Jennifer Saladis, manager of our ACE program,  shared two stories recently that underscore how hard it is to predict what will motivate someone to make major changes in their life.

In the winter of 2008, one of the most motivated of the ACE students was killed in a car accident. His best friend from the neighborhood mourned his loss. Although he was smart and worked hard at what interested him, his already low interest in school tanked.  He is a nationally ranked amateur boxer, training for the 2012 Olympics -- but  he wasn't even attending his classes.

His friend's death became the trigger that turned his academic life around.

His friend had liked the ACE program and, to honor him, he decided to follow in his footsteps and enroll in ACE to earn his GED.

He  was competing in local and national boxing competitions, had a rigorous training program, and continued to hold down a part-time job at an auto parts store, but when he started at ACE, he attended class every day.

He worked so hard that he became a role model motivating others. Through conversations with ACE staff, he has reassessed his goals and considered life after amateur boxing.

He passed his GED exam on his first try, has enrolled in college, and is interested in a career as a physical education teacher or EMT.

Death can often be a trigger, but a birthday card?

During the first year of our ACE program, Jen told us, a young woman who wanted her GED, enrolled. She was struggling with drug addiction, suicidal thoughts, an abusive boyfriend, and a tumultuous relationship with her mom. You can understand why she couldn't make it in the program and dropped out, but she remained in touch with staff.

This spring, two years later, she walked through the door a changed person. She told Jen that the birthday card from ACE was the only card she received this year and she carries it with her always. It reminds her that we care about her and continued to believe in her.

She is now drug free, working full time, and involved in a relationship with a smart, hardworking man who treats her well.

Who could anticipate that something as small as a birthday card could become the trigger for change in a young person's life? The staff at ACE send birthday cards to every participant, past and present.

While you can't always predict what the trigger for change will be, Jen says, you have to be ready to recognize it when it occurs and provide the support a person needs to make changes.

The ACE Program provides out-of-school young people, ages 17-21, with a second chance at education. We work with the Continuing Education Department at the College of Staten Island to provide GED classes, career counseling, and work readiness skills. ACE is funded by the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development.

You might wonder what trigger motivated David Ramsey to move from a large Manhattan law firm to our small community based organization. An epiphany on the subway? Unemployment? A near-death experience?

In August, he left corporate law, mergers, and acquisitions far behind to join the NY Center as associate mediation manager, handling housing and criminal court desk appearance cases, community and family mediation, corporate counsel cases, and child custody and visitation cases.

David says the change wasn't sudden or unexpected. It came from a longstanding interest in transforming the way people handle conflicts in their daily lives. As a student at Harvard Law School, he studied mediation, negotiation, and dispute resolution, volunteered as a community mediator, and even edited the Harvard Negotiation Law Review. And, his first year out of law school he worked for the Boston nonprofit International Center for Conciliation, which focuses on longstanding cultural and ethnic conflicts.

So, the move to the NY Center wasn't a change of direction for David, but rather the right opportunity for him to use his dispute resolution skills, experience, and understanding of legal systems in creative ways and to work on the frontlines of personal conflicts. It was the job he was looking for.

"I believe in the mission of NYCID," says David. "I see the tremendous value for the community in the many mediation programs here and I'm excited to be a part of it."

And, we're glad you're here, David. Welcome.

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David joins our CDRC staff and trained volunteers who mediate housing, civil, family and criminal court disputes, teen/parent and peer mediation, family conflicts, neighborhood, business, and community issues. You can read more about the CDRC here. 

News from Olympus -- Olympus Academy is off to a great start this year.  We're nearly at our enrollment goal of 200 students and will have a full roster of Advocate Counselors by the end of the month.

There is a palpable change in the school culture. Advisory classes have been phenomenal, with record attendance and tremendous excitement about the curriculum. The Learning to Work program received rave reviews from the businesses we worked with this summer and all of them have signed on for this year. In addition, the Brooklyn Public Library will host new job opportunities ranging from technical support to helping younger children with homework. Both students and staff are enthusiastic about the new year and all the possibilities it holds.

My wife and my assistant will tell you, it's pretty hard to get me to change the way I do things, but every once in a while something clicks and I see things from a different perspective. Then change comes easily.

Not too long ago, Holly Delaney Cole from CRE conducted a series of focus groups to inform our strategic planning process. One of the groups consisted of our middle managers, the folks who keep this train on track. As she gave senior management her feedback from that group, I heard a very loud CLICK-- that click you hear when something you didn't understand becomes clear.

"The staff meetings are boring. Nothing but talking heads. Blah, blah, blah, yuk."

Well, they didn't really say things were that bad -- at least Holly didn't say they were that bad. However, it was clear that people weren't thrilled.

CLICK

So, we did some brainstorming and now two middle managers plan each staff meeting, gathering ideas and agenda items from all levels of the organization. We've been doing more interactive staff development and sharing more, and, I know that I look forward to the meetings.

When we started talking about what kinds of things trigger change for this newsletter, I knew that feedback from Holly was a trigger for change for me.

But then I wondered whether staff had been telling me they didn't like the staff meetings all along and I just didn't hear it. In that case, hearing it from Holly was my trigger.

Does it matter which was the trigger?

I guess making the change was most important. But, I'm going to pay more attention to my own triggers now, because if staff wants a change, I want to be sure they know it's safe to provide that feedback directly. But, if they'd been asking for change and I couldn't hear it until someone outside the organization told me, I need to build in ways for those conversations to occur.

So, working on this issue of the newsletter has highlighted two things for me. I want to be alert to what triggers change in others, and I will be able to structure more opportunities for change if I can learn what kinds of things trigger change in me.

Dom