Interfaithfamily.Com Professionals Advisory Circle

InterfaithFamily.com Professionals Advisory Circle Conference: A Retreat for Professionals in the Field

Nurturing Outreach: Embracing the Other, Taking Care of Ourselves

The first ever InterfaithFamily.com Professionals Advisory Circle Conference: A Retreat for Professionals in the Field, funded by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, was held on May 8-10, 2007 at the Capital Camps & Retreat Center in Waynesboro PA. The theme of the conference/retreat was Nurturing Outreach: Embracing the Other, Taking Care of Ourselves.

InterfaithFamily.com’s Professionals Advisory Circle (PAC) is a group of professionals whose jobs include conducting outreach programs that target interfaith couples and families. The PAC has a Planning Group of 12 of the most experienced outreach professionals in the country, and a total membership of 63. Forty PAC members were able to attend.

The conference/retreat program was developed and created by a Program Committee (Eve Coulson, Rosanne Levitt, Debbie Antonoff and Helena McMahon) and almost all sessions were lead by PAC members. The program was meant to be a peer-to-peer learning and sharing of experiences.

The conference/retreat is believed to be the first gathering in recent years of all professionals across the spectrum and across the country who focus on outreach to interfaith couples and families. Participants included:  Kathy Kahn, the Union for Reform Judaism’s national director of outreach and membership, and the entire URJ regional outreach staff;  Rabbi Charles Simon, executive director of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs (Conservative) and Rabbi Braham David, director of the Jewish Discovery Institute (Conservative);  Liz Marcovitz, program officer of the Jewish Outreach Institute; and  professionals from JCC’s, Jewish Family Service agencies, and home-based and independent organizations.

Several participants labeled the gathering “historic;” one commented that “getting all the outreach professionals together including from all the movements has never been done before; we all have a lot to learn from each other.” Representatives of the Schusterman Foundation, The Samuel Bronfman Foundation, and several other funders attended parts of the program.

The program included:  An interactive “sociograms” exercise lead by Eve Coulson and Rabbi Sam Gordon;  A presentation on the history of outreach and what has changed over time by Rosanne Levitt, founding director (in 1986) of a pioneering outreach program, the Interfaith Connection at the San Francisco JCC;  A text study on a new midrash of outreach lead by Rabbi Brian Field, director of Judaism Your Way in Denver;  A presentation by Sherry Israel, from the faculty of the Hornstein Program at Brandeis University, on evaluating the impact of outreach to the intermarried (Dr. Israel encouraged the participants to take their work “to the next level and begin to make systemic change” starting with developing a typology of outreach programs and their different goals and then keeping track of data measuring achievement of those goals);  Presentations by Kathy Kahn and Rabbi Charles Simon on what is new in the movements’ approaches to outreach;  Panel discussions about young adult couples groups, Stepping Stones programs, and outreach in agency-based and home-based settings;  “Nuts and bolts” sessions on marketing and use of the internet and video in programming; and  Presentations about the relatively well-funded and comprehensive outreach programs offered in Boston and San Francisco.

In post-conference evaluations, the single thing that participants liked most about the conference/retreat was the opportunity to network with each other. It is difficult to capture and describe the excitement and energy flowing from the continuous engaged discussions among the participants. Participants were thrilled to make particular connections to support future networking; for example, a movement-based professional plans to provide post-program transitional contacts to a family service-based professional for her Mother’s Circle program graduates. Many attendees took advantage of a mentoring program set up at the conference and were very satisfied with establishing those contacts. Some of the evaluation comments were: “especially loved the opportunity to make personal connection with others in the field;” “obviously this was a major need, to get outreach professionals together. What a fabulous synergy of passion and experience;” “no one can stop talking and brainstorming the future;” “I most liked the openness of everyone, to share what they do, what has worked and what hasn’t; all of us are talking with each other seriously as colleagues, and are truly interested in sharing ideas in the future too.”

In a concluding session focused on visions for the future, there was nearly uniform desire to establish a national association of outreach professionals offering regular training and networking opportunities, mentoring, and standards, leading to a professionalizing of the field. There was considerable interest expressed as a preliminary step in publicizing training opportunities on the PAC’s listerv, turning the PAC’s quarterly telephone conference calls into training opportunities, and the possibility of webcasting training sessions. These will be priorities of the PAC’s future activities. Report from the InterfaithFamily.com Professionals Advisory Circle 2 | P a g e Conference: A Retreat for Professionals in the Field Participants rated particular substantive program sessions highly, including Sherry Israel’s presentation on measuring the impact of outreach programs, a session on how to publicize programs, a session lead by InterfaithFamily.com staff on internet marketing, and the session on how the outreach professionals work together in Boston and San Francisco. One participant said: “I learned about differences in outlook on how the work is done and what the goals are.” The PAC will follow up by providing online resources on the PAC section of the InterfaithFamily.com website, initially addressing collecting evaluation data, and internet marketing.

In the future visions session, there again was nearly uniform interest in matters that will require significant advocacy:  Each community having a comprehensive set of programs that target interfaith couples and families (as opposed to and in addition to programs for the “unaffiliated”) with multiple entry points and multiple ongoing next steps opportunities along the life cycle for couples and families, i.e. from couples groups to Stepping Stones to synagogue-based programs; from interdating to baby welcoming to holiday and ritual “how-to’s” to death and mourning; from very basic educational programs like the powerful URJ-originated A Taste of Judaism program to more substantial programs like Introduction to Judaism; in diverse settings including home- and synagogue- and agency-based; addressing all segments of the population including teens and college students, adult children of intermarried parents, preschool families, and grandparents; and providing follow- up with program graduates. Other ideas included Israel trips for interfaith families, and service work as an entry point for interfaith couples.  Each community having a well-advertised central location and professional to provide information and referral and to act as a central repository for evaluation data that would be shared with all program providers; and  Research and outcome-based evaluation of program impact.

Longer term, participants’ future visions emphasized:  Sustained and adequate funding so that programs build impact through continuity and allowing professionals to have “one job description” doing outreach work exclusively not just as a small part of a larger job; and  Long-term cultural change in Jewish institutions so that outreach and welcoming of interfaith families becomes normative and universally supported by rabbis and other Jewish leaders.

For some, “the opportunity to retreat and reflect on where we are/I am with this work” was most important. Others were thrilled to “have new directions for my programs now – thank you!” There was strong interest in participating in future conferences either annually or every two years.

Report from the InterfaithFamily.com Professionals Advisory Circle 3 | P a g e Conference: A Retreat for Professionals in the Field