Can Radical Hospitality be taught?

It has been seven years now since I gravitated to the phrase of Radical Hospitality  to define what I witnessed as a cultural predisposition to coming alongside people in Trieste.  In Italian, the word is accoglienza – the title of this blog.

I am convinced that this is the secret sauce that represents a pre-requisite to creating an environment for trust and relationship-building.  It is one hundred percent what is missing in our American institutions, and in our mental health systems throughout the country. 

Are we all capable of adopting this posture?  Perhaps not.  But I will argue that we know it when we experience it and it is a more desirable room to occupy than a place of radical non-hospitality.

THREE PROPOSITIONS

I’ve been encouraged to develop a curriculum around this and I’m grateful for the assignment, because it is challenging me to think about how you train around human kindness and empathy.  So, this is where I’ve landed so far:

• There is no checklist.   You cannot follow a formula to practice Radical Hospitality.  There is no checklist and then “voila!” there it is.  So therefore, it cannot be taught in the traditional sense.  It cannot be an online class with a quiz at the end of each chapter.  It is a posture; it is an orientation; a submission to a horizontal relationship with another human being.  If you are faking it, people will know. 

• There is curiosity.  Instead, you have to enter into this experience with an authentic sense of curiosity and openness.  You have to be open to receiving it and you have to be open to practicing it.

•      There are boundaries.  Practicing Radical Hospitality is an intentional posture.   By this I mean that there are some instances where we just don’t practice Radical Hospitality.  We are tired.  We choose to remain anonymous.  We have strict boundaries.   We cannot do this 24/7.

Heart Forward believes that Radical Hospitality could change the American mental health system.   We believe that our institutional “protections” and risk-adverse policies and rules mitigate against these four pillars:

• We SEE you

• We HEAR you

• You are SAFE here

• Your voice matters -- CHOICE

I am musing that any training around this – a curriculum as it were – needs to be experience-based with group debrief. 

WE ARE CAPABLE OF DOING THIS

There are places where I have witnessed Radical Hospitality in action and I believe the genesis came from a place of true caring for other fellow human beings:

• Judge Ronald Kaye’s courtroom in the mental health court on Hollywood Blvd.  He truly sees and listens to the individuals who come into his court, either in handcuffs, on Zoom or walking in off the street.  He asks about their family or remembers goals that they have.  He offers an encouraging word and he notices their progress.   He asks their opinion.  If you want to see this in action, it’s a public place and we can go together.

• In Twin Towers, in the Forensic Inpatient Program, this is the posture assumed by the inmate Mental Health Assistants who live, embedded, 24-7, with the most seriously mentally ill patients in the LA County jail system.  Their human kindness bestowed upon men who have experienced unbelievable trauma is transformative and creates a place of healing.

• At The Center in Hollywood, where, for decades now, people are welcomed for coffee and conversation and have a community that cares and a place to return to, even after folks have been placed in permanent housing. 

• At The Mark Twain interim housing in Hollywood, where Heart Forward staff and volunteers have been showing up every Monday for almost a year and a half, and also stay connected with some who have left for permanent housing.

Finally, I will assert that so called “well intentioned” rules and regulations often preclude a culture of Radical Hospitality.  Presumably these are promulgated as a risk-management strategy to protect against the occasional abuse of discretion or privacy protection.  But, in protecting risk, human social connection is thwarted.    Here are some examples:

OBSERVATION (1): When I attended my three-hour orientation to be a volunteer in the LA County jail, I was admonished over and over to not fraternize with the inmates. 

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: Better to not SEE and HEAR their personal observations; and don’t share yours.  It is not SAFE.  Can we be open to the fact that people will appreciate human connection in an incarcerated setting?

OBSERVATION (2): In a particular permanent supportive housing community where we have an activity, we wanted to create a text-chat group in order to better alert the residents that we were coming.  We were encouraged to get people to sign waivers to give us their cell phone number. 

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: This sent a message that adults do not have a CHOICE to opt into a text chat.  Can we trust adults to share their cell phone numbers with other adults?

OBSERVATION (3): At a particular mental health clinic, armed security guards will check your bags and wand you to check for weapons before you head to the receptionist positioned behind a protective barrier.  

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: The message sent is that you are not SAFE here.  Can we do security differently?

OBSERVATION (4): At a local board and care home,  residents are served by various mental health service providers.  I’ve observed how case managers will show up for their perfunctory site visit and walk past residents starved for attention  to speak only to their client. 

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: This works against people being SEEN and HEARD  – unless their assigned case manager shows up.  Could visiting case managers pay attention to other people there and SEE them, at the very least?

OBSERVATION (5): At a particular Adult Residential Facility,  a county inspector will show up unannounced, to do an inspection with what appears to be the intent to look for violations in order to assess fines against the operator.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: Could county inspectors (or state licensing) try a different approach and offer to sit down for a “problem solving” meeting which would check all four boxes for the operator:  we SEE you, we HEAR you, you are SAFE here and your VOICE  MATTERS.

Here is my ask.  As I think about this curriculum, I’m thinking it needs to be experiential.  Perhaps we do role-playing?  For example, here is a room where you experience Radical Hospitality and here is one where you do not.  Let’s talk about how that felt.  Where do we experience Radical Hospitality in our day-to-day lives, and where do we not?  Why is this important?  Does this really matter, or is this just a Heart Forward pipe dream? You know where to find me.  I’d like to put together a focus group where we could all chat about this and explore it together.  Reach out to me!