Hand in Hand Certification: Your Questions, Answered - with Michelle Kokel, Training Director

0:04 welcome to this ask me anything about the hand inhand instructor certification program um I am really excited that you've come and that you are considering becoming part of our instructor Community um we have over 250 instructors working on living and working on five different continents and bringing um support and ideas and perspective to

0:35 parents and other people who work with children um all over the world and um I'm going to spend part of our time together talking sort of introducing the certification program and going over sort of the main things I think would be helpful to understand answering some of the questions people tend to have and then we'll open it up to Q&A so you will get to ask me anything that you're curious about um the

1:06 program sound good yeah all right great so at hand inand we are working toward a future where parents worldwide have the tools and support that they need to meet their children's core needs for connection and also have an idea and the ability to help their children through difficult times um many of our instructors and instructor candidates have spoken to the way that the support

1:38 system that they build as they go through the hand inhand certification program and as that they find when they're part of the hand-in-hand instructor Community makes it easier for them to face challenges in their own lives and then to bring what they've learned to support the people that they're out supporting in the community and so um that's really what our program is all about we want to support you first and foremost as your figure as

2:10 you're experimenting with hand inand and the listening tools for yourself and in your family or with the children um with whom you work and then after you've had plenty of chances to try things out and sometimes to succeed and to try things out and to sometimes fail and to receive a lot of mentoring along the way as you're learning for yourself um we want to give you the tools and Empower you to sort of bring this approach to people with whom you

2:41 interact in whichever way you choose to interact with them and our instructors are involved in so many ways of supporting parents and school communities and you know people basically and um there's a lot that you can do with what you learn from this program we'll talk more about that in a bit so let me start by introducing myself um so my name is Michelle coel and I'm a parent of two I first

3:15 became aware of hand inand when my children were three and six years old and they're now 18 and 21 so I've been with hand inand for a while and um I've so I I know I know on sort of a firsthand level as do many of our instructors the difference that hand inand can make for a family so watching them come from you know the children they were and the issues we were facing to the amazing um young adults they are

3:46 today so much of that has to do with having hand inand in our lives and hopefully um just from the foundations class that many of you have taken already you've gotten a little taste of what hand inand can do and the way hand inand can transform people's lives so um at this point I'm a staff member with hand inand and my primary job is certification as is leading the certification program I also teach and work one-on-one with parents as a

4:16 consultant but my primary job is working with the certification program so the hand-in-hand certification program we have two main goals and I've already spoken to that a bit um first and foremost we we want to support each of our participants as they deepen their understanding of and practice of hand inand so the six to eight weeks foundations classes that many of you

4:46 have taken that's just the beginning um hopefully you've gotten a taste of what that can feel like and what that can be like um the certification program just Dives in that much deeper um it's a Hands-On experiential program you will be in a few different small group cohorts I'll I'll talk about the details of that in a bit but there's small group learning act act a set up so you can you learn together in small groups and you

5:16 also have plenty of individualized attention as you're learning so you will be mentored every step of the way um the first half of our program we really do focus on deepening your own understanding and use of the listening tools and listening support for yourselves um as you do it and then in the second part of our program people who feel ready to start thinking about bringing hand inand to other people we talk more about teaching and developing

5:45 the ability to teach it's a very much a self-paced program we don't have assignments that you need to check off um at a particular time boxes you need to check off homework there is plenty of work to be done but it's all meant to be done at your own pace in a way that fits into your lives so whether or not you're planning to be certified at the end of the program or if you'd really like to

6:11 use hand inand first and foremost for yourself we will support you with whatever you decide that's our primary goal um let's see so let me go over the basic structure of the program um in case it's not clear so it's a nine-month program that starts in September and ends in May and every month there are classes you will be in a

6:42 cohort of maybe 15 other candidates and there'll be three hand inhand instructors and there's a curricula that we go through so you will be learning about different topics every month in those classes they last about two and a half hours they're done on zoom on the week so either Saturday or Sunday and for people after you're accepted we send out forms to ask you about your availability and you can let us know um those classes are recorded So if you do

7:12 need to miss a class you can watch those recordings but we ask everybody who commits to taking part in the program to try to come to come to at least eight of the 10 monthly classes and most people who go through the program let us know that that's one of their favorite things about the the program you'll get to interact with people working toward being instructors who live all over the world um which is pretty exciting um we

