I interviewed Stacy Davidson, a counselor at Genesis, a New Life homeless shelter in Atlanta, Georgia. Stacy has a Master of Arts in Counseling and is completing her 1800 hours of supervised professional counseling in order to receive a licensed professional counseling certification. Genesis a New life is a homeless shelter for families with an infant six months old and under. Furthermore, most of the families hosted in the shelter have one or more older children. The shelter hosts up to 18 families with a maximum residence of six months. Ms. Davidson facilitates three separate groups within the facility. The children's group meets one hour a week for four weeks. The parent group meets one hour a week for eight weeks. The self-development group meets one hour a week for 12 weeks. Each group consists of approximately ten members, and the only requirements for the groups are that the members be residents of the shelter and abide by the rules and informed consent agreements. All groups are closed; however, members occasionally enter or leave the shelter, so there is the possibility of gaining or losing members during existing sessions. Most groups occur in a relatively stable environment with members participating for the entire duration of the group. Davidson is the most experienced of the group's facilitators, which has placed her in the position of modeling for other facilitators within the program. He describes his leadership style as encouraging and bases his theoretical approaches heavily on cognitive and person-centered perspectives. In these types of groups, he argues that the most important structural skill requirements depend primarily on the ability... middle of paper... d. So, the most relevant question I asked Ms. Davidson is how she manages to stay present in the chaos of everyday obstacles. His advice is to take a few moments to breathe, let go of external forces for the moment, and focus on the here and now. If the outside world begins to take hold once again, breathe and start again. Overall, Ms. Davidson indicates that it is necessary to know as much as possible about the group the facilitator is working with. His advice is to be prepared, but understand that you won't know everything. Group leaders will learn many things together with group members. Some key elements to remember when facilitating a new group are that nervousness is normal; have a plan; be organized; if there is tension within the group, continue to be friendly and open; and continue to focus on where the group is headed in the process.