With our recent story on the power of Java Buddies, how ironic for this Road Trip Story to begin over a cup of coffee with a long-time friend, Dr. Tuere Anne Marshall. Having recently received her doctorate in education from Morgan State University, and with a passion for using her knowledge for good, Marshall shared how her next adventure is to apply her 20 years as a professor to pursue the implementation of best practices and career opportunities for the underprepared, underserved, unemployed, and underemployed citizens within our community.
When Marshall shared her passion to magnify the power of Friendship Benches, my eyes lit up. With Friendship Benches, grandmothers are taught to utilize talk therapy to support bench visitors, especially those struggling with mild to moderate mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. The World Health Organization recognized this problem-solving therapy as a way to provide safe places in our communities for people to talk using a community based mental health technique called “talk therapy.”
People are becoming more aware of this powerful technique featured in the story “Limitless Possibilities – from Zimbabwe to the U.S.A.” from the book “Secrets to Sustainable Solutions.” With readers eagerly asking follow-up questions, Lisa and I have been brainstorming on the best way to bring the talk therapy experience to you and then the answer came to us over a cup of coffee.
When asked what inspired her to pursue her doctorate, Marshall shared her plan to get certified as a Friendship Bench Grandmother so that she can further expand this best practices to help people. She emphasized, “It is all about community.” With her just getting started with the process, we were thrilled to shadow her experience from the beginning and she was eager to share. We knew that this worthwhile journey should extend beyond our Road Trip Story.
While the book shares stories of how “all ages can play,” today’s focus will be on digging deeper into the story called “Unlimited Resources, Starting with Grandmas.” From 2016 to 2023, two thousand community health workers (aka grandmothers) have been trained and nearly 500,000 visitors across 7 countries have joined them on the bench. These grandmothers are truly, as noted in the story, a “legend in their own time.” More on the Friendship Bench can be found on its website.
The power of possibilities with Friendship Benches was even mentioned by Dr. Julie Radlauer in our recent article on “The Promise of Tomorrow.” Following the TEDxMiami Talk, people came up to us and expressed how much they want to move forward with the concept, but said they really need a little more information on how to approach people, how to listen, and what to say, especially when a person is facing serious challenges where they are losing hope. While the technique is called talk therapy, Marshall shares how it is really about listening.
Even with a doctorate in education, Marshall describes the challenging experience of thinking in a new way.
“This has been a very intense few months learning about active listening, withholding judgments, not rushing to conclusions, and, most importantly, not attempting to fix the ‘visitors’ on the bench,” Marshall said. “Although these ideas seem logical, as a human it’s been a learning curve for me to learn to listen and listen to learn.”
When we asked about key tips to share with eager community members, Marshall emphasized the objective is to empower the person. From the start, she illustrated how you patiently allow them to choose the topic by asking open-ended questions like, “‘What is the most pressing issue facing you now?’ Or ‘how does that make you feel?’” Since the focus is on empowering people to come up with their own solutions, she shared how “the key is to work toward building problem-solving skills so when the person faces an issue in the future, the person is equipped to handle the problem on their own.”
Marshall added that the phrasing of questions is imperative to prompt the person to work out the solution on their own. For example, she shared how you can ask questions like “What would you advise a friend to do?” Marshall expressed the importance of “helping the person reach their own answers versus telling them what to do.”
Reflecting on our Road Trip Story experiences, Lisa and I noticed that “hope” and “judge-free zones” were terms that came up repeatedly. Marshall shared, “It is common for the visitors to share the ways in which Grandmothers restored their ‘hope.”’ In much the same way, on our Equine Therapy adventure, the veterans shared how horses naturally provide a safe, judge-free zone. As people, we may need to remember that we are all human.
Marshall describes how “The bench experience and even a conversation using the talk therapy approach create safe, confidential spaces for healing. These will be effective ways to support mental health in our community, and I look forward to being a part of this meaningful journey.”
We also look forward to sharing our journey on YouTube.