7:38 have listening support on those calls we do demonstrations there are participatory exercises we have conversations you get to ask questions so a lot happens there in addition to the monthly calls there are weekly small group um weekly small group mentoring calls so every week you will meet with a mentor who is one of handin hand's most

8:08 experienced or some of our most experienced instructors are the mentors for the certification program and you'll be in a group of four candidates and you will meet for an hour and again it's listening support a place to ask questions about anything that's coming up for you a place to report back on times when you you tried setting a limit with a child um and to celebrate when that goes well and a place to get some help when you set a limit with a child

8:40 and they bite you and you get angry and you know you lose your mind and what do I do next this isn't working at all um so those calls are just a place to bring you know the the hard stuff and the good stuff and to share with others and also that listening support we do every every every week we meet um those groups often get very close and often at the end of the program people decide to continue

9:06 with those groups for their own support um ongoing one of our goals actually in the certification program is for everybody to leave with a very robust support system and that's something we will Mentor everyone with along the way just because we know you know one of the core pieces of hand inand is that everything goes better when you have support um you know there there are so many things that you want to do there are so many goals you have you have so

9:33 many hopes and all of that tends to go better when you have people on your side and you have a place to work on where it gets tough and you don't have to show up somewhere looking like everything's just fine and you've got it all under control so we try to offer that um so you get to feel it for yourselves as you're learning to offer it to others so let's see so I talked about the monthly classes I talked about the

10:02 weekly mentoring groups um the next thing we ask of everyone in the program is to have at least one listening partnership with someone else who's going through the program at the same time at least half an hour away half half an hour each each week and um that can be hard for people I know that everyone who has a foundations class gets a little taste of what listening support and listening Partnerships are like but we really want all of our

10:31 instructors to have that for themselves and so again we will Mentor you in terms of setting it up in terms of how to use the time for yourself in terms of learning the art of listening well the Art and Science of listening um so that you can feel confident in your ability to support other people well um especially if you're thinking of going out and teaching hand in hand so you will actually get to experience that

10:58 during the program um there's also an online classroom so every month there are articles and books and videos that reinforce the topics that we bring up in the monthly classes so you will have access to that 247 and you can you know go through those assignments again at your own pace when you have time for them we also have a dedicated discussion group for people to ask questions it's moderated by one of our mentors certific mentors so any

11:31 question you have again using the listening Tools in your own family using the listening tools with children you work with anything that you read anything you know that was said in the monthly classes if you have questions or concerns or comments or if you just try something and are stumped about how to help things go better you'll be able to ask on that discussion group um let's see so that's really the way the teaching is

12:02 set up in our program um it let me I'm going to touch briefly on the requirements to be certified um and there there are a few it's it's sort of a rigorous program we do ask a lot out of people who want to be hand in-hand instructors I think that's one of the reasons our instructor Community is such a robust network of individuals there's a lots of continuing education response or

12:33 available and we do tend to people don't get certified and go go off on their merry way and take this you know on their own there are ways to stay connected even after you're certified um and so we really want to give everybody in this program the foundation to be part of that community so we ask a lot of you and one of the things we ask is for you to write anecdotes so little stories about the

13:03 ways that you're using the listening tools and as you write those anecdotes and this doesn't happen just at first you know there's a lot of learning that happens before you're asked to write but you write about you know times when you actually use the listening tools with children and how it went um and you get a lot of feedback from the your the person mentoring you on your writing so that process tends to be very rich and

13:30 it's a way of um learning and fine-tuning your understanding and also setting you up so that when you do start to teach hand inand you can share your personal experience with the people who come to your classes and who are wanting to learn from you um we ask you to give a talk as part of your certification requirements um there are outlines and guidelines and you'll get a lot of help on the way but we ask you to give a talk

13:59 to a group of parents and we also ask you to lead a study group so it's a six- week study group for parents that's based on our foundation courses um and again this happens usually near the end of the program after you've learned a lot along the way and there's plenty of support and guidelines around how to do that um and then and then when those requirements are complete there's an interview that everybody goes through in order to

14:31 receive their certification and join our instructor Community um not everybody actually most people who go through the program um aren't ready for that right away and that is okay again we know you're busy we know many of you are parenting young children we know there's a lot on your plate and we really really do first and foremost want to support you as you go through this process and it takes as long as it takes many many

