Photoessay #2908 - Graduation Support

I was up late last night attending a local high school graduation.

At Parent Group, every week we ask if people would like to participate in "Court and Support."  Mostly its for court appearances but can cover other events.  If you have to go to court or go to some other stressful meeting or event, you can ask for support.  Somebody to go with you for personal support.  Most weeks, somebody has an event and others will volunteer to go with them.  Just to be another person present.  And, just about always, one or more people will volunteer to go with them.  Often it's to juvenile court appearances.  It's so simple and so effective.  Many events are during the regular work week so many adults can rarely volunteer.  But everybody can do it once in awhile.

The person doing the support always learns something.  It's a great way to become familiar with juvenile court.  Some parents get embarrassed that everybody has to wait for a long time.  The people volunteering know that.  They know that sometimes you have to sit there for a long time.  It's ok.  You know what you're signing up for.  And, if you can't stay the whole time, that's ok.

The idea is just to mix up the dynamic.  Usually going to something with an acting out kid is truly miserable.  But you can help change it up.  Shows the kid that you have support, you're not isolated.  Sometimes a parent will want somebody else in the car with them.  I've done that.

So a long time member wanted support attending her daughter's high school graduation.  I volunteered.  There were issues with the child's father and other community members that she wanted to avoid.

We did "Think, Plan, Act" planning before the event.  What the parent wanted to get out of the event.  What she wanted to avoid.  What happens if she starts getting sucked into an ugly situation.  Should she try to see her daughter afterwards?  What if this, What if that.  What about pictures?  What about flowers?  We talked a lot about how we would get out of bad situations.  I would say "I have to go," if I saw her getting into a potentially bad situation.

It all worked out beautifully.  The parent felt so glad we went, we carefully made sure that we accomplished the important parts.  The daughter knew mom was there, gave her flowers, took a few pictures.  But not linger.  We got there plenty early, I think several Seattle schools were doing graduations serially, this high school was last, didn't start until 8pm.  I insisted that she have a program.  I like how they do processions at the stadium, the graduates come down a long stairway.  Actually the processional often is most fun part. The music playing those special melodies.  All the families cheer and shout, very happy.  We saw her daughter walk in.  We cheered wildly, as loud as could, when her name was announced.  Afterwards, we went and waved to her showing the flowers.  When we got out, the parent wasn't sure she wanted to go out into the crowd.   But the daughter texted where she was so we went and found her.  Lots of smiling and hugging; we gave her the flowers.  I took some pictures, wow I sure hope they came out but I dunno.  And then we left.

All a success!   Planning carefully about what the mom wanted and how we would do it was extremely important.

THINK  PLAN  ACT   !!!!!!

I didn't have my camera and it was surprisingly hard to find a picture.  Here's a processional for a different school in a different year.  Used without permission.