As a volunteer working with disabled people, they will have to deal with several situations that might cause different feelings in them. In this method, we will have to prepare our volunteer to be ready for what it might be coming.
Step 1:
Introduction of the topic. We can start with a little introduction of this collective of people, differencing four big groups of disabilities: mental disorders, sensory impaired disabilities, physical disabilities and developmental/social disabilities. We might need to give the person a few examples of each group and general characteristics of them.
Step 2:
Emotional engagement. We will ask the volunteer about their background working with disabled people. If they have had a previous contact with them, they could probably deal easily with what it would be coming soon; but if they haven’t, this method will approach them to several realities that might be likely to happen to them during the ESC project.
Step 3:
Emotional management. The main part of the activity will consist in expose the volunteer to several realities, one per group of disabilities (in the resources, you will find two per group, and there are much more if you search online!). Before starting the first video, you will give them a paper with lots of specific emotions and feelings, classified by more general feelings. Once that has been given, you will follow these steps with every video: 1) Watch; 2) Detect emotions; 3) Reflect and explain in case it’s needed; 4) Detect after-reflection emotions.
Here you have several comments and questions that could make your volunteer get closer to every reality during its reflection:
Tip from a Mentor
Let your volunteer speak freely about that they know about those realities and try to complement their knowledge of the topic as much as possible. Remember that this is about creating empathy, dealing with own emotions that might appear and let them normalize those realities in order to be ready to work with them in a horizontal way.