MORE HAPPY FACES

By Dean Summers

The Center for Dependable Strengths (CDS) exists to train counselors and educators in a time-tested process that allows clients and students to improve their quality of life through meaningful work. CDS founder, Bernard Haldane spoke of "More happy faces around the world."

"Improved quality of life through meaningful work" is an outcome that depends on highly subjective factors. Even so, it is an outcome essential to wellbeing and productivity, not only for the individual, but for communities, organizations, and businesses, as demonstrated by Martin Seligman, Richard Bolles, Marcus Buckingham, and others.*

Despite the inherent subjectivity, "improved quality of life through meaningful work" is measurable. Specifically, as the desired outcome of a marketed product, it is measurable in terms of customer satisfaction, and the best measure of customer satisfaction is a growing customer base. Since our incorporation in 2002, our customer base has grown dramatically.

CDS has trained nearly a thousand counselors and educators to facilitate our process. Demand for Dependable Strengths training has led to the establishment of our East Coast Regional Center as well as the Dependable Strengths Foundation (Johannesburg, South Africa) and the China Center for Dependable Strengths (Shanghai, China). In Washington State, we are partnering with the Department of Social and Health Services/Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) and with Local Planning Associations in Snohomish and Whatcom Counties. We are also partnering with the Washington Occupational Information System (WOIS) and, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with Luther Seminary.

Beyond all that, we are seeing a demand for a CDS Southwest Regional Center and a CDS Midwest Regional Center, and we are seeing opportunities to develop Centers for Dependable Strengths in Japan and South Korea. We attribute such dramatic growth (in just five years!) to the customer satisfaction experienced by students and clients of the facilitators we have trained.

Studies have been conducted by the University of Washington Dependable Strengths Project, the University of Washington Center for Career Services, and Washington State's DSHS/DVR seeking numbers that quantify our program's effectiveness. For example, DVR is using the Dependable Strengths process as the centerpiece of its new WorkStrides program. To measure effectiveness, DVR administers the Employment Readiness Scale (ERS) at the beginning and again at the end of each round of WorkStrides. The results are impressive, but preliminary. For example, the initial data shows a dramatic increase, after WorkStrides, in the number of participants who view their work history as a positive support in the job-search process: 61% up from 32%.

Of course, the questions everybody wants answered are along these lines: 1) in a given economic environment, in a given social context, what percentage of people seeking work finds work because of our program? 2) how long after our program is it taking those people to find work; 3) what percentage of that population reports an improved level of job satisfaction? 4) how do those outcomes compare to the outcomes of other programs with similar goals?

One answer to those questions is that there are just too many variables for obtaining meaningful, quantifiable results. We may well be seeking left-brain (linear, quantifiable) answers to right-brain (gestalt, intuitive) questions. Even so, we all like numbers, even when the numbers are suggestive more than decisive. To date, the most comprehensive study of the numbers is under way at the University of Washington Center for Career Services (CCS). Again, the results are impressive, but preliminary (and suggestive more than decisive). Respondents to a CCS questionnaire affirm that the Dependable Strengths process gave them increased hope, revealed overlooked talents and skills, and taught them how to conduct an effective job search.

Meanwhile, we can point to our growing customer base, which is perhaps the best indicator of success anyway. Our customers are counselors and educators--who come for our training mainly on the recommendation of their colleagues. By and large, counselors and educators show a decided lack of enthusiasm for anything "new and improved"--unless it works for their clients and students. Our growing customer base among counselors and educators is telling us our program works.

Specifically, those counselors and educators are telling us our program works because:

• We help people tell their stories in ways that illustrate their Dependable Strengths (those abilities characteristic of their best work).

• We help people identify and describe their transferable skills in ways that translate into livelihood.

• We help people build self-confidence.

• We help people replace a sense of isolation with a sense of community as they relate their experiences in a group setting, as they pull together in small-group exercises, and as they become friends.

• We help people replace confusion, frustration and discouragement with the tools to plan a hopeful future.
  

Our program is the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process (DSAP), first developed by Bernard Haldane in 1945, and refined over the years by Bernard Haldane and others including the Dependable Strengths Project (University of Washington, Jerald Forster, Director), and the Center for Dependable Strengths (Allen Boivin-Brown, President). DSAP is a rigorous twenty-hour, client-oriented, peer-assisted, group process that requires a trained, experienced facilitator.

The process is work: pre-work, class work, teamwork, homework, and field work. But, the heart of the process is storytelling. DSAP Facilitators are trained to elicit the kind of stories that illustrate a person's Dependable Strengths--those strengths characteristic of a person's best work. Participants tell their stories in small groups, and receive feedback in the form of written and vocal comments from each of the others in their group. Participants are encouraged to pay special attention to body language--that of the storyteller as well as that of the listeners.

To qualify as a CDS certified DSAP Facilitator, a counselor or educator must complete a 35-hour training program, and must co-facilitate at least two DSAP workshops, personally facilitating each step of the process at least once. To date, ninety counselors and educators have qualified for DSAP Facilitator certification including four at the level of Local Trainer and fourteen at the level of Master Trainer. We are aware that many counselors and educators complete the 35 hours of DSAP Facilitator Training, and become active DSAP practitioners, without opting to pursue CDS certification. How many, we do not know.

DSAP is a process that has affinities with methods popularized by Martin Seligman, Richard Bolles, Marcus Buckingham, and others, including David Cooperrider, founder of Appreciative Inquiry. There are two reasons for the affinities: 1) any keen observer of human nature and social systems concerned with improving quality of life through meaningful work is sure to develop principles and procedures compatible with those developed by others who share the same objective; 2) directly and indirectly, our founder, Bernard Haldane, has had a tremendous influence in the field of career development, as acknowledged by Richard Bolles and David Cooperrider among others.

Those principles and procedures have been packaged in a variety of ways, some designed for one-on-one life counseling, some designed for self-help, some designed as online interactive programs. As beneficial as those approaches may be, the Center for Dependable Strengths sees the real magic in a rigorous, peer-assisted group process led by a trained, experienced facilitator, who can elicit the kind of stories that illustrate a person's Dependable Strengths--those strengths characteristic of a person's best work. The outcome for the client and the student is more than a score on a survey, more than a new point of view, more than a new set of skills, more than a motivational nudge. It is the kind of life-giving transformation that comes only through a significant investment of time, attention, and energy, in a step-by-step group process of human interaction guided by a qualified professional.

Our customers are counselors and educators. Their customers are clients and students--who desire improved quality of life through meaningful work. As CDS continues the work of Bernard Haldane, that desired outcome is becoming a reality for many. How many? Enough that the word is spreading, and that the demand for DSAP is growing. Bernard would be pleased. His work, and our work, is resulting in more happy faces around the world.

.* Work that substantiates important aspects of the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process includes the following:

Richard Nelson Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute? 2007: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career Changes (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2006).

Marcus Buckingham, Go Put Your Strengths to Work: Six Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance (New York: Free Press, 2007).

David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005).

Martin E. P. Seligman, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004).

Dean Summers, a CDS certified DSAP Instructor, is a Project Manager at the Center for Learning Connections, Highline Community College, Des Moines, Washington. CLC provides administrative support for the Center for Dependable Strengths. Dean is the Editor for DSNews.

There is a wealth of information about DSAP and its effectiveness on the CDS website: www.dependablestrengths.org. See especially the current and back issues of DSNews.