The Week that Flashed Past Us

 I want to apologize for having taken so long to make an update in the journal. The week ran away with us and we’ve had trouble slowing her down. We’re ok ... really.

I had problems with the death of Sr. Tess’ mother. I was ok going with Sr. to the nursing home on the emergency call. And after some trouble arranging the ride to the wake, we thought we were doing pretty good. But, after we went up to see Sr. Tess’ mother, we began to have some problems. We got pretty sad and mopey, because the mother and daughter looked so much alike.

We had trouble separating out that Sr. Tess wasn’t going to die. We regressed and had terrible nightmares. We made then a decision not to go to the funeral. Instead, we’ve dissociated to work thoughts. Our understanding of the funeral was that it was a "happy" funeral. Like many of you had noted ... it is an accomplishment of a life well-spent to live to be 99.

There were two meetings at work. The first was the Administration meeting on Tuesday. Sr. Tess wasn’t there. We were well prepared for the three person meeting. We were to go over the Administrative questions CARF would ask. Our friend took it as we were trying to "teach him" and rebelled by rushing the meeting. It took us a while not to be angry.

The second meeting was the second staff meeting. It was just us and three of the DSPs finishing our discussion on CARF. I think all were feeling comfortable about the upcoming survey, but in the process we discovered there was a lot of dissatisfaction in regard to their regular Wednesday in-services with the other Q. Mostly, the DSPs didn’t feel as if they were growing professionally and they were tired of being "taught" the same things every year.

We talked over the meeting with Sr. Tess and she thought it might help to get them out of the building for a few meetings. With luck, I was able to find a local developmental disability EXPO (for free) coming up in May. Two of the DSPs were chosen to go and they were very, very happy.

Our own dissatisfaction over what the other Q was doing with State training opened a floodgate for us. I think I could do much better as a staff trainer. It would mean giving up only intake work, but we've got scheduled in our limit of 50 clients. I have a book I thought to make an excellent addition to the training called, "The Skillful Teacher."

The meetings we had found while looking for the DSPs, excited us. Basically, we could take three days off of direct work and become pretty adept at providing natural supports to the individuals and their families and in teaching the individuals self-advocacy. In our mind, we figured for the new year (July 2004-June 2005), we could work program development by teaching the staff directly and running groups on Leadership, Advocacy, Thinking and as a subpart of that conflict resolution.

We also found resources for new goals for the DSPs. The upper three groups would take on work of William J. Bennett on honor, virtues, and morals. We’re still looking for a practical book on training severe and profound mental retardation for the last group. I figured out a work project for all groups the idea of starting their own business of pressed flowers and plants and as an aside I found a couple of resources on developing our management style based on people’s strengths.

Hmm, that about catches you up ... we still have Qnote homework for today and tomorrow. We’re not real excited about that yet, but CARF is now less than 10 days away.

Thanks for being faithful readers and particularly for the prayers, blessings, and mass offered. We gave Sr. Tess a copy of the journal entry of her mother’s passing. You all feel like a part of us and your giving is a blessing. We offer ... great thanks...

Picture - http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/wxpics/flooding/Eelcollamer_1_98.jpg