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.