Character Educator Blog – CHARACTER COUNTS!

Most often, CHARACTER COUNTS! is put to work to build character among youth. But in Jacksonville, Florida, Florence Haridan is busy pioneering ways for CC! to enhance the lives of adults all throughout the community.

Florence is the director of CC! in JAX, a coalition working to build character, ethics, and strong social connections all over Jacksonville. Her young organization now focuses on two big projects: Support and counseling for people who were recently incarcerated, as they re-adjust to self-sufficient life outside of prison, and an Ethics Coalition of business leaders and other professionals, who provide ethics training for their staffs, and meet monthly to discuss, plan, and implement strategies for ethical behavior at work.

It’s hard to imagine someone more enthusiastic about what they do.

“I feel called to this work. All of my experiences have led me to this moment,” Florence says. “I know this to be true. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m meant to help people turn their lives around with this work.”

Florence spent years in corporate America, as a global brand manager and as an executive leadership coach. Now she’s putting those skills, and her considerable life experience, to work building a city of character in Jacksonville.

Support for the Recently Incarcerated
Life-skills education is critically important to formerly incarcerated people who are re-adjusting to self-sufficient life outside of prison.  After serving time in prison for up to several decades, these men and women  students have to learn how to establish — or re-establish — satisfying relationships, how to be responsible with limited resources, and what it means to be a good citizen when past mistakes have violated the social contract.

“This population has little or nothing,” Florence said. “They get out of jail with $50 and a bus pass, and they’re told, ‘Figure it out.’”

Florence teaches two-day seminars in applying the Six Pillars of Character to everyday decisions. Afterward, participants often choose to take the course again, and many sign up for regular, individual coaching sessions.

Asked why she chose CC! as her framework for teaching life-skills, Florence said, “It feels really practical.”

An example of a recent activity in Florence’s workshop was a Character Scavenger Hunt, in which participants had to look for and find evidence that they themselves had recently exhibited character. Participants asked their friends and family, “Did I show any of Six Pillars of Character this week?”

Sometimes to their surprise, the answer was a hearty “Yes,” they discovered.

A man who shares a home with his mother learned that she saw him exhibiting Responsibility when he was making their weekly grocery list.  He had checked the refrigerator for items they already had, and crossed those off the list, showing a careful and responsible use of their limited resources.

The housemate of another man, who lives in shared transitional housing, told him that he had appreciated the Respect he had shown their group when he left a commonarea after receiving a phone call, and continued his conversation in a private place. The man was surprised and intrigued, because he had thought this action was self-respecting – by taking his conversation out of the public space, he was giving his phone conversation the privacy and concentration it deserved. He realized that behaving with self-respect can often make others feel respected at the same time.

This scavenger hunt exercise was “powerful because they’re so used to looking down on themselves. They’re so used to others building evidence against them.” Florence said. “This way, people are showing them examples of how they do show character.”

CC! in JAX currently receives a grant from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to run the workshops and counseling sessions, as program of their reentry center,  which supports former inmates in their journey back to regular life.  But Florence has big ideas about how to make these programs financially self-sufficient. More on that in a moment.

Community Ethics Coalition
If enough leaders in a community are engaged in actively considering ethical issues and implementing ethical solutions in their daily interactions and professional decisions, then powerful changes can result. That’s the theory behind the Ethics Coalition sponsored by CC! in JAX.

Any business or nonprofit organization in Jacksonville can hire Florence (through CC! in JAX) to provide ethics counseling and training for their staff. Leaders may also join the Coalition’s monthly breakfast meetings, meant to encourage conversation, planning, and implementation about applying ethics to the work world. Recent topics have included such discussions as “The ROI (return on investment) of Trustworthiness,” “Responsibility and Your Stakeholders,” and upcoming in the new year, “Fairness in Yearly Goal Setting.”

“The sessions that we do are practical, they’re real.” Florence said. She looks for ways to provoke soul-searching, honest conversation, and practical ideas for action that participants can implement after they walk away from the meeting. “I create a safe space. I know how to listen. I create a place that is comfortable for people.

At the recent “Building Respectful Alliances” session, participants discussed such questions as What’s a partnership right now that you’re working on? What’s missing from that relationship? How will what we’re talking about today affect you next meeting or phone call?

Bringing It All Together
Eventually, Florence plans to bring together the work of the two groups through socially engaged enterprises that both make a profit for investors and provide jobs and rehabilitation for recently incarcerated people. First up, a T-shirt company that will print meaningful quotes and sayings on shirts and sell them. Then, Florence has her eye on a plan for a pecan-shucking business that would supply nut meats to candy companies in the area.

She hopes that members of the Ethics Coalition will help supply start-up capital and technical support for these businesses, which will in turn produce a financial profit as well as stability in the community through job creation and financial support for counseling programs.

Florence’s innovative and ground-breaking projects are an inspiration. We can’t wait to see what she and CC! in JAX come up with next!

Top image: As part of the life-skills workshop that is based on the Six Pillars of Character, Bill Stebbins proudly shows his vision board inspired by the Pillar of Responsibility.