July 25th, 2011 - Post #8

So, one of the most frustrating days at work yet. After being in Cape Cod with my family all last week, I was actually ready to get back and work with the kids. The morning started somewhat decently…the kids were a little out of control and rambunctious, but again, that’s expected when you put 16 ADHD and explosive kids in a hot classroom together. I can’t even remember exactly how it all started, but it was like an explosion went off. I think it was during group Pictionary, someone accidentally flung a rubber band at someone else, the kid it hit kept the rubber band, wouldn’t give it back to its original owner, and a physical fight ensued. Very soon, they were all swearing at eachother; things I never thought I’d hear coming from 7 and 8 year olds mouths...

“Fat ass b**ch”

“Your mom’s a dumb ass b**ch.”

“You’ve gotta fat ass head”

“I’ll punch you in your stupid lookin face”

“Ya, you think you can take this? Come at me.”

As a side note, it’s hard to take things even this “vulgar” very seriously when they come out of a scrawny little 7-year-olds mouth. Once the explosion occurred, there was no stopping it. We literally had to drag kids out of the room, and walk to opposite sides of the clinic so that something serious wouldn’t happen.

The rest of the day was just a joke. Kids running around, no one listening. No punishment could stop them from doing whatever the hell they wanted. We tried to play board games…nothing. Tried to watch a movie…nothing. So it was pure disaster, chasing kids down halls, stepping between 7 year olds who were threatening to punch each others lights out, while trying to entertain the handful of kids who were being somewhat good so they didn’t lose their cool also.

To top the day off, the kid who I have kind of been personally assigned to because he doesn’t listen to the girl counselors, actually had a great day today. Only one small, short outburst. In the 15 minutes I left toward the end of the day to meet with the director, his mom came, picked him up, told the other counselors that he was accomplishing nothing by coming to the camp, and that he wouldn’t be coming back.

If there was any positive to the day, it was that the reason I was asked to meet with the director was because he offered me a position for next year working with the after-school program and collaborating with the social workers on the kid’s treatments. The catch… it’s part time. While it’d definitely be something I’m interested in…I can’t afford to live here on a part time job. I guess I could try and find another one, but we'll have to wait and see.

Another side note (upon a request by Jade), I cut my thumb while cutting a bagel 2 weeks ago. I had just got home from work, and wanted to eat a little something before going out to dinner with family friends (actually the family friend that first put me in contact with Visiting Nurse Service Of New York). I was cutting the bagel that I just took out of the fridge, so it was kind of tough. When I got completely around the bagel with a small serrated knife, I didn’t realize that there was no more begal left to cut, and sliced down through the little bit of bagel that was left, and my thumb also. By instinct, I ran it under water, to find that it was much deeper than I thought. Long story short, I went to dinner, they bought me band-aids, they noticed that it was deeper than a band-aid could heal, went to the ER, and was there until 12:30am getting stitches. I had a large bandage rapped over my thumb and hand for 2 days after, that all the kids at camp thought was pretty funny. They thought it was even funnier that I cut myself while cutting a bagel, and not during a fight. They were not very sympathetic, to say the least.

July 12, 2011 - Post #7

So, the drama/craziness/intensity of working at a children's mental health clinic has officially begun, now that the summer camp is underway. We have 21 kids total in the program, all with their own, specific issues, and all of which need to be dealt with differently. It's very hard to keep these kids (or I guess any kids for that matter) focused and on task for 5 hours straight, and we need to have a very specific schedule for each day.