15:01 many of our instructors um take more than a year to be ready to be certified and that is just fine when the certification program ends if you're not ready yet we have a post certification Support Program set up so people again can remain connected to the community and receive any mentoring that you would like to have as you continue to work toward your certification um um let's see people do all sorts of

15:33 things with their certifications there are lots of choices for you um one of the things we support you to do during the program is to think about where your heart is leading you you know where is your passion do you want to bring hand inand to lowincome families do you want to bring hand inand to schools do you want to bring hand in hand to group groups of parents who are working with ch with children um

16:04 who who are dealing with neurodiversity do you want to bring hand inand to um you know we have we have instructors who work in prisons um or with teen parents so really we want to support you to think about how you'd like to share share these tools um you will hopefully come out of the program knowing even more strongly than you do now the difference hand hand in hand can make you know so many parents feel confused alone

16:36 unsure isolated looking for help not knowing where to find help that actually helps and there is something really wonderful about feeling like you are empowered to actually be helpful to parents who are looking for something that are going to help them connect with a child who's you know about to be kicked out of preschool or to you know help their child who won't sleep through the night or to you know if you're a preschool teacher to work

17:06 with families whose children don't want to let go of their leg when they bring them to preschool in the morning and and want to say goodbye and so um you will be learning how to deliver help in a way that helps and also how to listen to to parents and support them well along the way so let's see in terms of applying so the applications window is open right now it opened um at the beginning of

17:36 April and it will be open till the end of May so every year we take one cohort through our certification program at a time so after May 31st um if you haven't applied yet you can always consider applying next year but you know applications are open just for these two months every year um people who apply we ask you to have completed one of our foundations classes if you're currently enrolled in a foundations class that's okay go ahead

18:09 and apply and just let us know on your application um the date that your glass class will be um there are scholarships available if you have questions about scholarships we accept scholarship applications after people are accepted to the program so if you feel like a scholarship would be helpful go ahead and apply if you're accepted you will have um instructions about how to apply for scholarships um

18:40 we are looking for people who are open-minded we're looking PE for people who are thoughtful and caring and also people who are brave enough to look at difficulties openly so in hand in hand you may already have the sense we don't just Skip Along the surface we really want to invite people to take a look at what's actually happening even when what's actually happening is really hard and again to support people to work through those hard things you know hand

19:11 inand it's not a collection of Tricks um it's it's a way of being you know it's a way of being with people it's a way of being with children and we know that when we bring our attention and our support worked in our openness and our warmth and make room for however it is a child or another person feels things tend to go better but we also know how hard it is to actually do that um and

19:43 again this program is a mixture of support for you as you are finding your way through and deepening your practice and also thinking about how to share hand in hand with others so let's see let me leave it there for now and see if anybody has any questions hi dear hi oh go

20:14 ahead um thank you uh my question is does everyone get an interview um in that applies to the um so not everybody gets an interview but most people do so after you apply the first thing we do is we ask the person who taught your foundations class for a recommendation okay and based on your application and that recommendation we do interview most people who

20:47 apply yeah thank you Andrea did you have something yeah I had a question um when I look online there's an application package there's a fee it sounds like to download the application package um can you give us a sneak peak of what kind of questions are in the application package I just would love to know if it's like you must be a rocket scientist then I would know that I do not have a chance to yeah yeah no

21:17 nobody needs to be a rocket scientist again we're looking for people who are open-minded who are thoughtful who are caring and who are brave enough to take a look at the hard stuff um the kind of questions we ask we ask about your experience with hand inand so far we ask what you've tried and how it's gone it doesn't need to have gone well in order to be accepted into the program we're just looking again for your ability to

21:47 be open and honest about how it's gone we're looking for [Music] um a little bit of what we're looking for is if you have the time and energy to devote to the program again we do take this program seriously and we want everybody to have enough room in their lives to feel like you can you know spend the time that it takes we look at um whether you're

22:20 settled in where you live people who are moving or welcoming a new baby into the family it tends to be a hard time to go through this program we're asking people to do emotional work and to work on hard things and so we're looking for people who feel like they have the room in their lives and the space to take this on um and we are we do ask about you know whether there are people who look

22:44 to to you for support you know just in your community you know are are you in a position where where you are but you know none of we also admit people into the so we MIT people into the program both who are looking to teach hand inand and we admit people in the program who feel who feel like they want to again deepen their own practice and transform their own families and have the support

