Karsh Center Volunteer Summit

June 3, 2019

Thank you for attending the 2019 Karsh Center Volunteer Summit!

Thank you for attending the inaugural Karsh Center Volunteer Summit! We hope that you left from the day feeling energized, inspired, and appreciated for the wonderful work you do as volunteers and staff.

On behalf of the Karsh Center team, we would like to say once again – thank you. Thank you for the time, focus, and enthusiasm that you brought to the Summit, for your invaluable feedback in planning for the day, and for your help in sharing what you’ve learned with the organizations that you represent.

If you were unable to attend or wish to review materials from the day, we will be updating this website within the next couple of weeks.

Please also keep an eye out for a post-event survey in your inboxes. As we mentioned, this feedback will be the core of our planning process for next year’s Summit.

Lastly, thank you to the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles for their support in hosting the Summit.

Warmest regards,

The Karsh Center Team

About the Volunteer Summit

The purpose of the Karsh Center Volunteer Summit is to offer in-depth training, support and connections to volunteers who are engaged in social service delivery. By equipping attendees to feel better prepared and more effective in their roles, our goal is for volunteers to have a more meaningful experiences and higher impact relationships with their clients.

The Karsh Center is thrilled to invite volunteers, as well as volunteer-oriented staff, from nonprofit organizations all over Los Angeles to come together for the Karsh Center Volunteer Summit: a day of training, networking, and celebrating the impact that dedicated volunteers have on their communities every day.

Designed for both new and experienced volunteers, the Summit will train attendees to better connect to the community they serve and build relationships with fellow volunteers.

Participants will attend multiple training sessions throughout the day, engaging with topics such as:

  • de-escalating difficult situations when working with clients in distress
  • connecting with and supporting clients dealing with trauma
  • employing and embracing cultural humility when working with clients of different backgrounds
  • implementing innovative practices around food and nutrition as ways of healing
  • creating change within systems serving those in need by engaging dedicated and passionate volunteers

The Summit will also invite participants to learn from community leaders about the powerful impact highly engaged individuals can have volunteering in nonprofit organizations and serving vulnerable communities.

Please join us for this special day to learn, engage with community, and gain new and invaluable tools for effectively serving and connecting with those in need.

Schedule (Subject to Change)

9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Registration, Breakfast & Collaborator Exhibition

9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Welcome address by Rabbi Beau Shapiro & Lila Guirguis

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Training session breakouts

  • De-Escalating Volatile Situations and Conversations facilitated by Barrie Levy, L.C.S.W. 
  • Privilege and Service: Exploring Our Assumptions facilitated by Dr. Jill A. Aguilar

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Luncheon

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Training session breakouts

  • Understanding Food Systems and Their Impact on Community Health facilitated by Amy Vu
  • Meditation as a Way to Heal Trauma facilitated by Angela Oh, J.D., and Ying Ming Tu (Tu2)

2:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. Keynote Address by Dr. Maurice Garcia

2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. Plenary Panel moderated by Michael Janofsky

Panel Participants: David Daniels (Public Counsel), Lynne Gabriel (CASA of Los Angeles), Barbara Leanse (Consultant), Laura Zachar (Reading Partners)

3:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Closing and Departure

Program Descriptions

Rabbi Beau Shapiro, Rabbi, Wilshire Boulevard Temple

Lila Guirguis, Director, Karsh Family Social Service Center

Facilitated By Barrie Levy, L.C.S.W.

Though we are not clinicians, as volunteers many of us experience interactions with individuals who are clearly experiencing distress and aren’t in a state to be able to express themselves and work productively together to tackle problems they may be facing. In this session with Barrie Levy, L.C.S.W., volunteers will gain tools to help them navigate encounters with clients experiencing distress, and to de-escalate these situations.

Facilitated By Jill A. Aguilar

How do our personal life experiences and backgrounds affect how we interact with the clients we serve? In this session with Dr. Jill A. Aguilar, we will explore the lenses through which we view our volunteer work and programs to begin to surface possible tensions when a volunteer of one social position serves a client of a different social position. Participants will leave this session with an increased awareness about our their own strengths, limitations, and personal goals for how to connect in a deliberate and thoughtful way with those who turn to us for support.

