Best Practices for Pre-departure Orientations
From AFSWiki
The purpose of this section is to share best practices regarding the PDO Orientation. They will also be considered for inclusion in the next version of the PDO Leader's Guide. In this way we will have a continuous source of fresh and effective ideas and tools. Feel free to add other categories if your best practice does not fit within those listed below.
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Videos
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Timing
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Invitations
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Planning
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Facilitation
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Icebreakers
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Energizers
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Activities
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Evaluation
- Best Practices PDO Orientation - Compliance
- Reach out to students and parents by making Retention Calls.
- Invite students to local activities.
- Be sure to make a comment in Global Link when you have been in touch with students, by following these instructions: How to Record a Contact in a Student's Contact Log
- After a country has been identified for placement, put a recent returnee from that country in contact with the applicant.
- Invite parents to parent calls.
- For the first one or two times out, link up with another more experienced volunteer.
- Print out a clean Sending Interview Form to take with you. Although the point of the interview is to have a dialog-- not simply filling in the form-- you should have answers to all of the questions on the form.
- Regularly look at the new leads in AFS Line to see what new leads have been entered for your area New Contacts
- Either the Team Sending Coordinator or the Chapter Sending Coordinator could send out a standard email letting the student know who their local contact is and volunteering to answer any questions that the student and his/her parents may have
- Continue to monitor the leads in AFS Online to see what activity has occurred and send personalized emails that show that you care about that student
- If you are someone calling Sending leads, here are some Talking Points For Contacting Leads
- For staff, here's info on checking your Voice mail