23:14 that they need the support and the tools and the information and the ongoing contact that would make it easier to help things go well in their own families so um you know our class each year is made up of many different people with many different goals and as I was saying earlier our main goal is to support you well does that help yeah that's really helpful I guess um as a followup I'm curious about the

23:45 the piece around bringing it to other people or organizations like um for the application process does that need to be well articulated in terms of a plan to on how one may teach and where one may teach and how no no and very we we are aware that very often and actually this is one of the rewarding things about teaching this program is watching people figure that out for themselves with the support that they receive as they're

24:16 learning as they're growing as their practice deepens so you do not need to have any sort of detailed plan we just want to hear what what excites you m okay thank you yeah yeah s did I pronounce your name right um yeah can you hear me yes okay let me lower my hand okay I have a bunch of questions uh I don't have to ask them

24:46 all at once if someone else has questions but start with one we'll following up on Andrea um do is it possible to like work and do this at the same time like do you find that people that work full-time and take the course manage to get to the end and be certified I'm trying to like figure out if I actually have to adjust working hours in order to take the course or not right so so people do people do work

25:15 full-time and let me just say a little bit more about that so what what you actually need to be able to do to get through the program successfully I think is you know the monthly classes is on the weekends so you need to have at least that two and a half hour block of time on either Saturday or Sunday where you can attend classes that are once a month um the weekly calls we have mentors certification mentors who live

25:44 in many different time zones and we try to stagger the calls so that they are during the day and in the evenings for people so people who are working full-time do have that option but we do ask that you you know regularly attend those weekly calls and everything else is really on your own time so all of the material in the classroom you can work through on your own time and also all of the using the listening tools with

26:13 children which is really honestly where much of your most important learning will come from again that's something you can do with you know I don't know if you're currently parenting or not but if you're parenting you know you will have opportunities for that in many many different places and many different times so so you know so please don't adjust your work hours in order to take the certification program again it's at

26:44 your own pace you know we we suggest material to go through every month if you fall behind that's okay if you're not ready to be certified at the end of the program it's okay too we will continue to support you for however long you need and we actually encourage people who are halfway through the program you know very often with the regular support people will take on emotional projects with their children that they hadn't been willing

27:16 to take on on their own and when that happens taking a pause from certification requirements and really focusing on using the listening tools and digging into that emotional process project that takes precedence and so we encourage people to slow down and focus on what's most important for them as they go through the program what do you mean by the continued support like forgot what you call it after the nine months are over

27:46 is that something for people from this group that are continuing or it's oneon-one what does that mean and is there an extra cost yeah so that's a great that's a great question and so so the way we've set up this program it's a multifaceted post certification support program and the reason it's in place is as a bridge from people who have appreciated the support and the structure of the certification program and aren't yet ready to receive that

28:17 support and structure from the instructor community so it's as in between place and so the post certification support program we call it the candidate hub there are people there who've completed certification from every year from every year but haven't haven't felt ready to be certified yet and as and so there's a space there's a space where people are there's again there's a discussion group there's all the materials that were in the classroom there are two um support

28:51 listening question and answer calls each month with instructors that you can come to as many or as few as you like um and that all comes with the Hub membership there is a fee associated with it but there are scholarships available it's $20 a month um but there are scholarships available if that would be helpful for people we also have something called um practicum groups so for this this is for people who appreciated the weekly support the

29:24 moderated with a mentor weekly support calls during certification where all you had to do is show up and there was someone there to lead a group for you we have similar groups um these practicum groups available for candidates who finished the program and aren't ready to be certified yet those do have a cost associated with them it's usually $25 per meeting but it can it can vary a bit so if you do like that support structure you can opt into that as well

29:54 we also support people and encourage people and Mentor people to build their own support in the program one of the really beautiful things about hand inand is this idea of listening Partnerships so you will get a lot of experience with listening Partnerships because you will have them with someone else in the program at least one other person many people choose to have more than one listening partner and we also teach you and show you and model how to lead your

30:23 own support groups so very often candidates will come together and continue their support groups without a paid leader and that's something you can certainly do as well um we want everyone who leaves our program to come out with a pretty robust support system and it's hard to even know what that can mean and can look like and can feel like before you've had it so I don't know if what I'm saying is really Landing but um for so many people

30:52 in our instructor Community um some many of us are still in contact with people we met during the certification program you know years or even decades later um as groups or as individuals continuing to support one another as we continue to grow so nice yeah um I have more questions unless someone else has let's give let's give everyone else a chance and then we'll come back so we can

