Course Details
Mayyim Hayyim is piloting a new, fast-paced mikveh guide training program: Seven Steps Express. This program is designed to train guides quickly and get them into guiding ahead of Elul.
This Express cohort will meet twice over the course of one month, including self-paced materials through an online portal, and will be community-led with our most seasoned Mikveh Guides acting as course mentors.
This will not be an open program, and it won’t be publicized. Instead, we are looking to train a group of volunteers who have been recommended to Mayyim Hayyim by either clergy or by existing mikveh guides.
As you know, Mikveh Guides are at the heart of Mayyim Hayyim’s work. Guides welcome guests warmly and provide ritual support. They put guests – and their family members – at ease, offer tours, answer questions, explain the mechanics of mikveh and ensure guests feel safe and supported at a meaningful and often vulnerable moment. Guides respect confidentiality and must be trusted not to insert their own personal needs into the guest’s experience. They have high EQ, and sense when to lean in and when to allow a guest to have space. Our volunteer Guides reflect the diversity of our Jewish community; our Guides are all genders, backgrounds, and live across the greater Boston area.
Time and again, guests remark on how critical it was to have an experienced guide help support them with mikveh. Often, individuals who have experienced the power of mikveh make the best Guides.
This educational programming is a required prerequisite for becoming a Mikveh Guide. Once participants have completed this training, they will be interviewed by a Mayyim Hayyim staff member and complete a CORI check. At that point, they will be given the opportunity to shadow current guides to complete the final steps of training required to begin guiding guests.
With such limited time “live” together, it is strongly encouraged for all participants to attend both of our live sessions. If you’re unable to attend one or more of the sessions, recordings will be available of the orientation zoom.
Click here to learn more about the course.
Course Schedule
- Orientation Zoom, Sunday, June 22, 7 – 8:30 PM
- Self-paced materials from June 23 – July 12 (and beyond)
- Siyyum, Sunday, July 13, 2:30 – 5 PM
Participants will work independently and asynchronously through the online course Seven Steps. Participants will be matched with one of our experienced Mikveh Guides for support and questions via phone, email, and/or zoom meeting. We will close the Mikveh Guide training program with an in person Siyyum at Mayyim Hayyim.
Application Deadline
Accepting applicants through Friday, June 20.
Questions
Please direct any potential participants to Bev Klau, Director of Program and Partnerships.