Illustrated by Jay Burdine

On Feb. 23, HELLO, a new discussion group, had its first meeting in the counseling services building. Created by counseling services, the group aims to build participants’ social and communication skills throughout the semester.
HELLO was founded by Claudia Kypuros, Mónica Solís-Hoefl and Mal Diaz, three employees of counseling services. Kypuros, licensed clinical social worker, discussed the efforts to establish this new group.
“It felt so organic for me to talk to Mónica and just kind of brainstorm and collaborate and talk about, ‘OK, if we’re gonna do this, how are we gonna do this? What do we do? What is the message that we want to convey with this?’” Kypuros said.
During the meetings, the facilitators will use media videos that show communication skills, conversation cards and group conversations. Each 70-minute session is broken down into an education portion, an activity portion and a reflection portion. Often, group participants will practice a skill learned from a video or other form of media with each other.
Each week, the discussion group will focus on a different topic. After the first introductory week, the group will focus on active listening, followed by body language, negotiation skills and finally a conclusive and reflective week.
In addition to the specific topics covered throughout the discussion group, the facilitators will note more general takeaways. Kypuros commented that one of the skills she wants participants to gain is the ability to identify what is meaningful in a conversation.
“Not every conversation is going to be dynamic and meaningful, and that’s OK. That’s life, right? There are some encounters and some conversations that are just going to be uneventful and boring,” Kypuros said.
The idea for the discussion group came after the three facilitators noticed that some students were struggling with communication skills, especially post-pandemic. Specifically, they noted that some students have trouble establishing relationships and rapport, particularly in a disagreement.
“We’ve seen a lot of civil unrest, like whether it’s like crazy drivers or whatever it might be, or people getting into arguments very quickly in the community,” Solís-Hoefl said. “And then you’re thinking, ‘Wait, ‘How do we take care of our community?’ And part of it is how do we start having these conversations?’”
One of the main struggles that Solís-Hoefl, licensed professional counselor supervisor, noticed people struggling with was the tone of voice. When communication is primarily online, like it was during the pandemic, this is a skill that gets used less.
“We’re not used to speaking [in] different tones, and so sometimes someone will come and they’re yelling at you, but the intention is not that they’re yelling. That’s just the tone that they’ve gotten used to during the pandemic,” Solís-Hoefl said.
However, there were reasons for forming this group other than pure observation. Some of the ideas came from clients, not just the facilitators, as Diaz, licensed professional counselor associate, emphasized.
“I have clients who are just like, ‘This is a need,’” Diaz said.
Although Kypuros and Solís-Hoefl are not yet sure if this will be a long-term project, they have hopes for the future. Additionally, this project shows other aspects of their work and goals to the university community as a whole.
“[We’re] modeling to the university how we are interdisciplinary and we work with each other. We collaborate. We’re coming from different disciplines but that being such a value here to draw from someone’s experience in a certain area and to work together to create something that is hopefully meaningful and sustainable on this campus,” Kypuros said.