Mentoring through the eyes of Doc Wayne

Post Written By: Deirdre Roberts, Marketing & Communications Intern

The month of January marks National Mentoring Month (NMM) across the country, giving people the opportunity to celebrate mentors and the passionate work that they do. NMM was established in 2002 by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership.

The goals of National Mentoring Month are to raise awareness of mentoring in its various forms, recruit individuals to mentor, especially in programs that have waiting lists of young people, and promote the rapid growth of mentoring by recruiting organizations to engage their constituents in mentoring.

Here at Doc Wayne (http://www.docwayne.org/) our mission is to fuse sport and therapy to heal and strengthen at risk youth. Associate Director, Rebekah Roulier believes that, “in our work at Doc Wayne, we have the incredible opportunity to show a child we believe in them 100% and help them feel they belong to a team, are supported, and can utilize our staff’s guidance to find their positive path in life.” Rebekah has had numerous mentors on and off the field that helped her learn skills, but what was most impactful to her life were the mentors that taught her to focus on the broader more important goal of developing her leadership. Here you can see a mentor/mentee relationship of Rebekah’s that positively influenced her career.

Various members of the Doc Wayne team have reflected on the positive effects their mentors have had on their lives and what mentoring means to them.

Executive Director, David Cohen remembers his private school soccer coach who still acts a mentor to him today, “he instilled in me the importance of commitment, respect, confidence and the need to be involved with things I am passionate about.”

Megan Willette, Clinical Manager-Boston reflected on the mentors she had growing up, who gave her validation and guidance when she was at certain crossroads. And now as a mentor today Megan explains that, “I believe in mentoring because it has a profound impact on people in both the micro and macro worlds. Mentoring creates bonds and makes it possible to mold minds. At Doc Wayne we intentionally form this relationship on the micro level with every group…If there is a lot of trust in a relationship it is going to be a healthy one, which is the foundation of mentorship. At Doc Wayne we continue to build up, knowing that every mind matters.”

Why do we believe in the importance of mentoring at Doc Wayne? That can be explained by Clinical Director, Jonathan Baum, “I believe in mentoring because positive relationships and attachments are the key to leading a happy and successful life. One person can make all the difference.”

How to get involved in National Mentoring Month? Visit National Mentoring Month and also join in on International Mentoring Day January 17, and if there is a mentor who positively influenced your life, whether it was a former coach or teacher, be sure to thank them on Thank Your Mentor Day, January 21.

For more information about Doc Wayne please contact us at info@docwayne.org and follow us @DocWayneDtG.

Team Doc Wayne at Wayside 5k4Kids

Doc Wayne staff and supporters came together on a chilly Saturday morning at Walsh Middle School in Framingham to participate in Wayside Youth and Family Support Network’s 6^th Annual 5k4Kids.

To show our team spirit, each team member sported matching “Do the Good” t-shirts, tie-dyed prior to the event. After a few minutes of stretching and warming up, the team lined up at the starting line and began the race. All in all, each of us jogged, sprinted, or walked over the finish line, ending the race with strong strides meeting our goals with smiles and high-fives along the way. Congratulations to our sister organization, Wayside Youth and Family Support Network for a successful event! Our Doc Wayne team had an incredible morning doing our part to empower children and families to achieve greater independence and emotional well-being. Thank you to all who assisted our team in our efforts on Saturday.

For more information please contact us at info@docwayne.org or follow us @DocWayneDtG.

Doc Wayne Named Providers’ Council “Innovator of the Year”

Doc Wayne Youth Services was honored to accept the “Innovator of the Year” award today from the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers. The award from the Council acknowledges innovative business models and practices that promote greater value and increase social impact.

The Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, Inc. is a statewide association of health and human service agencies. Founded in 1975, the Providers’ Council is the state’s largest human service trade association and is widely recognized as the official voice of the private provider industry.

David Cohen accepted the award on behalf of the organization at the 39th Annual Convention & Expo held at Marriott Copley Hotel (Boston, MA). Please click below to view the award presentation.

For more information on Doc Wayne please visit www.docwayne.org, contact us at info@docwayne.org, or follow us @DocWayneDtG.

