Student flies through practicum experience and contributes to marketing support group initiative | Clinton Haas

Captain's Log: Star date -309722.13, (actual star date) I am going on my eleventh week of being a student at the WSU Center for Community Support and Research, and I must say things are going great. I am currently finishing up a marketing plan for the Support Group Services Team, and it’s starting to feel like we are coming close to finishing the updating process for the 2,500 support groups in the database. Oh, I should probably describe a little about myself and why I am at CCSR in the first place.



Clinton Haas

It is now November in the year 2012; I am a college super senior (5th year) at WSU, one semester away from finishing my bachelor degree in Healthcare Management and Community Development (HMCD). To tell you the truth I am pretty jazzed! Eighteen years in school, and it is finally winding down. The beginning of the next chapter of my life is a semester away.

For this hands-on learning I heard a plethora of good recommendations for going to this place called Center for ehh… let’s just call it CCSR. (Later I learned to remember the whole name.) Here they have five pillars that branch over a wide array of health, leadership, and community assistance.  I chose to join the Support Group Services side and help with a database. Truth be told, I thought that this initiative sounded rather easy, and it would add some strength to my resume.

Little did I know that Angela, my preceptor, would have me running around with a constant list of groups I needed to research, various tasks for other staff, and even have me start a marketing plan! I was tickled pink to have the opportunity to really dive down deep and do work in which I could be a strong asset.

Through the development of the plan I was asked to help decide what type of merchandise CCSR should buy, i.e. pens, cups, and memo kits. To my dying day I will remember Joyce saying how she will only use a thin point pen and how she outright hates anything larger.

Well, here I am, with my marketing plan in the review process. Most of the groups are updated in the database minus a few stragglers and, here I am feeling like this semester has been one of the bigger learning opportunities that WSU could give me.


At a recent conference, Clinton shares information about

support groups with participants.

The relationships that I have developed here, the learning process of how to facilitate a meeting, the number of daily e-mails I send out has quadrupled. Being a college student and saying that I have actually become accustomed to waking up, being somewhere at eight a.m. and still able to function fascinates the crap out of me.

Overall, I would say that my experience here has helped prepare me for the future. It’s what I have been striving for since I was eight years old. Thanks to WSU for requiring this practicum experience to graduate and a big thanks to CCSR for having me here to receive guidance!

Class: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the student Clinton Haas. His five-year mission: to explore strange new classes, to seek out new life and new learning opportunities, to boldly go where no student has gone before.

Youth Leadership Has a New Face in Kansas | Bailey Blair

Canaan Giesen, member of Wichita YLinK

Opportunities for youth leadership are rare, but especially for young people with disabilities. We at Wichita State University’s Center for Community Support and Research are honored to have the opportunity to facilitate one such opportunity for youth with mental health concerns to practice leadership in a safe and welcoming environment. Called Youth Leadership in Kansas, or YLinK, these groups are an extraordinary example of youth coming together to support one another, to fight the stigma attached to mental illness in our community and in our world, and to advocate for themselves and others like them.

CCSR was awarded a grant from KDADS last year to provide capacity building support to these groups in order to help them further their goals.

Through biweekly meetings, quarterly conferences, and community events, these groups from across the state of Kansas are making a significant impact not only on their own lives and futures, but also for those facing similar battles in the world around them.

The photo depicts Canaan Giesen, Wichita YLinK member, bravely participating in a recent activity that was designed to enhance self-confidence to overcome obstacles and focus on one’s strengths.

For more information regarding the YLinK program, participation, or hosting a group, please contact Bailey at bailey.blair@wichita.edu.
 



Online support group research offers insight, practicum student wonders about support groups in Nigeria | Gbolahan Alex Ajisope





Gbolahan Alex Ajisope

My experience with support groups started when I joined the WSU Center for Community Support and Research as a practicum student this semester. Before I started working on the Support Group Services (SGS) team, I never thought that there were organizations or groups of people who would come together in order to comfort and support each other during difficult periods in their lives.

I find it very interesting because as simple and casual as it may look, a majority of people have been able to gain comfort from many of the support groups listed in the SGS database (supportgroupsinkansas.org). I added some new support groups to the database and also updated some of the information.


For my project I agreed to research online support groups. I wanted to experience an online support group, so I joined one. It took a while to find one where I felt I could offer legitimate conversation and gain experience. Eventually I figured out that I needed to find a support group for college students. Then it didn’t take long to sign up for a group.

I had a lot of fun with the group. I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me online throughout the week, but eventually I met a lot of students and members on Saturdays and Sundays. I think that was because students were busy with school projects, assignment and work during the week and they seem to only come online on the weekends. They came together to relax and talk about everything going on in their academic lives as well as other issues. We exchanged a lot of ideas and advice, which was really cool.

The benefits people derive from support groups cannot be overemphasized. Groups help members gain a sense of empowerment and control. They also help people reduces stress, depression, and anxiety among other things.

My overall experience with support groups have made me wonder how I can start something like this in my home country, Nigeria, and how these can be spread to as many countries as possible.

Alex was accepted into the Masters of Public Health program at the University of Oklahoma and he plans to begin in the spring of 2014.