Facilitator Guide

Defining Narratives Institute · Operated by We The Revolt, Inc. First Edition

PART ONE · BEFORE YOU RUN IT

What this is, and what it is not

Twelve lessons on encounters with law enforcement, for young people and the adults raising them.

It is not a compliance course. It is not a know your rights pamphlet. It is not a police relations program and there is no officer in the room for the first four modules.

It teaches three things. How you are read and how to control what you are broadcasting. How to buy six seconds when your body has already started moving. And the difference between what the law permits and what is wise on the side of a road at eleven at night.

The four rules that govern everything

One. Never promise safety. Philando Castile is taught in Lesson 1.1, early and in full. A facilitator who softens him has broken the course, because every young person in the room can look him up.

Two. Responsibility for a killing rests with the killer. Say it out loud. If a session starts drifting toward what a dead person should have done differently, stop it and say this.

Three. Two of the eight questions are never read. Not by you, not by a supervisor, not by a probation officer, not on request from a court. If that is broken once, at one site, the instrument is dead everywhere, because they talk to each other.

Four. You do not give legal advice. Not once, not as an aside, not because you happen to know the answer. Every legal question goes to the state box and to the attorney line.

Who is in the room

Mostly boys, girls sometimes. So the language is you almost entirely and never young men in here, because the one girl in that room hears it and checks out.

Everybody in front of you has either been stopped or watched somebody get stopped. Treat what they have seen as data, not as an attitude problem. A session that argues with their experience is finished in the first fifteen minutes.

Configurations

Sequence is fixed. Nobody starts at Module 4. Completion is 10 of 12.

The hour

Cut discussion inside blocks 3 and 4 if you are running long. Never the opening.

The state layer

Every legal statement carries a state. Confirm each participant has selected theirs before Module 4. Where a state has not been verified yet, the box shows the federal baseline and says so, and you say so too.

Print the parent page for each participant's state before the session where parents attend.

PART TWO · LESSON NOTES

1.1 · The numbers and the names

Bring. Food. Pens. The referral card. Printed copies in case the wifi is out.

Arc. The number, who it happens to, the four names, officer created jeopardy.

Watch. The room will test whether you are going to be honest. Castile is the test. Deliver him without softening and you have the room for eleven more lessons.

Quiet. Ask who has been stopped, by hands, not by name. Nearly every hand goes up and that starts it.

Hard. Somebody says none of this matters because they are going to do what they want anyway. Do not argue. Say that is a fair read of what he has seen, and keep going.

Land. Knowing the numbers is not the same as being ready for them.

Close. Every person says out loud which adult they are going to ask about their own stop.

1.2 · What is not your fault

Arc. Two things that are both true, the two meanings of responsible, the shrinking trap, what to tell your brother.

Watch. The shrinking trap block is where a young person can hear the whole course as be less. If you deliver only that half, you have taught damage. Read block three exactly as written.

Hard. Somebody defends he should have just complied. Do not shut it down. Ask him what that sentence is doing for the person saying it, and let the room answer.

Land. You are not at fault for how you are read, and you are still the one reading the room.

Close. The eleven second sentence, said out loud, by everybody.

2.1 · The read

Bring. A phone that films. This lesson does not work without it.

Watch. Section three, the unfair filter, is delivered once and plainly and you do not linger. Lingering turns it into despair.

Quiet. The corner store scenario gets everybody talking because everybody has been both people.

Hard. Somebody refuses to be filmed. Do not push. Let him film somebody else and watch, which gets most of the value.

Land. You cannot control the filter. You can control the material.

2.2 · The gap

Watch. Section four is the anti-shrinking guardrail. Deliver it fully. The line you are allowed to be angry the entire time you are doing it is not optional.

Quiet. Play back last week's videos with the sound off, then sound only. It opens a room faster than any question.

Hard. Somebody says he is not changing anything for anybody. Agree with the principle and separate it from the tactic. Nobody is asking him to be different, only to be legible.

Land. You are not making yourself smaller. You are making the truth easier to see.

3.1 · What your body does

Watch. This is the most credible lesson in the course to a sceptical room, because it is physical and they can check it against themselves.

Quiet. Ask where it starts in the body. Chest, hands, jaw. People who will not discuss anger will describe a jaw.

Hard. Somebody says his reaction has saved his life. He is probably right. Agree, then move to the recognition point, which is the actual skill.

Land. The gap between what you feel and what you do is the only thing you own.

3.2 · Buying the second

Bring. Access to a parked car if at all possible. This lesson is physical or it is nothing.

Watch. Everybody will find it embarrassing to practise. Do it first yourself, badly, in front of them.

Hard. Somebody performs it as a joke. Let the laugh finish, then ask him to do it once properly, and thank him.

