Educational Programs

Members of the FBMS staff are available to provide speak to your group and/or provide an educational session about issues surrounding homelessness and the services provided by our agency.  Options could include a guest speaker to your school, organization or civic or religious group, a guided tour of our emergency shelters for smaller groups, or a panel discussion based on the vintage game show, “To Tell the Truth,” which is designed to help the public better understand some of the stereotypes surrounding individuals or families struggling with homelessness.

The “To Tell the Truth” panel is a light-hearted way to bring understanding to a serious social problem, how we as a society perceive someone who is struggling with homelessness. Often, there are stigmas associated with those in need from the man or woman pushing a shopping cart with all their belongings to the hopeless “drunk” sleeping on a grate in the street. While there is always a measure of truth in stereotypes, there are many who find themselves in trouble due to economic conditions, mental or physical abuse, a period of difficulty with substance abuse and a myriad other reasons. The goal in playing the game with audience participation is to look more critically at information we use to determine someone’s background and how we view those whose experience differs from our own.

 Here’s how it works:

• Three panelists participate in the game, one of whom is an individual actually experiencing homelessness from one of our shelters. 
• The other two panelists ‘create’ a story of homelessness to keep the audience guessing. 
• The audience is tasked with developing questions to help decide which of the three panelists is actually experiencing homelessness. 
• Questions generally range from basic length of homelessness to what may have caused the person to be in a position to require shelter. 
• There is a facilitator throughout the game to help the audience with questions and field them for the panelists. 

 If you are interested in securing a speaker, tour or educational program for your group, please call Tom Washington at 508-894-8520 ext 204.