31:22 around I have a question Sor yeah um honestly Michelle I'm a little bit rried about if my English is good enough especially if I think about talking about emotions I think I don't have the vocabulary and the on my fear is I'll be totally in the bre cortex how do you say it in English and not be connected to my emotions

31:54 because I will always have to think about woman is the the right word in English do you know what I mean I do know what you mean yes yes and I'm so glad you asked that I meant to actually talk about that because so often people coming to us and we do have people from all over the world who come to us for certification and that's often a concern but oh how should I say it first of

32:24 all first of all when it comes to listening time and listening Partnerships it's not about explaining the feelings it's not about assigning words to the feelings it's about letting your body move it's about making noise it's about noticing that there are people there with you while you're having the feelings and I think you'll be just fine of course you need to decide for yourself but

32:58 I think the only thing with the English if you feel like you can come to a class and understand most of what is said during that class not even all of it but most of it I think you're going to be just fine just fine I we do we do have yeah yeah and the way you asked that question I have I have no concerns well I have no difficulties to understand I think but I have really the

33:29 fear I cannot express as I would like to but maybe it's not really so important thank you very much yeah for sure for sure there's also a way and I don't know again if this will make sense at this point but we encourage people when they need to many times people can find a listening partner who speaks what whichever language they would like to have a listening partnership in and so that's something to try and see how it feels just to

33:58 experiment with so you'll have some listening time with your group in English you can have other listening time in whatever other language feels comfortable but even if the listening part even if everybody else is speaking English sometimes you speaking whichever language you need to speak in as you're working on whatever it is you're working on again we don't need as listeners we don't need to understand the content we need to be there with you and

34:29 it it can just be a beautiful process even with people who are speaking different languages really yeah yeah thank you for asking well I I have the same worry so I know Claudia from the German class and that's my biggest worry that my English that I speak is too bad I understand nearly

35:01 everything but my speaking and my vocabulary is so yes and and again based based on the way you just asked that you know you just shared that I think as long as you feel okay like as long as you're willing to show up and be present and to try it's gonna be okay okay it's gonna be okay and my second worry um is but you already talked about

35:32 it is if this nine months will be for my own family if it will be a benefit in this nine month or if it will be like a a stress great question yes yes yes so so we again our primary goal is to support you well with what you need support with and we the last thing the

36:04 last thing that we want in the certification program and the instructor Community is for hand inhand work to an any way make your parenting more difficult we want to support you in your parenting first and foremost and so you will hear from us again and again you know we don't want our program to feel like

36:34 school where you need to complete this and complete that and you don't have time for anything else we want you to sort of lean into the support take what you need learn at your own pace bring what you're learning to your family and take the time that you need to experiment to let it sink in to try different things and and to take the time that you need you know again most people are not ready most people who go

37:00 through the program are not ready to be certified at the end of the certification program and that is just fine with us it's just fine with us yeah thank you very much yeah yes um I also got a question how many people will be in the program around that's a good question um I would guess around 30 I would guess around 30 so total it can

37:31 vary from year to year depending on the number of qualified applicants um that there are um but usually around 30 and so in the monthly classes we usually break people up into two groups of around 15 so you'll get to know that cohort very well and then the weekly calls you'll be in a group of four okay so you'll have you know opportunities for small group learning for medium group learning and then you'll see the whole group as

37:58 well and for a monthly class um is there because I'm also in Germany because of the time difference is there is the time like what time be yes we try so hard so we try so hard so our classes are the times are staggered on Saturday and Sunday and again we send out a poll for people but the way it is this year is it starts early in the morning in California one of the days I think it's

38:25 like 800 am so it's late afternoon evening in Germany the hard thing the hardest thing is the California to Asia so you know China and India we have had people come to our monthly classes at midnight before and oh it's so hard but we do our best depending on the makeup of the class to make sure there are enough call groups and the monthly class times are set up so that you know everybody can come and it it usually

38:54 works out just fine as long as people have that flexibility on the weekends okay yeah great thank you we do try hard to make the timing work for everybody yeah thanks for asking um am and then C back to you because I know there are more um so this was something that I kind of talked about during um my foundations course

