This Marshal Training happened over Zoom on September 24, 2020. This training was to prepare Marshal’s to oversee a candlelight vigil organized by Compassionate Action for Animals and numerous co-sponsoring groups. This recording contains the initial presentation, but not the break-out sessions where more detailed plans were generated.
Marshal Training Presentation Notes
Marshal Goals
Work as a team to provide a safe space for people to mourn, grieve, and honor their losses.
Work as a team to protect civilians and the integrity of the event.
Teamwork
Work as a Team. This is not about individual heroism, it is about working as a team. Trust and depend on one another. Build relationships. Know the plan. Implement the plan. Be able to trust that each person is doing their part.
Our Source of Power as Marshals
Your power as a marshal comes from a perfect mix of connecting qualities and protecting qualities. The connecting qualities include: Kindness, Respect, Compassion, Love, Empathy, Relationship, Vulnerability, Friendship. This will lead you to smile, be friendly, welcoming, and covey a sense of peace, calmness, and safety. The protecting qualities include: Assertiveness, Creativity, Bravery, Courage, and Sacrifice. These qualities will lead you to engage those who are disrupting the event, use your body as a shield to protect others, and adapt creatively and kindly to unplanned situations.
Framing: We Help Suffering Parties
We refer to people who cause problems as “suffering people” or “suffering parties.” We do this purposely to inspire our compassion and our commitment to their wellbeing. We know that by helping them come out of their suffering, the situation will be better for everyone. Often all someone needs is a sympathetic ear and respectful attention to feel heard and seen, know they belong, and feel safe.
Primary Strategies to Keep the Peace
1. Protective Presence
Being present and visible has a deterrent affect. Wearing some kind of uniform (such as reflective vests) helps alert people to the fact that a peace-keeping presence exists.
2. Protective Accompaniment
Accompanying those on the move to provide them a sense of safety and to deter suffering people from causing problems. At this event, this may not be used that much. However, say an event attendee, was verbally assaulted and shaken up, we may position a marshal with them and accompany them to their next destination at the end of the event.
3. Interpositioning
Putting your body between conflicting parties.
One example of interpositioning includes the recent “Wall of Moms” where mothers stood, arms locked, between police in riot gear and protesters in Portland, Oregon.
Moms interposition themselves between cops in riot gear and protesters in an effort to decrease violence. Photo credit: Aleax Milan Tracy/SIPA/AP Images
Another example of interpositioning includes the "chips guy" who broke up a fight on a New York City subway by simply stepping between two people who were physically attacking one another. Notice how he maintains a calm, peaceful, nonchalance to his attitude. He didn’t even need to say a word to help de-escalate the situation. Notice also the other up-standers (bystanders who take action) who attempt to set healthy boundaries and video-record the encounter in an effort to de-escalate the situation.
Be Advised: This video contains physical violence including punching and kicking, and foul language, and may be disturbing to some viewers.
4. De-escalation Using the CLARA Method
The CLARA Method is a series of steps one can use to de-escalate a suffering person. CLARA is an acronym for: Center, Listen, Affirm, Respond, and Add. The details of each step are sketched below.
CENTER
Set aside all judgmental thoughts. Recognize the interconnected nature of all life. Connect with your own humanity and the humanity of those acting unskillfully. Be fully present.
LISTEN
Listen deeply for what feelings they are experiencing, what needs of theirs are not being met, what universal values or principles are at play, and what behaviors they are concerned about. By kindly listening to them, you help them feel heard, respected, and valued, and this helps to calm them and de-escalate the situation.
AFFIRM
Affirm their dignity, worth, belonging, and safety nonverbally (and possibly verbally too) by maintaining facial expressions and body posture that signal peace, safety, friendship, connection, and respect. This includes maintaining appropriate eye contact with soft eyes, and a relaxed body posture, that is open, friendly, peaceful, and calm.
Affirm their underlying feelings, needs, and values by reflecting back what you heard from them and asking them to confirm if you understand them. By mirroring back what you see and hear from them, all of your words remain focused on understanding their feelings, needs, and point of view. This helps them feel your empathy, understanding, and respect, and will help calm them and de-escalate the situation.
RESPOND
Once the suffering party is more visibly calm and getting their needs for respect and understanding met, you may now start to introduce the needs of those you are serving during this respond phase.
Respond by brainstorming positive, concrete action that you are able to do that might address their concerns. Respond by offering ideas that help them reframe the situation according to the values, needs, and principles that they value. Respond buy vulnerably sharing the feelings and needs of yourself, or the people you serve, to help them connect with their humanity and compassion. Respond with an open-ended question or questions that may help them reframe the situation.
ADD
Provide further resources for them to check out later. Add a behavioral request of them using positive, nonjudgmental, concrete language.
Practice
In order to use CLARA effectively, practice it as often as possible in your daily life. We will do some practice with it during this training, but I encourage you to use it when having difficult conversations, when a friend comes to you with a problem, and in other situations where a suffering party is present.
5. Video-taping Unskillful Behavior
Use this strategy carefully - in some situations it may encourage a person to act more kind. In other situations, it may escalate the situation. Use your best judgment and this would ideally be done by a back-up marshal and not the person directly engaging the suffering party.
What’s Next
In general, the principles of Unarmed Civilian Protection uses the connecting and protecting qualities to take bold, effective, action, that helps suffering parties feel their sense of dignity, worth, and belonging. We work as a team, to protect civilians at the event, and de-escalate suffering people.
Specific tactics to help ensure a peaceful event include: protective presence, protective accompaniment, interpositioning, de-escalation using the CLARA Method, and, when appropriate, videotaping suffering parties.
For the remainder of our time, we are going to be more interactive. First we are going to practice using the CLARA Method.
Then we need to discuss logistics as to:
• Stationed verses roving marshals.
• Communication between marshals.
• Will we, or under what circumstances, will we call 911?
Finally, we are going to brainstorm potential problems that may arise at the event. Then, collectively plan how to address each problem.
By the time we leave here, we want you to have a clear plan for the event and clear plans for how to address the most common scenarios we may see.