Mural Complete in South Boston

Youth in South Boston were involved in our Global Life Empowerment (GLE) program and together worked on designing and painting a community mural with the theme “There is Unity in the Community!” The mural is complete and images are below.

Doc Wayne volunteer coaches, Jose and Andrew, show off the work of their team of youth.

The GLE program seeks to:

• Empower youth by giving them a voice
• Provide additional out of the classroom writing and alternative self-expression opportunities
  Teach self-regulation and social skills
• Help youth learn to advocate for themselves, their needs, and desires in appropriate ways.
• Youth work cooperatively, with team members and their coach, to share their responses to suggested changes, lessons learned, and group leadership activities experienced.

For more information about Doc Wayne and the Global Life Empowerment program please visit www.docwayne.org or contact us at info@docwayne.org.

Summer in South Boston

Many exciting things are happening at Doc Wayne’s South Boston site, the Joseph M. Tierney Learning Center. In collaboration with the Tierney Learning Center and the Boys and Girls Club of South Boston’s Fun in the Sun camp, youth have continued their progress on their positive paths through Chalk Talk sport-based group therapy this summer.

In celebration of youth success and the one-year anniversary of our partnership, the Tierney Learning Center hosted Doc Wayne Family Night. Families interacted with Doc Wayne coaches while enjoying refreshments, an equipment raffle, and team slide show.

 

Doc Wayne and Tierney Learning Center staff on Family Night

Youth involved in Global Life Empowerment (GLE) have been hard at work designing and painting a community mural with the theme “There is Unity in the Community!”

Youth painting GLE mural

Work on GLE Mural Begins!

 

For more information on Doc Wayne Youth Services, please contact us at info@docwayne.org and follow us on twitter @DocWayneDtG.

 

Power of Love and Forgiveness Reaches Doc Wayne Youth

Within Doc Wayne’s Chalk Talk Group Therapy Program, and supported by the Fetzer Institute, pilot sessions utilizing the newly launched Teaching Love and Forgiveness Through Basketball curriculum were recently completed. Doc Wayne’s collaboration with the Fetzer Institute provided youth with a 7-week opportunity to learn about love and forgiveness within the context of basketball. 43 youth were served at a low-income housing development and residential treatment facility. Insights into youth participants’ experiences of, understandings about, and obstacles faced in relation to the themes of love, forgiveness, and trust were gained through the project. 

Please see pictures of Doc Wayne’s Love and Forgiveness Celebration hosted by the Joseph M. Tierney Learning Center. For more information on Doc Wayne Youth Services please visit www.docwayne.org or contact us at info@docwayne.org.

 

Doc Wayne participant congratulated by Nikki Valila (Coach) and Rebekah Roulier (Clinical Director)

 

ABOUT THE FETZER INSTITUTE (@FetzerInstitute):

The Fetzer Institute’s mission is to foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global community. People across the globe, from all cultures and traditions, embrace love and forgiveness in daily life. These values are universally viewed as central to the fabric of humanity. Yet, the emerging global community has few institutions dedicated to deepening the understanding and fostering deeper awareness of these values. In this context, the Fetzer Institute pursues a unique role—working to investigate, activate, and celebrate the power of love and forgiveness as a practical force for good in today’s world. We are interested in how people truly experience and understand love and forgiveness from their diverse points of view, especially from the perspective of their daily work in the world.

ABOUT DOC WAYNE’S CHALK TALK GROUP THERAPY PROGRAM (@DocWayneDtG):

Through Boston ASAP (http://www.bostonasap.org), Doc Wayne provides Chalk Talk as a billable, sport-based group therapy program that creates a clinician-guided environment where sport is the lens through which youth examine important social and emotional issues in real-time. The curriculum teaches the principles of do the good® by both didactic and interactive approaches. In a series of weekly sessions, participants undertake written goal setting and movement-oriented exercises to develop the thoughtfulness, sense of competence, and feeling of effectiveness that are derived from positive sport participation and are essential to social development.