39:28 um I asked a question about how to present hand inand in my community currently um and she recommended Facebook groups you know to try to get the word out and everything like that um and and I'm a part of like therapist groups in this area but I was also wondering if you're not in the program or if you are in the program either way is this possible to have it ation at a conference for therapists in

40:01 the state and how would um one go about doing that in order to accurately represent the hand-in-hand content yeah that's that's a great idea so so the way that we hold that out for people is in order to people who well in order to call yourself a hand inhand instructor you know in order to be certified in hand in hand you need to go through the certification program and the certification process and so our

40:33 instructors who've done that can present at conferences and in all the different ways people bring hand inand to the world you know as hand inand instructors you know representing hand in hand yeah for people who've been to the foundations classes you know it's exciting to go through those foundations classes there is no way in six or eight weeks for for people to fully yet all of hand in hand like you get it you get it but you know you're not in a

41:05 position to be bringing hand inand to the world so you are welcome to present at conferences in whatever capacity you would present in terms of the other paid work you do or the other work that you do it doesn't need to be paid work whatever else you do you know you can present as a yoga instructor you can present as a therapist you can present as a school principal you can present as a ner and you're you're

41:29 welcome to bring hand inhand ideas into your presentation as long as you attribute those ideas to hand inand but you don't get to represent hand inand right if you wanted to mention a hand inhand listening tool or the hand inhand website as you're doing your presentation please do but attribute it to hand inand and don't speak at those places as though you represent hand inand in any sort of official way gotcha yeah thank you that make sense yeah yeah

42:00 like don't say like I'm hand in hand you know I've been trained by hand inand or I'm a hand you know it's not that it's oh I heard this idea and it's a good idea you might want to learn more about it here and then you give them a reference or you can say there's this great thing called special time that I learn from hand inand here's how it works um but once you're certified you can say I'm so and so you know I'm Amber

42:22 and I'm a certified hand inand instructor and you know at our organization we yeah yeah there's a very particular way that we hold handin hand out for people it can be very tempting you know so many parenting approaches tell parents what to do oh that's wrong do this you have that question try this and it's a different approach at hand inand I hope you felt that a little bit already in your foundation class it's here some ideas you know trust your

42:55 good thinking when you have support you know how do you think you might want to do it you might want to try it this way so part of the certification program in addition to you deepening your own understanding is learning how to sort of offer hand inand in that particular way um rather than here's what you do when this happens because that's not what hand in hand's about yeah yeah yeah does that help does that answer yes thank you all

43:25 right all right Sema okay so one of my questions kind of connected with that um if I already have an organization and or for other people that have a practice how then do they like I have an identity as a certain kind of person how how do people like that use hand inand is it like I'm giving a course in hand inand or like I I feel like I see you're

43:57 asking does it become like a double identity how how do people blend the two things together right so what we ask of our instructors is that when you're teaching hand inand so so you know the foundations classes when people are teaching hand inand or any class based on a foundations class we want you to be wearing a hand inand instructor hat um and to be teaching handin hand so if you're teaching in hand if you're advertising a

44:25 hand inand class through our we site if you're advertising a hand inhand class in your community or in your you know your network we want you to teach hand inand and we don't want you to bring in all the other wonderful things that people do when you're teaching your other thing whether you're a sleep consultant or a parent coach or a yoga instructor or a therapist or whatever it is that you are and do and it's okay to

44:53 bring hand inhand ideas there right it's that same thing you can bring hand-in-hand ideas into your talk as a sleep consultant or whatever it is um but you won't be wearing your hand inhand hat as an instructor as you're leading that sleep course unless you are in which case you're only teaching hand inand so we ask you not to mix

45:25 philosophies if you're representing yourself as a hand inhand instructor but if you're representing yourself as whatever whatever the other thing is it's okay to talk about listening Partnerships or special time or you know all the things does that make sense you look like yeah yeah it's just these are things that I was thinking about like what would you know how that would work yeahum how it would fit in yeah um that makes sense

45:57 basically two different hats two different hats sometimes it's more similar to the way you explained to Amber like where you're teaching something else or something that you created otherwise and bringing this up and you know giving credit and sometimes it's a hand-in-hand course exactly exactly okay that makes sense um I have a few more questions unless I don't you know let me know if any you want to take anyone else or um how does it work as

46:24 far as the groups with the mentor call do are we involved in the process of which group or which Mentor we have or you do that and I'm asking because I I heard a few different mentors in the course that I took and some I really felt I resonated with a lot so I'm wondering if we have any choice in that and as far as the groups do you like mix different kinds like people's different kinds of experience or you do like

