Administering a Spirit of Gentleness Slowly, but surely, gentleness is taking root in communities around the world. Agency leaders have a special role to play. There are many governmental and bureaucratic barriers that make gentleness hard, not impossible, but unnecessarily difficult. Some of these are: • Congregating large numbers of people together so that warm relationships are hard to establish, • Looking for ways to control instead of to nurture, • Using behavior modification analysis and planning as the be-all-and-end-all of what we must do, • Training caregivers in practices that are perceived as violent —the use of physical management, chemical restraint, and punishment-based intervention, • Writing policies that encourage congregation, segregation, and control rather than interdependence, companionship, and community, and • Pushing people into independence without needed support system. Gentleness, as a life-project, calls on administrators to look at their mission from a different perspective: • Creating small, integrated settings in the community, • Looking at each person as mind-body-spirit and making sure that each is supported with companionship and community, • Setting up policies and practices that nurture unconditional love and feelings of connectedness, • Educating all administrators and caregivers in gentleness towards those supported, and • Ensuring that human interdependence is the foundation of all programs, services, and supports.