Facilitated by Amy Vu

In this session, we will discuss the changes in our food system over the past few decades and how that has led to a rise in obesity and diabetes. We will consider data  to help frame our understanding and then discuss different strategies to develop healthy eating habits. We will also have a recipe demonstration using simple affordable ingredients. Attendees of this session will gain an understanding of a crucial challenge that exists in the backdrop for many of our clients, and practice implementing tools that encourage healthy and accessible nutrition habits as a way to lead healthier, stronger lives.

Facilitated by Angela Oh, J.D. and Tu2

This afternoon session will provide an introduction to meditation, a valuable tool for both volunteers’ own self care as well as practices that can help support clients. This workshop will provide the basic experience of holding silence through meditation, with instruction on breath, posture, concentration – what to do; how to become aware of the form and one’s own responses, physically and mentally.

In “Honoring Our Clients Identities” Dr. Maurice Garcia will share insights, experiences and lessons from his career and current work as the Director of the Transgender Surgery Program at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. He will share background on challenges and stigmas faced by the transgender community, as well as the specific best practice his team employs in service of transgender patients. Through this lens, we will consider how each of us can contribute to creating spaces that are inclusive for a vibrant and diverse range of identities. Whether your volunteer field is medical, legal, housing, food and nutrition, education or something else entirely, this keynote will challenge each of us to ask ourselves, how are we as individuals and institutions honoring our clients’ identities, histories and experiences in a way that leads to their best outcomes and care?

Moderated by: Michael Janofsky

Panel Participants: David Daniels (Public Counsel), Lynne Gabriel (CASA of Los Angeles), Barbara Leanse (Consultant), Laura Zachar (Reading Partners)

This plenary panel will be a discussion amongst leaders of  diverse organizations serving communities by engaging committed and highly trained volunteers. Through this discussion, we will learn about trends in Los Angeles’ volunteer landscape, challenges and opportunities for volunteer engagement, and how much volunteers impact those they work with by dedicating and sharing their time, skills and experiences.

Panelists and Presenters

Jill A. Aguilar has worked as a human relations facilitator and educator in Los Angeles since 1986. She is an emerita professor of education at CSU Dominguez Hills in adolescent literacy and the arts.

As the Pro Bono Director, David Daniels uses his more than 20 years of experience as a practicing attorney to connect private law firms and practitioners to Public Counsel’s mission of providing pro bono legal representation to the most vulnerable members of our community.

In 2006, Mr. Daniels joined Public Counsel as the Directing Attorney of the Homelessness Prevention Law Project, a position he held until being promoted to Pro Bono Director in October 2009.

Mr. Daniels came to Public Counsel with considerable background in land use, affordable housing advocacy, and litigation.  After graduating from Georgetown University Law Center in 1987, Mr. Daniels spent the early part of his legal career as a general business litigator at private law offices in Century City.  In 1992, Mr. Daniels left the private sector and took a position as a staff attorney with the Santa Monica Rent Control Board, where he focused on affordable housing and tenants’ rights by prosecuting and defending the Board’s policies in court.

From 1996 to 2000, Mr. Daniels continued his work on behalf of rent control jurisdictions as an attorney for the Los Angeles-based law firm of Richards, Watson & Gershon.  In addition to his rent control practice at Richards, Watson, Mr. Daniels also served as Primary Assistant City Attorney and Planning Commission Attorney for such firm clients as Beverly Hills and La Habra Heights.  Mr. Daniels later worked as Primary Assistant City Attorney and Planning Commission Attorney for such cities as Rancho Mirage and Coachella while employed at another prominent Southern California law firm, Green, De Bortnowsky & Quintanilla.

In more recent years, Mr. Daniels has represented developers in land use entitlement and litigation work throughout Northern and Southern California while employed as an attorney in the Government and Land Use Department at Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Mitchell.  Immediately prior to joining Public Counsel, Mr. Daniels was serving as the General Counsel to the Santa Monica Rent Control Board, where he continued to promote affordable housing by defending the directives of the Board in a variety of litigation and legislative matters.

