Dan Trevarthan is a Board Member of Forward Step. Before he joined the board, he came for a site visit to see the COMPASS program in action at the Hill Street facility of Walden House. That facility is a Therapeutic Community for men, a residential recovery program for parolees who have had a history of substance abuse.

A friend of mine was involved in "Board Development" and talked to me about the possibility of helping with Forward Step, a non-profit organization that was promoting a life-skills curriculum for "people who normally wouldn't be exposed to this." He said that, if I were interested, he would arrange for me to visit a halfway house in downtown LA where Forward Step's COMPASS curriculum was being used. I was intrigued and agreed.

A few weeks later, the time was arranged and I was given an address and directions. I remember driving down some dark streets in a part of town I wouldn't have had any reason or desire to visit. I found the building, turned into the parking lot, and immediately noticed a group of men filing into a meeting room. I entered the facility, signed in, and waited awhile. Then, suddenly, Bibi showed up. She was and is kinetic. Energy pours out of her. I don't remember anything else until we walked into the meeting room.

Being a white, middle-class, 9 to 5 kind of guy, you can imagine my "Hey, I'm happy to be here" grin as I walked into the room full of an assortment of tattooed, bulked, rough, scruffy guys who, anyone could have guessed, had pasts. I actually was happy to be there. But, really, I had so few common reference points that my head was spinning.

Then the meeting began. One of the staff members of the house was leading a class out of COMPASS about "Mind Talk". As one of the guys might have put it, "what you say to yourself in your head".

Immediately, I felt comfortable. These guys were dealing with themselves, coming up with examples of how they talked themselves out of applying for a job because they were ashamed of having a record. Talking about how they heard themselves "jacking myself up" when someone did something they didn't like. And how they recognized that it was their own self-talk that was making them mad. It was a very incredible experience.

As I left, a number of the guys shook my hand. I knew these men had a lot of work to do on their recovery -- but I was convinced that the COMPASS curriculum was providing exactly the tools they needed. The nice thing for me was that in hearing them talk, I could easily identify with them because I heard them dealing with the same issues we all deal with -- how we choose to relate to ourselves.