Day Sixteen and Day Seventeen

"Learning never exhausts the mind." -Leonardo da Vinci 

I have learned several new things in the past two days. I have to admit that I was beginning to wonder if my summer would consist of watching the other staff and playing cards with the boys. I know as summer staff we are somewhat limited in what we can do, but geez I was starting to think that I could have learned more about myself by staying in Alabama rather than coming up to Memphis. 

1.) I learned how to put in phone call notes on the computer. A simple task that made my night to be entrusted with.

2.) Boys are gross. I guess this wasn't a new concept but I definitely got a refresher on just how disgusting boys can be. I have three brothers and a boyfriend who all think that burping and farting are just things that happen and find it funny to do to get a reaction from each other or the females in the room, such as myself or my mother. Unlike the boys on my courtyard though, my male family members know when it is acceptable and unacceptable to pass bodily gases. They wouldn't do it outside of the comfort of their own homes or in front of complete strangers. Nevertheless, I have come to the conclusion that boys are gross and smelly and that will never change. 

3.) I was put in charge of leading a life skill today!! We have been a little short staffed and I guess my program manager trusted me enough to lead today's life skill on excuses. I would say that it went pretty well. I was able to involve everyone in the group by either asking them for examples or getting them to read something from their worksheets. I have to admit that I'm pretty proud of myself. 

Day Fifteen

It was yet another quiet day at the BCIRT. Not a single off task kid on courtyard one all day. (Yay for a small success!!) So I've decided to share a couple of links with you all. The first one is about the first person I ever talked to from Youth Villages. Her name is Sister Barbara Spencer and I'm pretty sure she is the most amazing woman I will ever meet. She was in charge of hiring all the interns and has been on board with Youth Villages since day one. She is absolute sunshine when she walks into a room and you can tell how much everyone here respects her.
http://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2012/jun/1/sister-spencer-instrumental-in-youth-villages-success/

This next link is a YouTube video called "Extreme Measures." It is an original Youth Villages video that explains really well what YV is trying to accomplish with all their kids.

"We believe in the kids who are the hardest to believe in." -Pat Lawler, CEO of Youth Villages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Z-QI43Ek4&feature=youtu.be

Day Fourteen

Sabotage

Not much happened Friday at the BCIRT. I'm shocked slightly still at the inability of the children to see past their immediate actions and realize the consequences for the future. In particular a boy who was going to be given a day pass to spend out with his family, threw his opportunity away because he was having a bad day. He refused to eat and said some pretty vulgar things to the staff. I hate that he couldn't or wouldn't just keep quite so that he could enjoy the day his family had planned and I hate it even more for his family, but that's the way the world works. You can't just say and do whatever you want without reaping the consequences and these boys need to learn that. Other than this boy being off task all night, it was a pretty calm evening.

I thoroughly enjoy the shift that I worked with on Friday. They have a great sense of teamwork and communication. They trust us to try new things and give us the opportunities to explore the different aspects of the job. It is amazing how much the people you work with can affect your mood and whether or not you enjoy what you are doing.

Day Twelve and Day Thirteen

Sorry for the delay in posting. This week has just flown by and I have been getting up early to get a jog in over in Shelby Farms Park every morning so there just hasn't been time to write. But if you are ever in Memphis I would highly recommend Shelby Farms. Pictures below!

It has been a pretty uneventful couple of days. Several of our boys are discharging to lower level facilities so that is exciting. Other boys seem to be more escalated than what I have witnessed so far. I guess everyone has good days and bad days, but it amazes me that the quietest kids on the courtyard will suddenly explode into anger over something so minute. They are all mostly in the early to mid teenage years and are going through a lot of changes that I assume are hard to process and understand. Most all of them use anger as an outlet for their frustration so it is important for the staff to process with them and use the anger reducing therapy skills that they are taught.

"Which staff do you think you will learn the most from?"