Lynne is the director of training and volunteer relations at CASA of Los Angeles, where she’s been since 2001. Prior to her work with CASA/LA, Lynne spent 15 years working as a consultant doing training and curriculum development, primarily in the area of emotional intelligence, for a wide array of companies and municipalities. Lynne also served as a CASA volunteer for 12 years, leaving that role for the opportunity to become a foster, and then adoptive, parent. Lynne spent much of her early career developing and facilitating workshops on HIV as a workplace issue, including training hundreds of volunteers across the country. She brings strong communications, marketing and technology skills to the table. She has been a partner at Help Jim and WorkPositive, Inc. and consulted for Celgene, Tibotec Therapeutics, National AIDS Fund, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. She served as the director of workplace education at APLA and the director of AIDS programs at Hollywood Supports.

Maurice Marcel Garcia, MD, MAS is Associate Clinical Professor of Urology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and Associate Clinical Professor of Urology (Adjunct) in the Department of Urology, and Department of Anatomy, at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He completed 3 clinical fellowships in: (1.) Andrology/Sexual Medicine and Neurourology, (2.) MtF genital gender affirming surgery (GAS), and (3.) FtM genital gender affirming surgery. Dr. Garcia also completed a 2-year Master’s Degree in Clinical Research in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at UCSF.

He specializes in both masculinizing and feminizing transgender surgery, outcomes research, sexual medicine, surgical device design, and transgender surgery education. He founded the genital GAS program at UCSF in 2013, and in 2017, the interdisciplinary Cedars-Sinai Transgender Surgery and Health Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he currently serves as Program Director.

He is an active member of and educator for WPATH, and, Co-author of WPATH’s Standards of Care v. 8.0. He serves as a lecturer and course-leader for WPATH’s Global Education Initiative (GEI). The American Urologic Association (AUA Transgender Surgery Core Curriculum Lead, AUA Transgender Surgery Course Director. Personal areas of interest include clinical outcomes research, sexual medicine, and surgical and sexual function related device design.

Lila Guirguis has decades of extensive professional experience working with Los Angeles–based nonprofit organizations, population-based initiatives, and community and neighborhood groups.

In March 2018, Lila took on the exciting role of Director of the Karsh Center, and she is responsible for leading the implementation of the Center’s overall vision and strategy. Before joining the Karsh Center, Lila started the first-ever Office of the Young Child for the City of Pasadena. As the sole city staffer in this position, she worked with a 30-person volunteer group to implement the Early Child Development Policy and develop a resolution adopted by the Pasadena City Council to become an Early Learning City by 2025.

Prior to that, Lila was the Founding Director of Magnolia Community Initiative (MCI) for eight years. In this role, she mobilized community organizations and residents to take effective actions that improved health and developmental outcomes, using network theory and change-management strategies designed to transform working relationships, care pathways, and population outcomes.

Lila holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California, which included a special focus on Nonprofit Management. In addition, she completed her bachelor of arts in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a native of Pasadena and currently lives there. Most recently she was the Lead Consultant for Collaborate PASadena, a consultant for a population-based initiative in Surrey, British Columbia, and a Fellow with the Aspen Institute, Center for Urban Innovation.

Michael Janofsky is a career journalist who spent 24 years as a national and Washington correspondent for The New York Times. More recently, he’s worked as an editor of online sites focusing on education and as news editor at the Jewish Journal. He has also edited magazine stories, several books and op-eds.

Barbara R. Leanse, a 40 plus year health care executive and social worker, just completed over 33 years at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center most recently as the Executive Director of one of the largest hospital-based volunteer programs in the United States.

