August 30, 2024
Dear Hossein,
Thank you for your most recent communication. Your emails are like a letter from home when one is in another country. Rita and I are fine and enjoying the quiet of summer when many of our neighbors have returned to their homes in the Northern States this time of year.
As for your request, you can find a photo of Casey C. Sarapas, Ph.D. at the following link.
https://www.chestnut.org/lighthouse-institute/research-scientists/
Candace Mouton is a new staff member, and we do not yet have her photo and bio posted on the Chestnut Website.
Congratulations on a successful exam week. I can’t imagine the challenge of grading that many exams. Your email is the first time you have mentioned the point system related to Guides and other service roles in Congress 60. Can you share more about how the accumulated point totals are valued within Congress 60?
I will look forward to the photos from the Congress 60 camp. I have enjoyed these in past years when you have shared them with me.
Now for the update on our lates project and some related questions. Dr. Sarapas has reviewed the information translated by Elahe Sadeghi on the 10,172 sample from Congress 60 as well as what we have on the United States sample that we will compare it to. He then constructed the attached table which can be used to present the information in the article we are preparing. This will give you an idea of how we hope to compare the two samples. After this table is filled in, we will eliminate all the categories of date for which we do not have comparative information. This table format is just a starting point for us. It is a comparison of Congress 60 data to all U.S. treatment admissions/discharges and to just the U.S> admissions discharges from medication-assisted treatment.
I am not sure the best way to proceed with completing the Congress 60 portion of the table—whether Dr. Sarapas should try to fill in the column of the table for Congress 60 or whether this would best be done by the watchman in Congress 60 who is the inspector of statistics to assure the accuracy of the data. The other option is that if this information is in a database that could be shared without any names attached to it, then that could be shared with Dr. Sarapas and we will complete the table and send along any follow-up questions we may have. Which do you think would be best? Either way, table rows for which data is not available from both data sets will be deleted. And let me know if you think it would be helpful to have Dr. Sarapas and the Congress 60 watchman responsible for data collection communicate directly with each other to work on completion of the table.
Also, we want to confirm whether the information on the 10,172 sample is information collected from participants as each person entered Congress 60 or if this data is from a point-in-time survey of all Congress 60 members and included people with varying lengths of participation. Could you clarify this?
I am continuing to work on drafting the opening of the paper that includes a review of the literature and an updated profile on Congress 60’s history, treatment philosophy and treatment methods. So, I will be sending along a series of questions to make sure the information I include is the most up to date.
In our earlier published article on Congress 60, we noted the roles of didehban (a fourteen-member parliament responsible for policy and planning) and marzbans (a seven-person executive team). Are these numbers still accurate? Are there any other roles other than your role (guardian) that should be mentioned in terms of governance of Congress 60?
How many individuals are treated within Congress 60 each year—either a specific number or “more than ___”?
How many aspiring guides and co-guides take the exam and are interviewed each year and how many are selected to then serve in these roles?
Is there a list of duties for guides and co-guides that you could share with me? I want to make sure what I have on this is up to date.
What is the frequency of workshop and Legion meetings?
What is an approximate number of participants in a legion meeting? Is there a set format for legion meetings and their facilitation?
What is an average number of hours each participant spends each week in Congress 60 activities?
I realize this is a lot of questions, so don’t feel that they all have to be answered at the same time. In some of my next emails, I will send along excerpts from my draft article that summarize the X-Theory, DST Method, and other aspects for you to review to make sure I have described these accurately. Your assistance with these details is deeply appreciated.
Please extend my warmest regards to your family and to all members of Congress 60.
Friends and Brothers Forever,
Bill