Erica Freemans’ empathy, wisdom, smarts, connectedness, dedication to the Help Line and Shelter, and her articulate and inspirational messaging at outreach events are all reasons why
she has been selected as a stand-out volunteer!
Erica recently took a moment to answer some of our questions for this volunteer spotlight!
Q. What’s a typical volunteer shift like for you? - Until this fall it would have been impossible to describe a "typical" shift, as I used to volunteer at NB in several capacities: Helpline phone worker, CAP advocate's assistant, shelter assistant, data entry assistant, and community discussion volunteer. I've even helped with the holiday gift-giving preparation. So that's a lot of experience to try to reduce to a "typical" shift. These days, though, now that I'm in grad school again full-time and working part-time, most of my volunteering at NB centers on my Helpline work (with occasional forays into public speaking!). The Helpline is my first love for reasons that go beyond my experiences at NB, but everyone on the NB staff helps make my hours on the Helpline some of my very favorite moments each week. Without a doubt, I come to CAP early on Friday mornings eager to enter the phone room, answer calls, and engage with staff. On a typical Helpline shift, I answer several calls that range from CAP screenings to intense crisis intervention. Perhaps best of all are the moments between calls, when Becky (and others at CAP and Admin) and I catch each other up on our weeks, tell ridiculous stories, draw silly pictures, write inane things on the white board, and, of course, laugh so much while doing all of these things. It's the balance between meaningful, "serious" work and playfulness that makes each of these shifts so invigorating!
Q. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you while volunteering? - Coming in to shift last week and finding the hand-drawn announcement that I am volunteer of the month! The fall quarter at SU is drawing to a close, and I've been working constantly on everything - school, job, basic self-care -- I didn't even realize that I needed some encouragement and positive feedback. It felt so great to be recognized! And it was so unexpected!
Q. What do you want to say to people who might be interested in volunteering? - Quite often this fall we've had new volunteers "shadow" Helpline while I'm on shift, so I have had plenty of opportunities recently to engage with this question. So often new or potential volunteers wonder with trepidation whether they have "what it takes" to be a volunteer with a DV organization - especially the Helpline. I remember those fears well, as I, too, was once a Helpline "newbie," back when I started my first Helpline gig at NEDA. At that time, the phone suddenly seems like the most terrifying object in the known universe, and the hypothetical caller you have in mind has a whole litany of questions for which you have no answers and a crisis situation so intense that there is no way you can helpfully intervene. These fears are not to be discounted, and there's no doubt that Helpline work can be challenging. Nevertheless, what I like to tell people is that listening, even the special kind of active listening we practice on the Helpline, is basic to being human. It doesn't take an expert or an extraordinary person to be a great phone worker - we all have that potential within us. WE, actually, are our biggest obstacles when we strive to do this work well. We often think, I have to watch myself, I have to stay ahead of the caller, I have to make sure I'm applying all the training skills properly, I have to know all the answers, and we therefore remain very self-concerned. Yet, the most powerful and effective calls I've had at NB and in other phone-work situations are those in which I am not self-concerned. These are the calls in which I'm so drawn into what the caller is saying, that I am entirely focused on her. How is this possible? The way I understand it, is that when we are other-focused (as opposed to preoccupied with self), we are more open to perceive the caller's emotional reality and can respond to it naturally. It's not easy to stay other-focused, which is actually another reason why I love this work: to be the kind of phone interventionist I want to be, I have to work on myself. The task of the Helpline demands that I become the very best version of myself. But it's not all self-work - I learn so much from callers (and staff!), and so I routinely come out of shifts feeling as though I've been given so much more than I have been able to give to others. The sense of satisfaction, of doing something meaningful and essential on an individual level, is unmatched. I am fortunate to be able to say that I do many things I enjoy in my life right now, but nothing tops my experience of taking these calls.
Q. What brought you to volunteer in the DV field? - The short answer is, my desire to make meaning (and beauty) out of my own experience has brought me to NB as a volunteer. My own life and that of one of my sisters has been touched by domestic violence. After some time and distance from those situations, I began to want to put that experience to use. Working within this organization, and, specifically, talking with women who feel alone and trapped in their suffering, felt like the most profound way to create "good" out of something awful.
Q. What’s one thing New Beginnings’ staff doesn’t know about you? - At present I am working on not just one but TWO master's degrees. In addition to working toward my M.A. in clinical psychology at SU, I'm completing (remotely) the requirements for a terminal master's from a program at Notre Dame I had started (and left) before moving out here to Seattle.
Thank you, Erica, for your hard work and dedication to New Beginnings!
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