Last Thursday, we brought all the kids to see Mr. Popper's Penguins at a theater about a half hour away. We had to walk them on the streets and get them onto two different public buses...a much harder task than it may initially sound. We packed them all lunches and put them in their bags (which is, like all movie theaters, against the rules). But when we all finally sat down in the theater, all the kids took out their paper bag lunches and ate. They were pretty good during the movie, but with about 45 minutes left, almost as if it were scheduled, they all started figiting, putting their arms in their shirts (it was really cold), switching seats, etc. And everything went down hill from there. Long story short, I had to carry one of the kids out of the theater at the end of the movie because he tried running away and the other girl counselors couldn't deal with him. I tried talking with him and asking what was wrong, but he was too upset to verbalize his feelings. I had to hold his hand the whole way to the bus and sat with him on the buses, to make sure he didn't run away. After that, we decided (mostly the girl counselors) that he wasn't going to be capable of going on trips anymore, because he's a threat to the group and to himself. My opinion was that we try to understand what his issues are, and work with him a little before we ban him from trips on the second day of camp...but it wasn't really my place to talk.

Yesterday, his therapist was meeting with us before the camp started (we occasionally meet with all of the kids therapists to relay how they are acting in the group and to get some suggestions on how to work with them). She told me that he told her that I was the only one he likes. So when he came that day, I tried to talk to him, and he actually opened up to me about his family and his dogs, which apparently he hasn't done with anyone besides his mom. He was great for the first half of the day, and then when in line to use the XBox (why do we have an XBox in the room? I have no idea...), another kid must have pushed him, and he snapped and ran out of the room, through one of the doors, and darted down the stairs. When I finally got him back into the room, he started playing next to the fan trying to stick his fingers in. I asked why he was doing that, and he told me that he wanted to kill himself. Now, I wasn't expecting that to come from a 7-year-olds mouth, and I was pretty caught off guard.

I talked with his mother about his problems, and we're going to continue to try and help him. I also spoke with the camp supervisor and his therapist about his behaviors at the camp, and they asked if I would present his case at the treatment teams meeting that they have every Thursday (a couple therapists are asked to present interesting/notable cases at each meeting and everyone discusses them and provides suggestions).

If I had a couple hours, I'd talk about all the kids in the camp, as they all are seriously challenging and pretty disturbed. But once again, this completely has confirmed that this is what I want to be doing and these are the kinds of kids I need to be working with.

Tomorrow is the camp again. It's really great to be working hand in hand with the therapists, because they never get to see their clients outside of an office setting, so they really rely on us for important information about their behaviors. We have a couple different ideas to try and help the most challenging kids, and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

July 5, 2011 - Post #6

So since the front desk is pretty slow today, I’ll write another one of these. The last few days of last week were pretty crazy. It seems like when one person gives me a project to do, EVERYONE has a project for me to do. Which I prefer than just sitting and doing nothing anyway. I met with the 4 other girls I’ll be working the summer camp with (which starts tomorrow). They’re all interested to see what kind of dynamic a male will bring to the camp, since a guy hasn’t worked it in over 2 years. They also said it’s always an adjustment to the way you need to treat these kids, because there are multiple things that they don’t receive at home. They often get no constructive guidance or reasonable punishments, but they also get very little positive support. We have to be strict, but not in the ways their parent’s are often “strict” (ie. swearing and/or verbal/physical abuse). But we also have to be supportive, even through their issues and mistakes, because they’re often issues the parent’s don’t understand or have the means to care about. The days I’m working the camp are “in-house” days where we have a goal for the day, and coordinate therapy related activities and exercises in the clinic. For example, the first day is self-discovery, then anger management, then family and stress, etc. There are lesson plans that they’ve used in the past, but we are free to use some new exercises if we think they’d work better. I’m really looking forward to it.

Also last week, one of the supervisors in the clinic asked me to make some copies for her. She handed me a 26 page packet, with front and back pages, and asked for 20 copies. I asked her, “Okay, but you know that’s going to be over 450 pages right?” And she said yup (in a way that made me realize that was the reason she was having me do it and not herself). Apparently people get a little agitated when someone else is using the copy machine for 45 minutes to print and sort 450 pages. Plus, I pressed the wrong button, so instead of the packets sorting themselves, I had to spread all 26 pages out and sort them myself. Long story short…I looked like an idiot.