Doc Wayne Youth Attend Junior Celtics Clinic

Saturday was an exciting day for many Doc Wayne Chalk Talk participants! Thirteen youth from the Tierney Learning Center at The Homes at Old Colony in South Boston had an opportunity to improve their basketball and leadership skills by participating in the Junior Celtics Program—a community outreach initiative presented by New England Baptist Hospital in partnership with the Boston Celtics. Rookie guard Phil Pressey led a skills training session and shared powerful words about hard work, positivity, and motivation. Even Lucky, the Celtics mascot, lent a helping hand by encouraging Doc Wayne’s youth to “Play to the Whistle” (a Doc Wayne curriculum skill) throughout practice. We’re looking forward to tracking the athletic and leadership development of Chalk Talk members participating in the Junior Celtics program over the next four weeks!

Check out photos from the event below!

Lucky with Doc Wayne youth and coaches

Lucky and Doc Wayne youth

Doc Wayne Executive Director David Cohen and TLC Coach Jose Sotz

For more information on Doc Wayne Youth Services please email info@docwayne.org or visit http://www.docwayne.org.

Youth-Led Holiday Gift Drive a Success

It was a great season of giving for our youth at Doc Wayne. As a part of our Global Life Empowerment (GLE) program (http://www.docwayne.org/what-we-do/GLE), the Pumas from Youth Villages at Germaine Lawrence Campus worked hard to give back to those in need this season. In their first annual Puma Gift Drive, they were able donate a plethora of items ranging from food, clothes, personal hygiene, baby supplies and more to help those at an emergency shelter at HarborCOV, a domestic violence agency in Chelsea. Not only did the Pumas capture the do the good spirit in this project, but they also made a difference in their community during the holiday season.

Take a look at their success! We look forward to more projects this coming year with the YV Pumas and our other GLE players!

For more information on Doc Wayne Youth Services please email info@docwayne.org or visit http://www.docwayne.org.

Social Innovation Forum

Hello friends of Doc Wayne! It’s our pleasure to inform you about an exciting distinction recently bestowed upon our organization. At a reception held yesterday evening at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge, Doc Wayne was welcomed into the portfolio of Root Cause’s Social Innovation Forum as a 2014 Social Innovator in the category of “Breaking Down Barriers to Effective Mental Health Services”.

Root Cause is an organization dedicated to improving the performance of selected non-profit organizations adjudged to be engaged in truly visionary work in their respective fields. A list of past recipients reads like a who’s who of organizations using outside-the-box models to foster social change and, as an organization which uses the medium of sport to achieve these ends, our selection as mental health service providers validates the therapeutic value of our interventions!

Such support is greatly appreciated and will surely allow our organization to achieve a greater impact with the youth we serve as well as give us the opportunity to expand our reach to more young people in need through the power of sport.

For further information about Root Cause’s Social Innovation Forum, please visit http://www.rootcause.org/social-innovation-forum.

For more information about Doc Wayne please contact us at info@docwayne.org.

Best wishes for the holiday season and here’s to an even brighter 2014!

Doc Wayne Launches Chalk Talk in South Boston

This summer has seen an exciting new expansion of Doc Wayne’s sports therapy programming in partnership with the Joseph M. Tierney Learning Center at the Homes at Old Colony in South Boston. Through a collaboration with Boston ASAP, Doc Wayne is providing Chalk Talk group therapy to the youth residents of this community. Intake of participants for this course of treatment began in July and the first official session was successfully conducted on Thursday, August 22^rd. Below is Old Colony’s beloved Coach Eddie preparing to help out Doc Wayne clinician and GM Rebekah Roulier in delivering the inaugural Chalk Talk session.

Old Colony’s Coach Eddie ready to help out!

Through Boston ASAP, Doc Wayne provides Chalk Talk as a billable, sport-based group therapy program that creates a clinician-guided environment where sport is the lens through which youth examine important social and emotional issues in real-time. The curriculum teaches the principles of do the good ® by both didactic and interactive approaches. In a series of weekly sessions, participants undertake written goal setting and movement-oriented exercises to develop the thoughtfulness, sense of competence, and feeling of effectiveness that are derived from positive sport participation and are essential to social development. Through Boston ASAP, Chalk Talk will be offered statewide.

If you would like more information about Doc Wayne or Chalk Talk, please email us at info@docwayne.org or follow us on twitter @docwayneDtG.