Land. A plan made in the moment is a wish.

Close. Every person states their day, place and count for practice.

4.1 · What the law actually says

Bring. Printed state boxes for every state represented in the room. Verify every participant has selected a state.

Watch. You do not give legal advice. If a question is not answered by the box, the answer is I do not know, and here is the number for somebody who does.

Quiet. Ask how many have ever said no to a search. Usually nobody, and that opens it.

Hard. A live case surfaces. Stop, take it out of the room, and hand him the legal aid number privately before he leaves the building.

Land. Am I being detained, or am I free to go.

4.2 · What it costs to use it

Watch. This is the lesson most likely to produce real anger, and the anger is correct. Do not manage it away. Say plainly that the course is asking him to take something he did not deserve and hold it until it counts.

Hard. Somebody says this is teaching them to be a coward. Take it head on. Holding something is harder than throwing it, and most people cannot do it.

Land. Comply now, contest later.

Close. The three sentences, out loud, everybody, then one person tries to talk somebody out of them and he holds all three.

5.1 · Hands, doors and running

Watch. Wardlow lands hard. Most of the room does not know that running is what creates the legal basis, and several of them have run.

Hard. Somebody has run and it went badly. Do not make an example of him. Individual follow up within twenty four hours.

Land. Say it before you move. Do not get out. Never get back in. Do not run.

5.2 · The gun, the struggle, and your boys

Bring. The firearm state box, checked this month. This is the box that kills somebody if it is wrong.

Watch. The block on the people you ride with is the hardest hour in the course, because for some of them those people are family. Do not tell anybody to leave anybody. Frame it as the one decision they get to make with a clear head.

Hard. Somebody says he cannot have that conversation with his people. Believe him. Ask what a smaller version would look like.

Land. The one decision you make with a clear head is who is in the car.

6.1 · The first hour

Bring. Phones out. The legal aid number goes in every phone in the room before anybody leaves.

Hard. Somebody says filing never does anything. He is largely right. Give him the accumulation answer honestly rather than overselling it.

Land. Twenty minutes after is worth more than six months of remembering.

6.2 · The six months

Watch. This is the disclosure lesson. Something is going to come out. Have a second staff member in the building.

Watch. The line they already look at me like a criminal so what is the point will land on somebody in that room who is currently thinking it. Watch faces during section two.

Quiet. Do not fill it. This is the one lesson where a long silence is the work.

Hard. Someone discloses ongoing distress. You do not counsel and you do not assess. You listen, you follow up within twenty four hours, and you have the referral list.

Land. Do not let a twenty minute stop write the next two years.

Close. The one year letter, written in the room, sealed, dated. Nobody leaves without writing it.

PART THREE · SAFETY AND DISCLOSURE

Four lessons reliably produce disclosure. 1.1, childhood exposure to violence. 4.1, live legal matters and warrants. 5.1, having run. 6.2, current distress.

Standing protocol.

Acknowledge in the room. Do not pursue detail in the room. Individual follow up within twenty four hours, every time, logged separately and never in the session record.

Mandated reporting applies and you say so at intake, out loud, in plain words, before anybody writes anything. A young person who learns that in week nine will never trust anything you said in week one.

A live warrant is a safety matter for that person. Private conversation before he leaves the building, with the legal aid number in his hand.

If somebody indicates he is in danger, leave the group process and follow the crisis protocol. The referral list goes to the whole room at the start of 6.2 so that taking it is not a public act.

PART FOUR · FIDELITY

Adaptation is permitted in delivery. Language, setting, pacing, examples, who facilitates.

Adaptation is not permitted in content. No lesson omitted, reordered or substituted. Any proposed content change goes to the program director in writing and into the adaptation register before it is delivered.

Two things that are never adapted under any circumstances.

The two unread questions stay unread.

No legal statement is ever delivered from memory, from another state's box, or from a facilitator's own knowledge. Read the box. If the box does not cover it, say you do not know.

Session checklist, two minutes after every session, on paper: lesson and date, number present, number who completed last week's action, blocks delivered, questions completed in room, actions said aloud, any deviation and why, any disclosure requiring follow up yes or no with no detail, signature and time.

PART FIVE · CERTIFICATION

One day of training, one observed delivery scored against the checklist, annual recertification, monthly supervisory observation.

What a facilitator has to be able to do.

Sit with somebody crying and not fill the silence.

Say I do not know about a legal question and mean it.

Deliver Castile without softening him.

Deliver the anti-shrinking block in 1.2 and 2.2 so that it lands as power rather than as permission to disappear.

Follow up within twenty four hours, every time, without being chased.

The known risk. The strongest facilitators here are people who have lived it. That is an advantage and it comes with a hazard, which is teaching your own story instead of the lesson. Name it in training rather than discovering it in week five.