46:53 people that are in it for their parenting people that are in it for their because I teach second grade and when I taught preschool for many years I just like was very easy to transfer what I knew about hand inand to the preschool classroom but lower elementary it's harder and I just like wish and would love to be in a group with some other lower elementary school teachers where we could like hash it out together yeah

47:18 yeah yeah yeah so let me let me answer those questions um and then Andrea will swing back to you so okay so first of all in terms of the mentoring groups you don't we don't you don't get to pick your commentor our comment we do we do think though we do think deeply about how to put the groups together but another piece of the whole thing is timing so you know if there are six or seven call

47:47 groups each Mentor has timing that works for them and we send out a poll to people who've been admitted into the program and and we ask that everyone have enough flexibility to be available for at least two ideally three different call times so we ask you to rank them you know first second and third and to let us know what would be easy for you to make what would be really hard but possible for you to make and we try to give

48:15 everybody their first choice in terms of time we actually do mix people on the group we don't have groups of Educators and groups of therapists and groups of just parents but we think that's important we do that on purpose and that's because there is so much to be learned from watching everybody's journey and hearing about everybody's experience and again first and foremost we want you to be we want to support you in using the hand-in-hand listing tools in your own

48:46 life and then to be taking them out into the world um we want you to really get to learn it well and to learn it deeply before you start experimenting with other people's children if possible not everybody is parenting and there's ways to get through without that but as such you will learn a lot from everyone in your group that said that's the perfect sort of support group that we encourage

49:16 people to put together so you could go to the discussion group within our Co the cohort and say hey I'm a second grade teacher and I would love to pull together a support group of of elementary school teachers and pull together a group of people and and you would then be able to lead that sort of support group with listening support and with an exchange of ideas and sharing about how those tools were used in classrooms and you could run that for

49:44 sure um on your own and even in our instructor Community we always encourage instructors to pull together you know people um people whose families were formed by adoption people who are teaching therap and people do pull together and come together in that way to have their groups but in terms of the way we set up those weekly calls we try actually not to segregate people that way we try to mix everybody up and just let people learn from each other and um

50:13 in terms of getting along with your Mentor so um our mentors are some of our most experienced instructors everybody does have their own personality and not everybody's personal ities mesh but one of the things about the mentors is that they're really good at holding space for people who are angry with them um for example so there there's value and there can be value in getting to show up again and again and to try to

50:47 let that person know what you need and to see if you can find a way because they're going to be wanting to support you in the way that you need them to and there can actually be a process around that it doesn't need to be oh nope I'm switching over here because clearly this isn't going to work um and sometimes it's it's a little rough in there usually it's not an issue um our commentors tend to be really

51:16 wonderful people as do the people in our program but there's value in the conflict when there is conflict and you'll have help with that like I can come in and help with that if you need help with that um you'll also be exposed to our whole teaching team there are four of us currently on the teaching team so it's not you know you'll be exposed to multiple instructors in that way as well so I hope that

51:41 answers yeah yeah it wasn't a problem I just I guess I'm kind of hooked on this lower elementary thing like the the instructor I had she was wonderful she did great and I loved it um but I felt like she just seen most experience with like young like preschool and I just want for older like how what's the age for hand inand right so again in the certification program the focus is going to be on your

52:13 parenting and all of all of what you learn in terms of parenting in your own children is then right after that happens the focus will shift to taking hand in hand outside your home and so it's not going to be a whole course focused on teaching it's it's but which age children would you say the like is there a limit like 10 years old

52:45 15 when you do parenting courses or something is there a age limit so there's not an age limit so so hand inand you know there is this focus on you know two two through 11 two through Preen but as our instructors who have been in hand inand a long time like I said my children were three and six when I started and they're 18 and 21 now many of us are in that situation so hand inand does have a lot

53:16 of experience now with teens twins young adults um and infants and so even though our primary offerings aren't around children of those ages that expertise does exist in our community we do touch on on how to modify the listening tools with infants tween teens in the certification program um so it's there it's not the primary focus but it's definitely you know within the

53:48 Wheelhouse and and is people will understand that yeah yeah all right Andrea a quick question about uh continuing education I think you touched on it briefly but if we just step back big picture finished the certification five years has passed now we're getting ready to you know um bring it elsewhere and talk about hand inand is there an