Another good story from last week: My roommates aren’t messy, but they definitely aren’t clean. During the week, they both work A LOT, and the kitchen ends up getting kind of gross, with loaves of rock hard bread on the counter, and the huge pig leg that’s always there doesn’t really help either. They will leave the house at 8-9 every morning, and won’t usually get back from the office until 9 or 10 at night. But when they have a free afternoon or weekend, they go crazy with cleaning. They’ll mop the floors and scrub the toilet and vacuum and yell Spanish frantically at each other as they run around the apartment. During this frenzy, I wanted to make dinner. And apparently I walked to the kitchen too soon after they mopped, and Cristina yelled bloody murder. I got to the kitchen, but she said I wasn’t allowed to leave for 10 minutes. So…naturally I stayed in our tiny kitchen until she said it was okay for me to walk back to my room…literally 4 steps away. After I got back to my room, my roommate Diego comes to my door, and asks “Hey, do you have a plaster?” I made it obvious I had no idea what he was asking for. “Yea, a plaster…for my hand,” and he pointed to a cut on his hand. So I said, “Oh, you mean a band-aid?” Diego: “Band-aid? No, a plaster.” So I said, “…there’s really not such a thing as a plaster for your hand.” So Diego yells down the hall to Cristina, “Cristina, a Band-aid? Is that what I need?” And I hear Cristina yell, “Band-aid?? No…what is band-aid? You need un plaster! PLASTER.” Diego turns back to me, “Yup, I need a plaster.” So trying to be nice I said, “Okay well…there’s no such thing as ‘a plaster,’ so I’m sorry. And what you need is called a band-aid, and I don’t have any of those either.” Again, long story short…the language barrier continues.

Friday night. Cristina and Diego decide to have a party. I told them I’d have about 8 people come, and they had about…15 people. All of their friends are really nice though. Much friendlier than American people. It was just interesting, they’d all be in little Spanish speaking circles, and us in our English speaking circles. And every once in a while, two circles would combine, and they’d switch over to half English half Spanish, and tell us about how in Spain, they started drinking at 12 years old, and they make a drink called “Kalimotxo” (I had to look up the spelling of that obviously). It’s half red wine, and half Coca-Cola. Apparently, it’s the poor man’s drink of Spain, and all of the 12 and 13 year old kids would drink it in the parks at night. Sounds interesting to me. Later in the night, I guess we got a little loud, because the 2 Japanese women from upstairs came down to complain. And somehow, my roommates’ friends were able to invite them in, and one of them began singing opera to all of us (she was actually very good). It was just a very bizarre night.

Saturday night. We had a welcome to NYC party for Gorcica, who moved in last weekend. Hung out at Gorcica and Clint’s place, then went out. While trying to flag a taxi, a black limo pulls up to us and asks where we’re going. We tell him, and he says “20 dollars anywhere in the city…total.” It was too good to pass up. So the 6 of us take this limo to the bar (that also conveniently had 3 dollar beers…which is half the price of a beer we would have bought at the bar). It was pretty awesome. Who knew you could flag a limo in New York City?!

Fourth of July. Clint’s optometry school friends have a really nice apartment on the East side, with a private roof equipped with lawn chairs and grill. We hung out there for the afternoon…it was great. Then we headed over to the west side for fireworks. Got there at 5pm. There were hundreds of cops monitoring the people trying to get into the “designated viewing areas” (that ended up just being the middle of the West Side Highway. List of things not allowed to bring in: chairs, blankets, towels, strollers, coolers. So…nothing. Eventually, after getting rid of most of our stuff (Clint brought it all the way back to his apartment), we get into the area, claim a spot, and sit on the concrete road for 4 and a half hours waiting for the fireworks to start. I guess in the long-run, it was worth it. There were 6 barges on the Hudson River, spanning about 25 blocks of the city. And they all had synchronized fireworks going off. It was the biggest fireworks display in the country, and definitely cool to watch.

Hopefully this will be an interesting week, with the summer camp starting tomorrow. And going home for the Boilermaker this weekend. Good times. I’ll keep everyone posted on any further Spanish hilarity and the crazy clinic children.