Liaisons

     Liaisons are a very important part of the AFS year. They are the back bone of the program as far as assisting both the AFS student and the family. Many times either the student or the family or both will have questions or problems about the experience and will turn to the liaison for that help. Generally speaking this will involve about 2 hours a month, sometimes mores and sometimes less.

     Being a liaison is not difficult. It is a priority however in making monthly contacts and logging those contacts with AFS. These contacts are federally mandated and as such AFS is carefully monitored each year to make sure these contacts are being made. If you have a computer all you have to do is go online with AFS and enter the information. At the most this would take about 5 minutes of your time. If you do not have a computer you can fill out the form by hand and this might take a few minutes longer, maybe about 10 minutes. This is a must however. This also is a big help to AFS too, as they can monitor the progress of the student while he or she is here in the US. All one needs to be a liaison is a little spare time, good common sense and be a good listener.

     Contacts with the student and family should be made separately as if there are problems or comments that must be brought out neither side will probably not say anything in front of the other. The job of the liaison is kind of a go between student and host family. To kind of smooth out any possible tensions that might exist. If there are any problems it is very important for the liaison to document this in the monthly report. Should a problem become very serious it would be easy for AFS to check back on the log at the progress on this student or family and possibly come up with some solutions to the problems. If anything gets to the point where you feel it is becoming to difficult for you to handle than all you have to do is contact the Area Team (AT) support coordinator and that person will than check into it for you. Usually the liaison can handle all the small problems that come up from time to time. It is also a good idea to check with any host siblings too. There could be a problem here that the parents are not aware of.

     You will receive a liaison handbook that will have just about all of the necessary information you will need to help you ago. If you should have any questions just contact the support coordinator or in his or her absence any one on the area team and they can help you. If not they will be able to forward you to someone who can.

     One of the main things about being a liaison is just be a good listener. If you can get the people to trust in you they will confide in you. Also any of your dealing with these people is confidential. The only people that will see your reports are the AT chairperson, the AT support coordinator, and the regional support personal. The regional support personal are the ones that the AT works with when serious problems rise. The AT and regional personal will be there to assist you in any way if any problems should arise.

     All in all, this should be a very moving experience for all people involved. You will get to learn about a different culture, you will get to know a new family, you will become involved in a worldwide organization that is doing everything possible to bring world peace. That is one of the main goals of AFS. By us being introduced to people from all over the whole we get a better understanding of different cultures. WHAT A EXPERIENCE. Spend some time with an exchange student. You life will be richer by the end of that year.

AT Support Coordinator
"Robby" Robinson

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