54:20 ongoing uh certification that needs to be upkept for hand inand or he associated with it like what happens after the usually what happens so Hand inand we really do have a strong instructor community so usually when people are certified they join our instructor Community there's two different levels there's people who are actively teaching and people who are instructors who aren't actively teaching we don't need to distinguish there now but you join at whichever level you are

54:47 so you stay in touch in that way and for our active instructors uh we have communities of practice um a few times a year where instructor groups come to together around a particular topic um or around teaching and they meet weekly and people can share their experiences you know and and however it is that they're bringing we have a summer learning collaborative I think this summer it's going to be on neurodiversity um last summer it was

55:16 on it was um divers diversity um so every summer we focus as a community on a different topic we have a all instructor Gathering once a year where people all over the world meet together on zoom and we get to hear what people are doing and hear about the updates from the community we have in-person Retreats one in the US one you know in in um Europe Middle East or Africa every year so we do have ways of

55:45 staying connected and when you're connected with the instructor community on either level you will receive updates about you know all the things things going on with hand inand Central and the ways we're growing and you'll hear about you know people taking hand inand to different conferences and presenting and how that went and you know using hand inand we have this initiative now to bring hand inand to Early Education communities where teachers are getting um you know

56:18 the early childhood education foundations class as parents are receiving um the foundations class for parents at the same time within communities and seeing if that helps you know if we can help communities in that way by offering hand inand at all different levels at the same time so you will be kept up to date and get to participate in some cases in in all of that you know depending on what you're interested in you know we

56:44 have a translations team we we do all sorts of things together as a community um okay yeah that helps I think I just also the underlying question is like is there a an expensive fee on an annual basis that one may have to keep up to in order to keep your certification alive and it sounds like no if I there's not an expensive fee on a yearly basis there is a fee associated with the instructor Hub there are scholarships available for

57:17 that gotta you know work with that fee so and we do have a fee because we do offer a lot there's just a lot yeah for sure yeah just good to know Eyes Wide Open going what yeah thank you helps yeah yeah okay so um so I'm noticing our time and I'm also noticing sema's hand can I ask a quick question yeah if someone puts all the necessary effort in is there a reason they wouldn't be able to

57:49 be certified at by the end of the year so that is an excellent question and the answer is sometimes so just because someone finishes the requirements doesn't necessarily mean they're ready to be certified and it has to do with um a process that happens really with your commentor and wanting to make sure that you are really understanding the

58:19 listening tools deeply and well before we certify you it can also be what comes up at the um interview so those interviews um you know often are a piece of cake but sometimes something comes up at those interviews where someone does not understand some fundamental issue and you're never told no go away sorry it's I'm noticing that there's an issue with you know willingness to set a limit I'm noticing there's an issue with whatever the thing is and then you get

58:50 to work on it and come back around um so very often the feedback you get is along the way as you're writing your anecdotes um but occasionally you know people are raring to go and it's going to take a little longer yeah all right well thank you all for coming and thank you all for asking so many good questions that was it was great to hear the way you're

59:21 thinking about all of this um it really is I don't know it's hard to explain the certification to people who haven't tried it yet it's so many so many people who' completed the certification leave telling us it's life-changing whether or not they decide to become certified at the end of the process there's something about that ongoing support and that Focus um on helping you to use the

59:52 listening tools in the way that you're hoping to use them to make the difference you're hoping to make in your families and in the world that can feel pretty great so um I hope to see I know I've seen some of your applications I hope I hope I see more of them as we go and feel free to reach out via email if more questions come up thank you very much all right bye everyone thank you so much hi Michelle

60:21 hi I was Hi how are you I'm so sorry I had a work meeting that ran over so I was only just able to join obviously I missed the whole thing um is was this recorded by any chance it is recorded it is record yes it is recorded do you have any anything that feels important right now before before we end um well I'll just wa I'll just I won't like I'll just watch the recording and then if I have

60:50 any questions um I'll email you yeah please do please do okay so to access that are you going to email it out or should I send you a an email I am almost sure that everyone who registered for this ask me anything will automatically receive um the recording if for some reason within a day you don't do reach out to me I'll figure out how to get it to you okay thank you so much yeah I'm glad

61:20 you came on even just here at the end thank you yeah yes yeah I know but I'm I'm glad I saw your face yeah excellent okay thanks so much take care take care bye bye