I interviewed Stacy Davidson, a counselor at Genesis, a New Life homeless shelter in Atlanta, Georgia. Stacy holds a Master of Arts in Counseling and is in the process of completing her 1,800 hours of supervised professional counseling to receive certification as a Licensed Professional Counselor. Genesis a New Life is a homeless shelter for families with a six-month-old newborn. and under. Additionally, most shelter families have one or more older children. The shelter houses up to 18 families with a maximum residency of six months. Ms. Davidson leads three distinct groups within the establishment. The children's group meets for one hour a week for four weeks. The parenting group meets one hour per week for eight weeks. The personal development group meets one hour per week for 12 weeks. Each group is made up of approximately ten members, and the only requirements for groups are that members be residents of the shelter and follow informed consent rules and agreements. All groups are closed; however, members occasionally enter or leave the shelter, so it is possible to gain or lose members during current sessions. The majority of groups take place in a relatively stable environment with members participating throughout the duration of the group. Davidson is the most experienced of the group facilitators, which has placed her in a role as a role model for the other facilitators in the program. She describes her leadership style as supportive and strongly grounds her theoretical approaches in cognitive and person-centered perspectives. In this type of groups, she argues that the most important structural requirements for skills depend primarily on ability...... middle of paper ......d. So the most pertinent question I asked Ms. Davidson is how she manages to stay present in the chaos of daily obstacles. Her advice is to take a few moments to breathe, let outside forces pass for the moment, and focus on the here and now. If the outside world starts to intrude again, take a breath and start again. Overall, Davidson says you need to know as much as you can about the group a facilitator is working with. Her advice is to be prepared, but understand that you won't know everything. Group leaders will learn a lot from group members. Some key things to remember when leading 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 going in the process.