Devloping Mindful Practice

When I first began my field practicum at a middle school in a low-income area in the Bronx there was a period in time when I could not figure out how to apply organizational skills to my casework. Initially my small group of two girls was withdrawn and chose to entertain themselves individually rather than interact with the group as an entity. After both students had developed a better level of comfort with me the group transitioned smoothly into norming. It was during a casual conversation that one of my clients, who will be referred to as MM, came up with the idea of running a clothing drive within the school building. A clothing drive orchestrated by a group of students whom I traditionally lead seemed like a great opportunity to not only work on the state mandated counseling goals of the students, but also to utilize the perspectives and guidelines related to Organizational Management and Leadership.

The preparation and engagement stage of the project commenced as soon as MM began to explain her vision of how the drive would work. Through my responses I started to build organization capacity by acknowledging each idea and responding with further questions. It was essential to keep MM’s role as the “originator of the idea” intact so that she would continue to advocate and be the face of the students. It is possible that if I had stood too firmly in my role as the leader, that MM would have been discouraged enough to slightly withdraw from her membership in the team. Her eager nature towards this idea gave her a larger reason to hold other students to membership standards as to support the continued growth of the drive. Burghardt and Tolliver’s explanation of participation elaborates on the import benefits of membership such a...

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