Getting Pepper Sprayed is no bueno.

I thought I had left most of the dangerous occupational hazards behind when I left the ambulance. And I certainly didn't think that I would encounter these hazards in graduate school. Yet, yesterday I was pepper sprayed by one of my clients. It wasn't a direct hit, nor was it fully intentional. It was a middle school aged kid making some very bad decisions. I have no doubt that there was not malicious intent. Another student brought a canister of pepper spray to school disguised as a pen, and he thought it would be funny to discharge it about 5 feet away from me in my direction. Almost immediately everyone in the room, including myself started coughing. We evacuated the room, but my asthma was already severely flared up. 1 ambulance ride, CPAP, Continuous A&A, solumedrol, and sub Q epi later... I finally got to come home and rest. What a day.

Teaching... sucks.

I've hit that point in my MSW internship where I just dread going... I've been told it happens. But here I am, on a Sunday evening, near tears because I just don't want to go tomorrow. The biggest things that I can focus on that I've learned right now are 1. That I do not want to work with middle school age kids. 2. That I do not want to work in a school environment, and 3. That I HATE teaching.

Not very strength based... very anti social-workey. But here I am.

The last 2 times I've taught, the class got rowdy and totally out of control. I had no idea how to handle it, and actually had to excuse myself to the bathroom once because I was about to cry in front of the kids. I don't feel like I have a lot of support in that department. L., the just recently graduated MSW there is one of the teachers, and she has no idea how to handle the classroom, because she is SO strength based, that she can't consequence. And J. (my task supervisor), a veteran teacher with this demographic while having the best intentions, has a "figure it out yourself" teaching approach for me, that is just not working! I have NO training on how to teach, and I'm expected to teach for 1.5 hours.... and I have not been able to hold their attention for 1.5 hours yet.

I am supposed to teach an A.R.T. Lesson tomorrow (there are words like respect, team work, caring, etc. that I have to develop a lesson around). I decided to do a bully prevention lesson, and incorporate those words into what I'm doing. It's a great lesson - I start with an empathy game, followed by reading an excerpt from "Dear Bully", some other stuff, and finally empathy activity by listening to music and talking about what the musician is talking about. I got a phone call saying J. is not going to be there... so once again, I have no support for my lesson... and the more I look at things, the more I'm losing confidence that it will be a good lesson.

I know I need to go in with confidence blazing... but I just don't have any.

Mandatory Reporting

I'm feeling a little disenchanted with social work after today.

I did my first mandatory report to DHS today. One of my clients has been absent for the last two days, allegedly home sick. But when he returned today, he had an obvious physical injury - that was NOT caused by what the guardian claimed.

The client told us this story about getting high and drunk with his cousins and guardians over the weekend, and blacked out. When he awoke he had the injury, not sure how it occurred. He spoke of being encouraged to use OTC's recreationally by his guardian, who also further enabled him by purchasing him booze.

DHS said they would look at it in the morning and see if it warranted a caseworker.

My supervisor then told me about 2 kids he reported on last year who directly said that their mother was physically abusing them, and they had visible signs of abuse. DHS did nothing.

What's the point of reporting if nothing happens? I know the system is broken, but can I really make a change on a micro level if the macro and mezzo levels of the system aren't doing their part??

Manifestation of Microaggressions

Yesterday morning, I was getting ready to go to the farmers market. The plan was to drive there, leave my room mate with the car, and bike home. As I was loading my bike into the car, I had Amos on the leash (but not holding it very tight), and a man with a pit bull walked by. Now I have reason to suspect that this pit bull is used as a fighting dog. I have seen it around the neighborhood on numerous occasions, and it always has new cuts and injuries. Anyhow, Amos pulled free of me, and ran over to greet/play with the dog. The dog attacked him. Amos naturally fought back. The owner was screaming all sorts of profanities at me, including calling me a f-ing c u next tuesday. Between my dog being attacked and being called abhorrent names, I saw red and screamed back at the guy telling him that he shouldn't even have a pit bull in Denver - as they are ILLEGAL. I got Amos's leash and we walked briskly in the other direction.

The entire day I was fuming partially at the dog owner, partially at the situation, and partially at my reaction to the owner. The owner was latino, and obviously of lesser education and lower socio-economic background than myself. Would he have been screaming at me if I were not white and privileged? Would I have screamed at him if he were from the same background as myself? I was sickened by myself and how I kept going over the racial stereotypes - and found myself laughing later that day when I drove by a beat up rusted out 2 door sports car, with a latina woman driving - the car had a bumper sticker with the outline of a pit bull head and it said "if it ain't pit it it ain't shit". It embodied the stereotype of I had been fuming about all day. Which of course leads me to question, is it people of power that force minorities into that stereotype?