While at Cedars-Sinai Barbara focused on strategically contributing to the institution’s success though patient and family satisfaction, community relations, employee satisfaction and engagement and emergency preparedness.  Barbara was responsible, for among other things, developing and growing an industry leading, state of the art volunteer services program with over 3,000 volunteers contributing over 200,000 hours annually. During her tenure at Cedars-Sinai she was intimately involved in developing programs to increase the fiscal success of the institution by focusing on customer service, employee development and image development.  During her tenure Barbara was responsible for creating over 40 innovative programs several of which received national recognition from the American Hospital Association.

Barbara was a Board member of the California Association of Hospitals and Health Services, President of the Southern California Association of Volunteer Health Directors, an active member of Association of Health Care Volunteer Resource Professionals, and most recently a consultant to the Karsh Family Social Services Center. Barbara is a recognized leader in her fields of expertise having routinely been asked to be a lead presenter and speaker at numerous conferences and professional meetings on a variety of topics. She consulted with various health care institutions, large and small, domestically and internationally, regarding volunteerism and its impact on institutional success.

Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Barbara was involved in creating a Home Hospice Volunteer Program for St. Mary’s Medical Center, Long Beach, CA. In her leadership role, Barbara supervised the social work program and simultaneously created the volunteer program for the Home Hospice Program.  In addition, Barbara was responsible for partnering with other Long Beach Hospitals for patient referrals to the St. Mary’s Home Hospice service.

Barbara currently serves on the Executive Council for the Women’s Leadership Network of JVS SoCal, she is an active member of Women Helping Youth Council, member of the Children’s Hospital Board of Trustee and Board of ADL. Barbara is providing consulting services to non profits who are trying to develop and/or improve their volunteer programs.

Barrie Levy, L.C.S.W., is a Clinical Social Worker, psychotherapist, and a clinical and organizational consultant.  She is on the faculty of the Department of Social Welfare, School of Public Policy (since 1981) at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was on the faculty of the Women’s Studies Department from 1993 to 2011.  

Ms. Levy is author (with Patti Giggans) of When Dating is Dangerous: A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Relationship Abuse.  She is a nationally recognized speaker and trainer on domestic violence, parenting for healthy relationships, and violence prevention, and has made many television and radio appearances.

Ms. Levy currently works with PeaceProsLA, a team that engages men who are community leaders in dialogues about cultural social norms, using a bystander model promoting action for social change and collaborating to promote healthy non-violent models for masculinity. She conducts weekly groups for staff at the Center for Pacific Asian Families, a domestic violence/sexual assault program. From 1995 to 2003, she was Director of the Westside Domestic Violence Network (WDVN), an interagency consortium addressing effective service delivery to families affected by domestic violence in West Los Angeles. She has provided professional training courses on domestic violence for continuing education programs throughout California, and conducted seminars in the U.S., Japan and Italy.

Angela Oh, J.D. brings the experience of community-based organizing, politics, law, conflict resolution, and meditation practice to her current work as an attorney mediator in civil rights cases.  Her training in public health education focused on the power of community organizing among workers exposed to hazardous materials on the job. As a trial lawyer, working mainly in criminal defense, Oh represented both adult and juvenile offenders which allowed her representation to often include the questions, “Who is this person?  Why are they here?” In 1992, following the acquittal of four officers of LAPD charged with the beating of Rodney King, Oh entered the world of politics and race relations as one voice from the Korean American community in Los Angeles. Later, the President’s Initiative on Race allowed Angela to be a part of an effort to engage dialogue on race, across the nation.  All of these experiences led to the study of Zen meditation, a practice that clears the mind, calms the spirit.

In addition to his pulpit responsibilities, Rabbi Shapiro oversees Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s social service programming and the Karsh Family Social Service Center, a co-located, integrated, social-service center adjoining the midtown Glazer campus that opened in 2016.

“We don’t have to look beyond the morning paper or the evening news to see the brokenness in our world and the Jewish response to that brokenness is to do something to help fix it—tikkun olam,” he said, citing a core Jewish value that has a physical presence at the Temple unlike any other synagogue in the world. The Karsh Center brings together nearly two dozen social service providers and most importantly, gives volunteers the opportunity to use their time and talent to help those in need. “Having had the chance to conceptualize and create the Karsh Center is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said, “and we’re just getting started.”

