Section A · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, February 7, 2000
Community center relies on students to aid distressed
By John Audleholm
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Tiffini Prato spends eight hours a week by a phone waiting for calls. The people who call her talk about anything from how their days went to suicide.
She and about 60 other volunteers work the phones and talk to walk-ins at the free, 24-hour-a-day counseling and referral center.
Marybeth Bethel, assistant director of the center, said about two-thirds of its volunteers were University of Kansas students.
Marcia Epstein, director of the center and Lawrence graduate student in social welfare, said students were involved at all levels of the program.
"We have a lot of students who give to us," she said. "We also have a lot of students who use our services."
Bethel said students were more likely to call about relationships and loneliness than other people, but Prato said no problems were exclusive to students.
"Students can call in with anything that anybody else can call in with," she said.
Epstein said there was almost always a student volunteering at the center.
And Bethel said that without KU students, the center would not be what it was.
"We would exist but in a different way," she said. "It might not be a volunteer agency."
KU students started the center in 1969 as a support center for users of street drugs. Bethel said.
"The original staff actually lived there." she said.
The center quickly expanded into dealing with other personal issues, and by the early 70s, it was a crisis center. The University and the United Way began providing training in 1972.
Now, the center's other broad areas of emphasis are community education and the training program for volunteers. Epstein said. Student Senate finances about one-third of the program.
Training takes 10 to 12 hours a week
"The first time I ever worked was the busiest shift I've ever had.I don't think that it's scary anymore. Once you get into the situation,it's just natural."
Tiffini Prato
KU senior and volunteer staff member at Headquarters Counseling Center
for 12 weeks, she said, and volunteers then work eight hours a week for seven to eight months after they finish training.
"It's a lot of time that they're giving," Epstein said.
Volunteer staff training sessions usually begin the Sunday after the start of the University's fall, spring and summer sessions, she said.
Prato said she went through the training program last August and started working shifts at the beginning of November.
"I wanted to go into counseling," she said. "And I wanted to see if I liked it."
sand, And I wanted to see if I liked it. Prato said the training had helped her communication skills at both the job and in her personal life.
The training program has changed the way she interacts with everybody, even her parents, she said. She now tries to ask more questions and be understanding and empathetic, she said.
When it came time for the real thing, Prato said she wasn't scared.
"The first time I ever worked was the busiest shift I ever had," she said. "I don't think that it's scary anymore. Once you get into the situation, it's just natural."
Prato said volunteers often referred clients to other organizations, such as Women's Transitional Care Services or Rape Victim Survivor Services.
"We have an extensive community resource file," she said.
Prato said she had met caring people at the center.
"They have their life in order and their stuff together," she said. "By the time I get here, I'm glad that it here."
Using his imagination
Telling stories about "gittin' liquored up," Kip Niven plays a frontier scout at a live broadcast of Imagination Workshop. The show was broadcast Saturday from Liberty Hall on KANU-
FM 91.5, Lawrence's public radio station.The workshop will celebrate its 15th year of live broadcasts this month.Photo by Selena Jabara/KANSAN
Postal Service flips for Grand Canyon
WASHINGTON — First, the U.S.
Postal Service had to destroy 100
million Grand Canyon stamps
because the caption put the natural
wonder in Colorado, not Arizona.
photograph on the stamp is flipped giving a mirror image of the real view.
This time, there are no plans to recall or destroy the 60-cent air mail stamps, Postal Service spokesman Domo Merali said Wednesday.
Now that the corrected version is on sale, postal officials have admitted another glitch: The dramatic
"We're sticking with it," Smeraldi said. "No matter how you look at it, the Grand Canyon makes a beautiful postage stamp."
Waitress serves girl whiskey, not juice
She was right: It wasn't juice. It was whiskey.
MARLBORO, Mass. — Fouryear-old Amanda Gustafson knew immediately there was something "yuck" about her apple juice.
a waitress at TGI Friday's served the girl the booze during a recent family dinner. Ron Gustafson claims his daughter began "acting silly" and later complained of a headache after sipping the drink.
"this tastes yucky, daddy," the girl told him after taking a swig.
told him after taking a swig. Friday's spokeswoman Amy Freshwater said a waitress mistakenly picked up a cup of what she thought was apple juice. The restaurant chain now is reviewing its policies to ensure such a mistake never happens again.
Alligator wrestler hands over a finger
HOLLYWOOD, Ra. — Seminole Chief James Billie could consider himself lucky. He wrestled an alligator and only lost a digit.
"He bit my hand, so I gave him my finger," said Billie, 55, after surgery to amputate his right ring finger at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood.
Billie said it was a spontaneous decision to climb into the ring during Tuesday's wrestling show in front of about 100 tourists at the tribe's tourist park in the Everglades.
— The Associated Press
— Compiled by Clay McCuistion