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??

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.