When the end of the day came, I decided that I would have screamed at the dog owner no matter what his race or class because I have absolutely zero tolerance for animal mistreatment, nor do I have any tolerance for being called a c u next tuesday.

Multi cultural is making me think... about everything I do, think and say. Oh yeah, and Amos is ok.

Who Let The Crazies In???

I entered my MSW program with the assumption/expectation that I was going to be surrounded by mature, emotionally stable and developed people. The biggest lesson that I learned during the first week of classes was that this was not necessarily true. There is great diversity of emotional and social development among students and faculty alike.

In a small discussion with some people in my "Social Work Practice Lab" (which is basically an intro to clinical class), I divulged that I was, and have been in therapy. It was pertinent to the conversation and it's not something I'm ashamed of, nor did I divulge WHY I'm in therapy. One of my classmates took my openness as an invitation to deluge all her issues to me. Initially, I was just thinking "woah, this woman has boundary issues", but then later she accosted me about my weight - wanting me to commiserate with her on weight loss, and her very Americanized weight management views (which I'm simply not willing to do). When I refused very politely but firmly to engage in that conversation, she told me I was in denial about my weight, and nastily retorted "I hope you have a nice weekend" and stormed off.

My professor for History of Social Welfare class is another person who will force me to maintain my center. In addition to teaching, she is heavily involved with Shapedown - a program for overweight kids and their families at The Children's Hospital. As a former client of Shapdown, I have unbelievably strong oppositional feelings towards the program. I developed bulimia during that program, and it would not surprise me to hear that I was not the only kid who developed an eating disorder during that program. It was apparent to me that my professor has, at the very least, disordered restrictive eating.

Its an interesting revelation that observation of other people's psychological states allowed me to more clearly understand where I am in my own process. The more I understand about myself and where I am, the better I think I'm going to be able to listen with compassion and empathy, and work with people through their own processes.

Oppression

I've always hated the word. Through the first week of my MSW readings, I have encountered it more often than I thought possible - were talking nearly every line in some readings. My initial reaction contained a lot of guilt and resistance. Am I in for 2 years of forced self flagellation due to my class race and culture?
As I continued into the readings, intermittently shouting rants at my dog (as he was the only one who would listen) I began to realize that I was thinking critically! Hold the reins there a sec... They tricked me! Before I knew it I was redefining "oppression" to myself, identifying both the oppressor and the oppressed within myself. I became aware of the emerging concept that this was not to be an experience of degradation and remorse but to lead me to better understand my origins, and those of others: you can not adequately understand client systems without first understanding the oppressed and oppressor within yourself.

Foundation Internship

After being lead to believe that I had landed the internship at the Y, I received an email late on Friday, very curtly informing me that I " was not selected for the Y internship". It was one sentence. No salutation, no explanation, no thank you for expressing interest. To make matters worse, there was absolutely nothing I could do about not having an internship (which is supposed to begin on Sept. 18) over the weekend. I managed not to fall into a spiral of panic only by spiraling into depression. All I wanted to do all weekend was sleep.


This week began with a rush of exchanging e mails with my field coordinator, and the human resources dept at Excelsior (my job), and phone calls to a new list of agencies with potential internships. I was able to secure a fall back option for internship at Excelsior. I really do not want to do this, because my responsibilities as a first year intern would be nearly identical to what I do now. As I plan to continue to work there on a fill in basis throughout grad school, I don't want to do the SAME job, and not get paid for it. Plus, I know how to do my job. The whole point of internship is to do something new. As I've heard back from more and more agencies this week, I'm finding all internship positions are filled. Crapola.


There is however one placement that still has an open spot. It's with the Rocky Mountain MS Foundation Adult Day Program. They offer a multitude of classes for adults with MS, and some with brain injury (did not specify if it was anoxic brain injury or traumatic brain injury). My responsibilities there would include facilitating classes, running group therapy, and psycho-social support. From what I understand there is a lot of flexibility in the internship for me to design my own curriculum. This is a definite "pro" for the agency - as it maps on to my Hampshire background. What concerns me is that they focus so much on people with disabilities, and an older demographic. I'm not sure if this demographic is one that I want to work with. I'm trying to separate my fear of something new (I'm accustomed to working with at risk youth), and my reservations for working with a population that might not be all there - I've found I'm just better with a higher functioning demographic - at least in youth.

Perhaps this level of ambivalence and trepidation is a good indication that I should accept this placement? It could be a phenomenal learning experience.