a safe space for another to recall and communicate life's unacknowledged perpetrations.

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during

What happens during a support group?

The first session will consist in part of sharing with television viewers the "CSG Agreements." The CSG Agreements will already have been co-created and agreed to by all the participants during the Inmate Enrollment Process.

Some example agreements:

• Show up on time.

• Attend all sessions through to completion.

• Raise your hand if you wish to speak.

• Raise your hand and wave if you hear someone communicating abusively or you hear a lie (this stops the conversation and the facilitator gives priority to the hand waver).

• Raise both hands if you need to go to the bathroom.

• Be willing to be supported in communicating responsibly (zero blame or badmouthing).

The CSG facilitator, the assistant co-facilitators, and the community of viewers will be in communication with each participant—supporting him in communicating truthfully, completely, and accurately his specific perpetration from the point of view of responsibility.

In later sessions considerable time will be spent coaching participants in their presentation to the Parole Board Members regarding their readiness for parole.

The objective will be to have all participants granted parole. The goal is to ensure that none return to prison—ever.

Inmates will know up front, before volunteering for the project, that the community of viewers will not only offer feedback but that they will continually phone in their parole recommendations. That is to say, an inmate might be able to deceive a Parole Board Member with a statement such as , "Yes, I'm going to go straight from now on" but it is highly unlikely that they will be able to deceive an entire community. At least one viewer will be able to detect and acknowledge the lie if there is one. The consciousness of the combined awareness of all the viewers will support each participant in telling the truth in order to have the majority of viewers vote for his parole.

Note: Parole Board Members have no obligation to agree with the community's final decision.

A significant portion of the CSG session conversations will be about locating and communicating incomplete and less-than-satisfying (mostly childhood) interactions. Unacknowledged childhood good deeds, lies, perpetrations, and withholds affect our day-to-day conversations and influence the results we produce. Each session will begin with an "Acknowledgment Process."

Releasing a parolee back into the same social environment—the same social/familial communication model that supported his incarceration, is at best irresponsible. Quite often it results in the parolee's re-incarceration.

It is anticipated that community members (viewers/business merchants) will offer jobs and extend supportive friendships to each participant. This is based partly upon the phenomena of how attached the public becomes with Big Brother and Survivor participants.

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model

The CSG model

The CSG is modeled after a leadership communication skills support group developed by Kerrith H. (Kerry) King, B.S. and M.A. in Speech-Communication. Kerry has served as a US Navy submariner, a UDT member (now called SEALs), and as an Army Infantry Airborne (paratrooper) commanding combat units in Vietnam. Kerry has also taught speech-communication classes part-time for the University of Hawaii (Manoa and Hilo).

Kerry has refined the support group model over a period of 30 years. Three hundred and five Hawaii residents have completed six or more months in a ten-member support group.

List of Support Groups:

• Monday Night Get-Together for Managers (MNGT) (Oahu)
• Men's Support Group (Oahu and Pahoa)
• Sales Support Group (Oahu)
• Family Support Group (Oahu)
• Couple's Support Group (Oahu)
• Woman's Support Group (Oahu and Pahoa)
• Businessperson's Support Group (Oahu, Pahoa, Kona, and Kauai)

All groups have met every other week for a minimum of six months, most for two or more years in a row.

The longest running group, the Kona Businessperson's Support Group, has met continuously every other week for 17 years with perfect on-time attendance along with zero unexcused absences. Of the original 10 members one still meets 2x each month to this very day. Support group participants are committed to each other's success and are in communication with each other between sessions.

One outstanding feature of a support group is that members learn how to support others in achieving goals and each other's things-to-do lists. This cuts down on procrastinations—in effect preventing thousands of out-integrities and perpetrations.

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