Joe: Hi Adam. About tomorrow’s Forum meeting. A kid in my son’s school class tested positive for COVID. We are not showing any symptoms, but we all got tested just to be sure. We won’t have the results for another three days though.
Adam: Oh wow, Joe. I hope the test turn out negative. You dealing with it OK?
Joe: Yeah, thanks. I think we are all OK, but I should take a pass on tomorrow’s meeting, so I don’t risk getting you all sick. And I know everyone was looking forward to meeting in person, so I don’t want to ask you all to do a Zoom meeting instead.
Adam: Uhm…..
One of the Forums I am a member of just experienced this situation before our first meeting of the season. As soon as I heard it, questions started popping up in my head…
Do we let Joe miss the meeting?
If so, do we penalize him for the absence per our norms? If we penalize him, are we encouraging people to “lie” to the Forum about potential health risks?
Do we change the meeting to a virtual-only meeting so Joe can participate, even though everyone really wants to be in person?
Do we let the Joe video conference in while the rest of us are in person? No, blended virtual / in-person meetings don’t work well. We always forget the one person online.
Do we ask Joe to reschedule the meeting, even though we REALLY want to meet since we have not been in person since February?
So… what would you do?
One of the most important indicators of Forum health I look for as a facilitator is the willingness and ability of a Forum to have open and honest communication with each other… about anything and everything. And, having and (periodically) discussing norms is the most efficient way to have open and explicit expectations of each other which foster a safe container in Forum for vulnerability and trust.
As many of our Forums start meeting in person again, it’s important to make sure that all our members feel safe and secure. I encourage you to have conversations about what your expectations are with each other, especially around issue pertaining to the world of COVID, such as:
How will we handle a situation like the one above?
What is the expectation of members to communicate potential exposures to the Forum, including if someone is just feeling under the weather?
What is everyone’s risk tolerance with COVID and social distancing?
Are we meeting in person? Virtually? Following social distance guidelines? Outdoors? Indoors? Wearing masks?
And, how are we going to manage it if people’s tolerances are different? (I believe in the Least Comfortable Person Method – whoever in the Forum has the lowest tolerance for risk set the safety rules for the meeting. Works really well for family as well… major stress reducer!)
Similar to how a Forum deals with a confidentiality breach, these are expectations that are best discussed before an issue happens.
And while I cannot provide the “best” way for your Forum to answer these questions – as every Forum has a different definition of acceptable risk, has different health concerns, and is under different jurisdictional rules for social distancing – you are probably wondering what we did… so…
Joe skipped the meeting (and ended up testing negative!). We did not count the absence against him. Going forward we agreed that we will not accept a blended in-person/virtual meeting – it has to be one or the other. We will all communicate potential health risks and if we are not feeling well to the Forum prior to meetings, that member will attempt to reschedule if a situation occurs. And, we will not count misses due to potential COVID exposures against members per our allowed absence norm.
Food for thought. Have a great 2020-2021 Forum year!
#ForumSensei