Rabbi Shapiro joined the Temple family in 2003 as the music specialist and song leader in the Religious School. Since then, he has taught music, Judaica and Hebrew in the Temple schools and served as a Judaic educator and student rabbi at its camps. As a part of his rabbinic training, he served as the Temple’s Rabbinic Intern from 2009-2011.

A California native, Rabbi Shapiro holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California and a master’s degree in Hebrew letters from the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, where he was ordained in 2011. Rabbi Shapiro sat on the board of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, ARZA; is a past president of the Wilshire Center Interfaith Council and currently sits on the Interreligious Council of Southern California, the Professional Development Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and the board of NECHAMA – Jewish Response to Disaster.

From the pulpit to the Karsh Center and the Temple’s Disaster Response Team, he strives to bring people together to engage in meaningful work and experience the pride and warmth of our Jewish community. Rabbi Shapiro grew up in Santa Barbara, California where his family still resides. He and his wife Ashley, are the parents of a young daughter. He is also an avid golfer whose office is adorned with vintage golf photography and memorabilia.  

Ying Ming Tu, a visual artist who is known as Tu2, combines art with the practice of Zazen (Zen meditation) to produce work that reflects what can happen with calmness of mind and spirit.  His current work, known as the Blue Series (or 108 Bodhisattvas) is a project that includes 108 silver pencil portraits of people from all walks of life. The body of work taken together shows the singular face of humanity. Viewers experience the energy of the portrait subjects, which is in fact, the energy the viewer.  Using art, Tu2 has created programs in court, community, and schools. His mediums include painting, photography, drawing, and calligraphy has been shown internationally and his interest in advancing knowledge about meditation stems from his own experience-overcoming trauma as a child, and as an adult. Tu2 is a graduate of National Taiwan University where he earned his degree in contemporary Eastern history and UCLA, where he earned a Masters in Fine Art/Film and Television.  He served as a bodyguard for General Chiang Kai Shek and the Chiang Family during his mandatory military police service. Tu2 was the national judo champion in his weight class prior to entering military service.

Amy is a registered dietitian with a Master’s in Public Health from the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy. Growing up as a first-generation Chinese American, she learned at a very young age about how the role food plays in connecting health, identity, and community. While pursuing her masters degree in New York City, she worked as a Nutritionist at Harlem Children’s Zone, leading family-based obesity prevention programs through the Healthy Harlem initiative. After obtaining her degree, she was accepted into the NYC Small Business Services Neighborhood 360 Fellowship program where she led the community engagement strategy to develop nutrition programs in the new Essex Street Market’s demonstration kitchen. Currently, she is the Associate Program Director at FEAST (Food, Education, Access, Support, Together) and is working to bring the 16-week wellness program to all communities in need of nutrition education and access to fresh foods. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and rock climbing.

Laura Zachar is the executive director for Los Angeles and the senior executive director for California. Laura has overall responsibility for the operations of Reading Partners Los Angeles as well as the fundraising and community engagement efforts. Prior to joining Reading Partners in 2014, Laura spent over 10 years working to support educational equity for students through various roles, most recently as a consultant for AVID and an executive director for Playworks. Laura holds a degree from Arizona State University and a CFRE (Certified Fundraising Executive) certification, and has raised nearly $20M in her career. A Southern California native and voracious reader herself, Laura is committed to continuing to use education and literacy as a platform to close the opportunity gap for as many students as possible.

Who Should Attend

Who Should Attend

Individuals who currently volunteer with community organizations and feel ready to enhance their capacity to serve; individuals who are interested in becoming volunteers to support those individuals, families and communities in need; volunteer-oriented staff of nonprofit social service providers. Registration/ticket required to attend.

Registration

Registration

Register at the Eventbrite page here.

Pre-Event Survey Link

Pre-Event Survey Link

Please click this link to fill out the pre-event survey. 

The Karsh Center Volunteer Summit is supported by a generous grant from the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles.

Please contact Elizabeth Green at elizabeth@karshcenter.org if you have any questions about the event.