(x-post) Week One, Done!
Well. I finished my first week on 3-11’s. Wow are they different than 11-7. I mean, obviously the kids are awake for the majority of the shift. That’s one major difference. And with that difference comes all kinds of chaos. I feel unbalanced, but every day is a bit better. I mostly learn the rules when the youth break them, heh. Needless to say, I’ve learned A LOT of rules this week.
Some parts are similar…I was on a 1:1 yesterday and today, and that involves sitting and staring at a youth and documenting what he’s doing every 5 minutes, and never being more than an arm’s length away. That’s the same as at night except obviously during the day the kid is out and about on the unit, so it’s a lot more activity. The kid I was 1:1 with is hearing voices telling him to hurt staff. Reminds me of working at the Psych Center! He’s kind of an anomaly tho, most of the kids don’t have extensive psychiatric disorders of that nature.
2 youth are leaving tonite. One I am happy to see go, cuz he’s just…I dunno. Bad vibes. Not that any of them send off particularly good vibes. But this one is the kind who you say "Do you want your pencil"? "no" *staff walks away from door* *youth comes to door* "can I have my pencil?" Just all of those little annoying things that add up to a really defiant personality. The other kid leaving I kinda liked. He was older, 20 maybe 21 and was quiet and kept to himself and mostly just read in his room instead of wandering around trying to be sneaky about shit.
I am stressed tho, cuz I feel like I keep dropping the ball….letting a kid sit on his bed when he’s supposed to be on his stool, putting the tv on a movie they weren’t allowed to watch…that kind of stuff. A bunch of little things that make me feel like an idiot and make me look stupid. That’s really difficult for me, to feel like I’m failing. Even tho I know I’m still just learning…I just feel like I’m not doing a good job and I hate that. Oh well.
The youth are really, really, REALLY resistant to change/using anything from their time in placement to help them once they’re released. The other day we did a CBT group (cognitive behaviour therapy…basically switching maladaptive thoughts for adaptive, positive ones) and out of 12 kids, all 12 said they weren’t going to use it once they left because it was forced on them to learn and I guess to them that makes it automatically bad. It’s discouraging and I can only hope that by the time they finish treatment they have a different mindset. But based on readmittance rates and the fact that this place is the last place before the big house (meaning many of them have been in several placements before even getting here)…it’s somewhat doubtful. But maybe one or two will take what they learned, forced or not, and use it to better themselves after discharge.
Meeting up with my little tomorrow. Hopefully going swimming if the rain holds off. Before that tho, another hike! Hopefully I don’t injure or reinjure myself. My knee is still sore from last week. This one tho is only 8 miles instead of 13, which is good. Cuz 1, the 13 miles was a few miles too long and 2, it lets me be back in time to hang out with Little.
I bought the dog a flea collar. We’ll see if that helps any. I looked in to bug bombs but you have to like, turn off the fridge and everything, so I’m putting that in the Last Resort column for now. Of course, that column is getting closer. I only have the flea collar and a sponge on flea treatment left. Of course, those might get rid of the fleas on the dog, but I still probably have fleas in the house. Ugh. Oh well. I’ll deal with it as it comes, I guess. Whatever that means.