One of our questions today in consultations was which staff member we thought we would learn the most from this summer. I chose a woman that I work with who has the most incredible ability to smile in every moment of every day. Even if she is dead tired she never lets it show. She has the most amazing attitude and leaves any personal issues that she has at the door. I have yet to see her upset or bad mouth anyone else. She has a pretty good rapport with the kids on our courtyard. I admire her so much for being able to come in and give these kids the love and attention that they all need. It is a very hard thing to do especially when you are having a horrible day and the last place on earth you want to be is at work. I really do hope that just by being around her I can learn to be more like her in all aspects of my life.

Day Eleven

"I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element at work. It's my personal approach that creates the climate; it's my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool for torture, or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or deescalated or a child humanized or dehumanized." - Haim Ginott

This amazing quote is posted on the back of the door leading to my courtyard. I never took to time to read it until today and I'm glad I did. Humiliate or humor. Hurt or heal. I know that these boys are all here for one reason or another. If they didn't need to be here they would be at home with their families, but I think what everyone who works with kids needs to remember is that they are watching you in every moment to see how you react to things and how you handle yourself in certain situations. It's an amazing amount of pressure to be a role model every second of every day. There is a lot riding on how these boys react to their emotions and they look to us as staff to help them figure out what is acceptable. If I choose to ignore the most annoying kid on the courtyard or if I laugh at a prank, then those things become acceptable for the boys to do as well.

The Challenge of Parenting

I think I have a moment during every shift where I take mental note of how hard it is to be a parent and how grateful I am to have the ones that I do. The above quote was my epiphany for the day. I see and feel the strain of being under watch constantly by someone, but they were there to humor and heal and make my life joyous. They successfully attempted what I now see as a near impossible task: raising children. I have a new found respect for all parents or grandparents or foster parents or whoever decides to take on the challenge.


Tomorrow brings another day sure to be filled with unexpected life lessons. I am genuinely grateful to be able to share what I am learning with those of you who have been keeping up.

Day Nine and Day Ten

What a contrast between the atmosphere of Fridays and Mondays. Friday seemed to fly by without a hitch and we had several boys who where getting good news from their counselors about getting moved to other, lower security facilities. We once again all left with smiles and laughter as we walked to the car that night. But Monday seemed like it would never end. The dreary weather combined with Monday blues made for the slowest moving day I have ever experienced. I think I checked my watch every 10 minutes for 8 hours. Funny thing about not having access to clocks in the facility, time either flies by or creeps at such a glacial pace that you are tempted to find a corner and just go to sleep so that when you wake up maybe more than a few minutes has gone by. Of course I couldn't go to sleep so I found myself pacing around the room and trying to beat my own record for how long I could go without looking at my watch. I guess it is the same way for the boys there though. Just gives me another perspective into the lives of the kids at Youth Villages. 

Tomorrow's shift will hopefully prove to be better, or at least faster. Wednesday is the Intern Game Night and Thursday we have consultations to help break up the day. I'm also looking forward to spending the weekend with my boyfriend here in Memphis. My fingers are crossed that Monday was this week's hump day and it's smooth sailing from here on out!

Day Eight

The other summer staff and I have been carpooling together to the BCIRT and at nine o'clock when we met in the lobby, we were all smiles. You know you had a good day at work when everyone leaves smiling at the end of the day.

A Slow Start

I wasn't exactly sure how the day would go since it got off to a rather bad start. While I was waiting for my ride, I dropped my less than six month old phone onto the concrete and shattered the screen. It still functions, but the screen is not so pretty. When we got to work there wasn't a lot to do, but time started to pass by quickly and by the time we got to see the boys we were already half way through with our day. 

Bananagrams

My coworker and I were asked to play bananagrams, a word game like scrabble and crosswords combined, by one of the youth so of course we obliged. I was surprised how good he was at the game! He was fast and he beat us both times we played. It was good to have some fun with the kids since up until that point we had mostly just been observing. We were then asked to help during med check, which simply insures that the boys are taking their nightly medicine. Then it was time for dinner. After a smooth dinner the boys had time for phone calls and showers while everyone else watched "The Karate Kid." Time went by really quickly yesterday and we didn't have any major issues. We were complimented once by our supervisor and once by another staff for handling the day so well. Before we knew it, it was time to go home for the night! I'm actually excited to get over there today to work. 

