Town Hall Video Available

• If you were not able to make it, please know the video recording will be made available for you to watch. Reach out to the office and we will provide you with the link. 

Annual Agreements

• 1099 Consultants: Independent Contractor & Reciprocity Agreements are due June 30 to nglass@visions-inc.org 
• W2 Consultants: Reciprocity Agreements are due June 30 to nglass@visions-inc.org 

Fiscal Year Ends

• VISIONS runs on a fiscal year which starts on July 1 and ends on June 30. 

Support the work! Consider making a donation to: 

• support scholarships for those who may not be able to participate in our programs
• youth stipends for VISIONS’ 2024 Legacy Project in Fresno (CA)
• stipend support for consultant learning sessions
• honor someone special in your life

You can support directly or double your impact if your employer has a donation matching program or via a Donor Advised Matching program.

You can also support VISIONS by purchasing an item(s) for yourself or others from the VISIONS Shop to spread the learnings of VISIONS. New designs are available. Visit today.

VISIONS Inc. is turning 40!!  Do you have a client you think would consider sponsoring? Let us know.  Email Nikki Glass at nglass@visions-inc.org or send this link to your contact.

As fiscal year 2023-24 ends, I say good-bye to this position at VISIONS.  I want to say thank you to each of you for all your hard work and dedication over these many years.  As VISIONS reaches 40 years in November, I have been saying to folks when they say, what’s it like to let go of “your baby,” that VISIONS is now “an adult.”  New choices are being made weekly that reflect this position. I am now, metaphorically speaking, a proud parent who recognizes that my role is to step back and be available for support and input as needed. As was indicated in last month’s newsletter, I will still maintain my external consultant role at VISIONS and will provide internal consultant supervision in several spaces.  I am confident that with Elika’s leadership and the support of all, the organization will continue to grow and prosper.

As you may notice in the Programs section of this newsletter, I will be leading a TA 101 in August and we will still be offering “peer supervision”.  If you have clients who have learned much of the VISIONS model and are looking for a place to practice and deepen their skills, do refer them to either of these offerings.

As Elika noted above, Rick will now be “in charge” of consultant activities.  As you all know, Rick is a dynamic facilitator, clinician and teacher and he will continue to bring much experience and wisdom to this role. Jeanne will be the “deputy” director in the consultation space, and brings her leadership, consulting and administrative skills to support the work.  They, along with the whole inquiry team (Kaitlin as contracts manager and Jabari as staff consultant), will keep those inquiries coming. 

As mentioned in last month's newsletter also, the team is working with Amy to continue to find ways to have SalesForce best support the work of this group.  This team, I am sure will continue to help us successfully turn inquiries into consultation activities. I encourage you to communicate to them directly with on-going consultant needs.

Enjoy summer here in the western hemisphere.  Do keep focused on ways you can support our country in living into its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (people) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Peace be with you.

Please join us for this year’s offering of VISIONS’ TA 101 workshop! Transactional Analysis (TA) is a psychosocial theory that aims to understand human relationships and changing behaviors. Eric Berne, M.D., developed the concepts in the 1950s and 1960s and continued to be expanded by Transactional Analysts worldwide. VISIONS' course is a synthesis of the original ideas and recent developments in the theory and application of TA. It explicitly focuses on creating equity interpersonally and within systems, using race/ethnicity as a teaching variable.  It includes both theory and application.

This course can benefit mental health professionals, coaches, facilitators, parents, educators, clergy, physicians, people in managerial positions and the legal profession, and anyone interested in relating more effectively with themselves and others. It can serve as an introduction to TA or as a refresher for those already familiar with the model. It is also a prerequisite for advanced Trans­actional Analysis training, and VISIONS' ongoing training.

Participants will learn to:

• Use Transactional Analysis as a tool for diagnosis and interventions with clients
• Address anti-racism at the personal level, which has been fundamental to this framework since its beginning
• To differentiate between feelings, thoughts, and opinions and use them for potent communication
• Avoid or get out of counterproductive relational entanglements
• Recognize feelings to get needs met and solve problems
• Become aware of the negative impact in the present time that early life decisions may have

Furthermore, participants will find:

• Options that work when communication is at an impasse
• How to protect themselves from an internal critic
• How to interrupt unproductive or dysfunctional cross-cultural encounters
• Tools useful in creating effective cross-cultural relationships and systems
• The power of giving and receiving positive and negative feedback

Dates: Aug 22 - 24 offered on ET as a virtual full-day commitment

Register: link here

“Just checking in. How’s everybody doing?”

