Whirlwind!

Today was very first day as a social worker. Kind of!

* remember names are always from my imagination :)

Overall, I would rate my first day as a 7. Considering, Leigh (my contact supervisor) didn't tell anyone we would be starting today, I did get to see a lot.

The county I am working in is about 20 miles away. So of course, in my head I calculate that it will probably take me about 45 minutes to get there and I'll probably want to be early just to make a good impression.  Right?  Wrong!  I sat in my car for almost an hour, waiting for Leigh. I finally called her cell close to 8:30 and she didn't answer. She did drive up about 10 minutes later though.

When we walked in the office - she confirmed that I wanted to do mostly foster care.  In walks Isla. I am immediately handed over to Isla who is going to court for the day. Joy! We chat a bit in the car and arrive at the courthouse.  It's quite an impressive building and when I commented on it she told that it had just opened in April. Fancy stuff!

Our first order of the day was an adoption finalization. Isla had placed six different children in the home of a single mom and she was going to be finalizing the adoption of the last one that day. She was very excited and I could tell this was one of those cases for her. You know, one where it's not just client/social worker, but a friendship. Well this family breaks stereotype number 1 in my little world. In walks this lady with 6 little white kids.  I know there are Caucasian children in foster care, but I don't think I have ever seen a picture/met a family who had this many foster kids and not one of them be a minority. The finalization took all of 5 minutes. Isla cried.

Then we sat in the lobby for a good hour waiting to be called for a case. The case is called. From what I could tell it involved 3 sisters. Sister3 was homeless and had signed over rights to Sister1. Sister1 wanted to sign those rights over to Sister2. It came to light, that though the court had sent a letter to Sister3 to notify her of the meeting (and Sisters 1&2 had talked to Sister3 - so she knew about the meeting) the letter had not been sent certified. It was sent 1st class.  And since Sister3 signed over her rights voluntarily they needed her to switch them.

After this we went back to the office. I ate lunch with another worker and sat around her office for about 2.5 hours not doing much.

Then I was given to Emile (sociology undergrad too!)  We had the most fun. He was very talkative and engaging. We went to sit in on a school meeting. The meeting was about the Winters. Mr/Mrs Winter are an older couple who had no children. They were granted custody of three cousins (6,7,8). They voluntarily gave up their rights when they couldn't handle the children's behavior. They did a case plan and regained rights in the fall. Mr. Winter was not in the meeting. Mrs. Winter is a very stubborn woman. I can think of no other ways to describe her.

We met in the principals office and there were SO many people there. Each teacher, counselor, 3 interns, teacher's aide, IEP lady, district rep, principal, social worker, and kids' therapist. Right off the bat - the tension was heavy. I was APPALLED at how the teachers and school counselor treated Mrs. Winters. There was a light of sighs, eye rolls, talking under their breaths, etc.  One teacher stormed out in the middle of the meeting with a loud door slam.

Many issues were discussed, but I think the main reason nothing was getting accomplished was because the school did not think the Winters' were fit parents.There was so much going on, I don't even think I could list it all. Mrs. W didn't want to teachers to give the kids a snack if they had eaten their snack from home on the bus or if she didn't send one. The teachers didn't think that was fair. Mrs. Winters didn't want the teachers to hug the children, because she is trying to teach them proper boundaries. Compromise was made to offer side hugs and make sure the children ask before. Mrs. Winters has to deal with a lot of sexual behaviors at home that the children aren't usually displaying at school - so she sends them to school with punishments. Teachers don't think it's fair. Just around and around and around.  With little respect, nothing much was accomplished. I too, would be defensive if my child's teacher was implying that they have to feed my child because I am not.

Though I was amazed at the lack of respect towards Mrs. Winter, it was easy to see why the teachers were behaving that way.  Mrs. W kept bringing up past offenses (like from the last school year) of things she didn't like. Even after the therapist explained to her that keeping snacks away from kids who hoard isn't going to help, she still didn't want to let the kids have two snacks, etc. etc.

I caught a glimpse of the kids on the way back to the car and they were beautiful :)  Hard to imagine they had been through so much.

When we arrived back at the office I was able to read a few of the files Isla was closing.  Awful.

I don't really have many thoughts about today yet.  Though I did post a facebook message after work about not being sure I was cut out for the job.  I need to think back on the day and what made me feel that way.  I know a lot of it had to be with being assertive, something I know I need to work on.


I also discovered I have severe phone phobia!  I HATE making a phone call with other people in the room. At one point I had to make some calls to ensure an infant was being taken to his well baby exams.  That was hard work in an office full of people!

I know this probably doesn't make much sense, but I wanted to get something down before I forgot the details of today. If you made it through this far, I am sorry for going on and on!

November, you say?!

I can't believe I've made it this far!

First semester of school almost over.  Classes have been going well.

We were finally assigned our placements for next semester. I will be working in DFCS, in a county about 30 minutes away from where I live.  I'm excited, nervous, anxious, unprepared, etc.  I tried calling my contact yesterday with no luck.  I'll have to try back on Monday.  Quite a few of my friends are in DFCS as well, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of people the talk with.

Added a new member to the fam yesterday...hoping I don't regret this, lol! Fin is giving me a run for my money.

End of the Week.

I'm finally feeling like this place is home. 
I moved about 16 hours from where I'm from. New state. New people. New school. 

But finally after almost 3 months here, I think I'll be alright :)

We had a potluck at cohort's home last night. It was the first time a big group of us had hung out, outside of class.  It was great to see everyone dressed up and "fancy-free". It feels good to be among your own and people who understand your career.  

We turned in all our application materials yesterday (for our practicum). We register for next semester in about 2 weeks.  I feel like this semester has flown by and we'll finally be doing something!  We had to fill out a form about places we wouldn't feel comfortable working, which everyone jokes is really asking us because they will put us there.  We'll see if that's the case. I put that I did not want to work in a prison or any kind of halfway house.  I guess if I did have to work in a place to get me out of my comfort zone, I would rather it be there now than in my concentration all year.

I've recently become interested in social work in hospitals, specifically oncology.  I need to do some more research into it though. We have groups present hot topics in our Human Behavior class and last week a group did one on suburban youth.  It wasn't news to me, I work at a camp with these kids every summer. I would even venture to guess that some of the stats for drugs, sex, alcohol, etc. might even be higher than those of urban youth.  My dream job would be to work in private schools with these youth.  But I know it will never happen, because these rich kids don't have any problems, right?