Day Seven

We had our first real taste of the BCIRT yesterday. As we were sitting in the lobby waiting for our keycards, several staff walked by and wished us luck on our first day. We then proceeded to have a team consultation with everyone who works in the BCIRT where we discussed ethics and privacy laws. We do this every Wednesday while the kids are still in school. Then we split up into our individual courtyards and had treatment team meetings. This was really great to be a part of because it gave me a better impression of who these kids are from a counselors perspective. We discussed their weekly goals and either gave them new ones to move on to or stuck to the ones that they already had to let them work on them more.

Namesake

It amazed me that even though every single one of the boys desperately wants to get back home, they have the hardest time doing what needs to be done to make that happen. A weekly goal as simple as saying ma'am and sir or having better hygiene is a mountain of a task for some of these youth. They can't see past today and picture a long term goal of ultimately getting back home. Hence the name of my blog. Their nearsightedness is so difficult to overcome and as staff it can be frustrating because we want the best for all of our boys, but it is up to them to make the right decisions. 

Phone Home

After treatment team the boys had some group therapy and then we played bingo. The fact that teenage boys really enjoyed their bingo games really surprised me. It was fun to see them all getting along and get so excited when they won. Afterwards we went to dinner where there was some anger towards staff from a particular boy, but I was really proud of the rest of the group for not feeding into it and some of them even tried to deescalate the boy themselves. They didn't want to see him get into trouble and they didn't want him to cause others to get angry. Once that situation was settled, we had time for phone calls and showers. I was assigned to shadow the phone calls so I sat in on about five or six calls. Each and every one was hard to listen to, some more than others. You could tell how badly these boys just wanted to talk to their moms or aunts or foster parents. What was worse were the parents who seemed so distracted during these calls home. The look on the boys' faces was sometimes enough to make me want to cry. I realized in that moment that no matter what these kids have done or said or gone through, they are kids and they want to be at home with their families just like any other kid. Even the hardest, toughest acting kid could walk into that phone call room and leave with an entirely different attitude depending on how his call home went. I guess that's the power of being a parent right? Whether you are a biological parent, a step parent, a foster parent, or adoptive parent, your attitudes and actions and words (or lack thereof) will have an impact on your children for the rest of their lives. 

Day Six

I am beyond exhausted after my day today. We had activity after activity from 8:30 to 5:00. And after not getting back into town until 2 AM this morning, I've been running on about 4 hours of sleep. I can now say from experience, which I'm sure my parents won't be too happy about, that the streets of Memphis are not where you want to be after midnight. I saw things that shocked, confused, and almost moved me to tears. Nevertheless, today was chalk full of useful information.

Re-ED

Nicholas Hobbs was the founder of one of Youth Villages' techniques known as Re-education of Emotionally Disturbed Children. Dr. Hobbs believed that children want to do well and have a desire to learn. This approach is grounded in educational, psychological, and ecological principles. The 12 principles are:
1.) Trust between child and adult is essential.
2.) Life is to be lived now, not in the past.
3.) Competence makes a difference.
4.) Time is an ally.
5.) Self-control can be taught.
6.) Intelligence can be taught.
7.) Feelings should be nurtured. 
8.) The group is very important to young people.
9.) Ceremony and ritual give order.
10.) The body is the armature of the self.
11.) Communities are important.
12.) A child should know some joy in each day.


The following link is a great article that goes a little deeper into who Dr. Hobbs is and what he founded.
Re-ED Principles

Structured Chaos

Role paying activities were a major part of our Re-ED training today. We went through several different types of group huddles that are frequently used in the residential facilities. These were really useful to see how they are supposed to run as opposed to an off task huddle where nothing gets accomplished. After lunch we started our major role playing activity. The summer staff was divided into six groups and given six different scenarios to plan for. We needed to set expectations of our adolescents and plan for positive behavior and negative behavior. We discussed each of the six scenarios in depth and got a real life taste of how difficult it can be to keep kids on task and out of harms way. But I think the most important thing that I learned today was that it may seem like nothing is going your way because your plan for the day isn't being perfectly executed, but as long as you can see progress by going from wake up time to breakfast to group time to bathroom break, etc, then you are on task and getting done what needs to be done. We function in a structured chaos of sorts and this train may rock around an awful lot, but getting from point A to point B is the most important thing. 

