Challenge and Selection

While attending the Dehradun, I was a Personal Ethics Education Representative (PEER).  Our  primary job was to act as liaisons between cadets and mental health agencies.  Part of that job was to be  effective active listeners.  Active listening to a PEER meant asking questions that continue conversations  without offering solutions.  Our goal in active listening was to offer empathy, allow a person to verbalize  their feelings, and, if needed, provide an agency that can help them through problem sets they may be  facing.  A major challenge we faced was preparing new PEERs every year.  Some PEERs had little  understanding or grasp of this concept and some didn’t even care.  We used storytelling as a vehicle for  training new PEERs because it put concepts (in this case active listening) into an easy-to-understand  frame and it was more engaging and tangible to PEERs who initially displayed apathy.

Application

We used storytelling in several ways.  The first was to provide a real-life scenario where active listening  proved to be an asset to PEERs in getting fellow cadets aid they needed.  The second was Providing an  example story that provided context in a personal way.  Finally, we used storytelling to provide possible  situations a PEER may face and gave them the opportunity to practice active listening for themselves.

When we told our first story, we used an actual experience a PEER had with actual names and  identifying information censored or changed.  Ultimately this PEER was able to listening to the cadet's  thoughts, pull the emotions and core problems the cadet identified from them, and was able to  effectively direct them to a helping agency.  The cadet went on to have a successful career thanks to the  help of that PEER.  We told this story as an introduction to contextualize the concept and to promote  empathy.  It showed that this job could have a direct impact on the life and success of other cadets.

Our second story, we implored trainees to draw from personal experience.  We asked them to think of a  time where they where they were emotionally charged and felt the need to talk to someone.  How did it  feel to verbalize their feelings?  Was the person they were talking to focused on solutions rather than  listening?  How did that make them feel?  This story was to demonstrate why active listening was a  valuable tool for PEERs and why passive listening or problem-seeking listening can be frustrating and  discourage future endeavors to seek out help.

Our final storytelling, was a series of stories told in small groups.  The facilitator would act as the  individual seeking help from the trainees.  They would explain the basics of their situation and it was up  to trainees to pull out important information without invalidating feelings or driving the help-seeker  away.  Not only did this provide practice, but it also provided more context in which active listening can  be used.  The sum of all this storytelling was to show the problem sets fellow cadets faced, incite  empathy, and provide tangible examples for why we should care about active listening and the position  of PEER.

Insight

I had the unique position of seeing both sides of the coin when it came to using storytelling in this  context.  When I first became a PEER, I got to see it from the trainee side.  I was excited about the job,  but apathetic towards the training.  I thought most PEER training was an insult to my intelligence.  After  being guided through the second story, however, I understood the difference between my version of

listening and active listening.  This changed my perspective for the training as a whole.  I realized there  were perspectives in PEER training that weren’t necessarily offered in typical, everyday life.

On the other hand, I got to see this as a trained PEER, helping new arrivals.  A major takeaway for me  was seeing how storytelling could incite empathy.  I had one trainee, a football player, who was  disengaged and uninterested in both the position and the training.  He started to gain some interest  with the storytelling given to the group.  When I provided my own experience, where someone used  active listening for me, and helped me climb out of a deep depression and leave a toxic relationship by  taking me to a helping agency, he realized how real this position and training was.  He became more  engaged and verbal throughout the rest of the training.  This showed me that apathetic trainees do care,  they just may not understand the importance of why they’re there.

Approach

One thing I would change in the future is the generic feel of the stories.  I found the most effective  stories were one that a person in the room had experienced or felt.  While the stories we shared were  real stories, they lost emotion by being old or having the narrator distant.  In future iterations, I would  ask a volunteer who was comfortable sharing a story to tell their story in person.  This makes it feel even  more real.  It incites more emotion because the person who went through it is present and help convey  the emotion.  I think having a specific story like that would really drive home the message that active  listening and the PEER position are integral to cadet health.

