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Connecting with Potential
Leader Applicants Located in Isolated Areas
Karin Gausman
Calgary Alberta Canada
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 40 No. 5, October-November 2004, p. 108.
Have you ever thought about
locations that have no LLL Group or Leader? What might you do to help
make LLL available to mothers in isolated locations? An isolated mother
who is interested in leadership can participate in pre-application dialogue
by postal mail, telephone, or email. She might do this with the Associate/Coordinator
of Leader Accreditation (A/CLA), or she can do it with you!
How can you connect with
an isolated, interested mother? One place to look is in your own Group.
There might be a mother who commutes to attend meetings, or perhaps
she only comes occasionally if the distance is great. Based on her comments
and what you’ve observed in her relationship with her own child,
you see a potential Applicant. You may not have considered approaching
her about leadership, however, because her meeting attendance has been
sporadic. Attending a series of meetings is a prerequisite if available.
That means that an isolated candidate might not have attended a whole
series before applying for leadership.
If working with an isolated
Applicant sounds intriguing to you and you aren’t aware of any
such mother, let the A/CLA know of your interest. She may be able to
put you in touch with an isolated candidate who has contacted her.
In order to apply for leadership,
a member needs the recommendation of a Leader. This applies to isolated
potential Applicants as well as those in a Group. This is where you
come in. You can correspond with an isolated candidate using In "Preparation
for an Application: Leader’s Guide" (located in the Application
Packet or through your LAD representative). In addition to explaining
LLL purpose and philosophy along with the prerequisites to applying
for leadership, you can talk about what a Leader does and what an application
involves. Your goal in this pre-application dialogue is to help her
decide if leadership is for her, and if so, to get to know her well
enough to write a thorough Leader Recommendation.
Once the application has
begun, you can use postal mail, telephone, or email to discuss topics
on the checklist in the Leader’s Handbook, to be available for
any questions she has about the Breastfeeding Resource Guide, and to
help her locate background reading materials (to borrow or purchase).
The two of you can also do the "Preview of Mothers’ Questions/Problems
and Group Dynamics/Management," even if you’re geographically
distant. In addition to the above methods used for checklist discussions,
you might consider using a private email chat (such as AOL Instant Messenger)
for the Preview. Why not save the letters you write to an isolated candidate/Applicant?
You can reread and personalize these for use later with another potential
Applicant.
Perhaps you were an isolated
Applicant yourself. One Leader says:
Being a sponsoring Leader
of another isolated Applicant is like coming full circle. It gives
me an opportunity to share with her how I have tried to build and
publicize my Group—what has worked, what hasn’t, what I’ve
observed. I honestly feel like I can say, "I can imagine how
you must be feeling...I remember when...."
Although she wasn’t
an isolated Applicant herself, another Leader says:
There is tremendous
satisfaction in knowing that you have helped bring LLL to a new location.
In addition, the detailed explanations of LLL that are helpful to
an isolated Applicant who isn’t observing a Leader in action
in her Group can have benefits for you, too. She may ask questions
that prompt you to look at what you do from a new perspective. What
a great way to refresh your own leadership.
Corresponding with an isolated
Applicant requires a commitment of time and energy that is well worth
your while. Contact your A/CLA if you need ideas, information, or help
in working with a mother who is not part of a Group. When you take the
role of sponsoring Leader for an isolated Applicant, you become a vital
third partner in the Applicant-A/CLA-Leader relationship. Isolated candidates/Applicants
are out there waiting for a Leader to help them learn about and prepare
for leadership. When accredited, the former isolated Applicant often
starts a new Group where she is. Perhaps that new Leader will soon be
sponsoring Applicants, too, and the ripples you set in motion will spread.
Make a commitment today to help an isolated mother learn about leadership!
Karin Gausman has been
a Leader since 1975 and is currently Associate Director for Regional
Administrators of Leader Accreditation. She and her husband have three
adult children and three grandchildren.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:32:11 UTC 2007.
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