The Big Day

Tomorrow begins our first full day on the job site. The BCIRT shift begins at noon and we will wrap up around eight. Tonight I plan on getting to bed early and being fully rested so that tomorrow I can put into place EVERYTHING that I have learned over the past week. I will of course let everyone know how it goes!!

Day Five

So after work Friday I decided to make a trip to Tuscaloosa to pick up a much needed check and get a few more things from my apartment. It was supposed to be an uneventful weekend and I planned on being back in Memphis Sunday night. But around three Sunday afternoon I was hit with a case of what I believe to be food poisoning. (I think from a sausage biscuit from Burger King...) So needless to say I was in no shape to drive the 200 miles back to Memphis. I emailed my boss and texted a few coworkers to let them know where I would be and asked them to take good notes on our first day of Re-ED training. This afternoon, I received a text today from a friend in class to check up on me and when I asked how training was going her response was, "'Shut the fuck up' and 'You're a stupid bitch' are actual slides in the presentation, so that's promising!" Needless to say I can't wait to get to class tomorrow to see just how that fits into our training. We start working full time at our centers Wednesday afternoon, so let the countdown begin! I will be sure to make tomorrow's post a full update of everything I missed today.

Thanks to everyone who has been keeping up with my posts! Please feel free to share them with anyone who might be interested. And if you have any questions, ask away!!

Day Four

It's Friday, Friday!

So Friday finally rolled around and I was all set to finish up the last day of orientation. The group had been split in half so we could learn the physical side of the training we had received on Thursday. I knew we would be up all day practicing the correct way to get out of being choked, grabbed, or bitten. I also knew that it would be particularly important to actually remember all of the maneuvers we learned because it was very likely that I would find myself in one of these situations at some point over the summer.  

Let the Games Begin

We started off by learning the basic steps what to do if something is being thrown at you. Step one: MOVE. Simple enough right? A boy is trying to punch you, move. A chair is flying towards your head, move. Step two: Block or deflect. They teach us to move first so that as little physical contact is made between the staff members and the adolescents. Then we paired off and learned how to find the weak points of every situation. If you are being grabbed, the thumb is the first finger to give way. Our automatic reaction as humans is to pull away from a dangerous situation, but we were taught to use our strength to push into the grab or bite to throw the other person off balance then use that to push out at the weak point. Of course at the BCIRT we aren't allowed to intentionally harm the boys and these maneuvers are designed so that, if done correctly, everyone remains uninjured. For a bite, you "feed" the bite by pushing the mouth towards whatever it has latched onto and then if required, you slightly pinch the nose of the attacker forcing them to open their mouths and giving you the opportunity to get away. 

After lunch we moved on to restraints, or holds, that are pretty frequently put into practice "as a last resort" if a child is " causing harm to himself or others, causing significant property damage, or trying to runaway." As summer staff, we aren't allowed to use these restraints, but they wanted to teach us how so that when we see them we know that they are being done correctly and are not harming the kids. they went through a few different types of holds, each of which required two staff members and a spotter. Then it was time for each of the summer staff to be put into a restraint so that we know how disarming it can feel.

When it was my turn, I was obviously a little nervous, but ready to get it over with. So I waited with my back turned and a split second later, I was facing the floor with my feet barely touching the ground. It didn't hurt a bit, but the speed in which it happened was shocking, and there was no way I could have moved even if I had tried. It is also designed so that you are at a slight angle, with you head lower than your hips, to promote blood flow to the brain. This is so that the person in the hold gets more oxygen to his brain and hopefully deescalates much faster. Again, these holds are only used when an adolescent has reached an escalated state and can no longer think logically.

Queen of the World

I have to admit that after we finished training, I felt like I could take on anything. I thought could walk the streets of Memphis alone on a Saturday night and get out of every situation. Just move and deflect right? I may appear small, but at least now I am armed with a little more knowledge about how to protect myself in a compromising situation. And I promise, I will not attempt to practice my skills by walking around downtown Memphis after dark! Monday we begin to learn a new set of skills: Re-Education of Emotionally Disturbed, or Re-ED.