As you may have seen in last month’s newsletter, I am honored to be stepping into the role of CAC Chair. Deep appreciations to Jimmie for all his service to the Committee, and for his mentorship to me personally. I don’t have anything official to share from the CAC yet– our next meeting is in July due to office closure (yay for breaks and rest!) so I haven’t actually chaired my first meeting yet. However, several of us (Elika, Amy, Clarissa and myself) have been floating around the idea of a quick mental health check in, so see below.

May was mental health awareness month, and I keep thinking of Elmo’s tweet (yes, THAT Elmo, of the multiracial and inclusive world of Sesame Street) that went viral –  “Elmo just checking in. How’s everybody doing?” Millions of people responded: mostly on the sad/mad/scared side of the wheel, unfortunately. Elmo took it as an opportunity to learn about the huge importance of checking in about others’ #EmotionalWellBeing– check out this sweet interview with Elmo and his dad.

Jabari Carmichael taught me an important lesson in this regard during the height of the pandemic: to check in with my “strong” friends, to check in with the people I assume are “totally fine”. In VISIONS trainings, we do this constantly as facilitators, asking participants to share how they are showing up, what they are feeling and what they need to say or do to get present. And we do that personally for ourselves whenever we are practicing the Guideline of Self Focus. So, we want to ask our community here; how are YOU doing? This is, by beautiful synchronicity, question #2 on our annual Pulse Check! So grab out your Feeling Wheel, and take a minute to share out how you feel at the personal level in a self-focus way. (And please take a moment to answer the other more administrative/organizational questions too!) We will share back general trends with everyone so we get a sense of where others are at and how we are as a community this June.

Strategic Plan

As many of you may already know, VISIONS has recently begun developing our next strategic plan. It has been great to have so much engagement at our community meetings around this plan and impact visioning. In case you missed earlier communication about the process, I will include it again below. 

We’ve engaged Jay Vogt, an incredibly talented external consultant, to support us in the process—he’s familiar with VISIONS as an organization and attended our October PACE last fall. Our current strategic plan was approved in spring 2020 after much collaboration between various stakeholders, and I’m excited for the opportunity to have those of you who are interested engage in this new planning process. We’ve been reviewing various surveys and 1:1 conversations held over the past few years, and I am hopeful this next strategic plan will reflect what many of you have voiced and shared.

Every strategic plan follows a roughly similar arc, AND every strategic plan is entirely unique to the organization.  Here is the arc of VISIONS’ strategic plan:

1. The board affirmed the process and VISIONS' guiding ideas at its spring retreat on April 19. If you are interested in contributing into this process, please let me know.
2. Assessment and discovery have been ongoing for a couple years via various community surveys.
3. Critical strategic issues have emerged from our assessment and discovery, as well as in conversations with the staff and consultants.  The larger internal community has been discussing these topics at community calls (April and May) and will hold two more in June and September. Recordings and notes have been shared for anyone who missed them and would like to participate. I invite you to come and share your insights on the next two calls as well. More details about topics for each month are listed below.
4. The community will come together on the morning of September 27th to set further goals based on the various feedback as part of our anniversary celebration.
5. Teams will be formed around each goal to define objectives, initiatives, and success metrics. (So think about whether any of these strategic issues resonate with you and whether you are interested in getting involved on the committee!).
6. Strategic planning will feed operational planning and budgeting in 2025 (FY26).
7. The board will approve the new strategic plan in April of 2025 for FY26.

As I mentioned above, we’ll be hosting discussion sessions around the various strategic issues that were identified based on your feedback on the several surveys shared with the community over the last few years. These discussions have been occurring and will continue to occur at the next several community meetings (with a small break over the summer). 

Your insights are essential and will direct the content of our next strategic plan! The schedule of community call discussions and themes to be discussed are below. Each call will take place from 4:00-5:30 pm EST (the exception being June, which will include our Town Hall, so it will be scheduled for two hours). Please contact Clarissa if you do not see the invitation on your calendar. 

Strategic Plan Discussion Schedule

• April 5
  • MODEL (11 mentions)
  • How can we best modernize our model (i.e. honor the model, while updating language, etc.)
• May 3
  • COMMUNITY (08 mentions)
    • How can we further strengthen our community to overcome physical distance and foster greater connection?

• CONSULTANTS (07 mentions)
  • How can we further strengthen our consultant pool?

• June 7 - Admin Town Hall (Salesforce, Operations, Personnel, etc., and including pay model strategic issue)
  • PAY (05 mentions)
    • How can we best improve our pay model?

• September 13
  • GROWTH (08 mentions)
    • How can we best grow our consultancy business (in a sustainable way)?
  • PUSHBACK (06 mentions)
    • How can we best respond to the current political climate and the pushback on DEI?

Thank you for all of your input that has brought us to this point in the planning process, and thank you in advance for your continued support and participation that will further lay the foundation for our next 40 years of impact!