Saturday - A Day Well Spent

Good morning .. Me again. It’s a beautiful Saturday morning and we’ve finally got some time to write. There are things that need to be done, but not immediately. This weekend we’ve got another grant letter of inquiry to write, place needs to be picked up and Macadam and Abbe are due about 4 pm. Ahh, though the morning is already up to nine we grant a couple of hours playtime. Yes, that could mean a long entry ahead. Bear down or away you’ve been pre-warned!

First on the agenda? Dr. M. came back. Pshwoo. Probably to be expected by now, but the part that was out was so frustrated that she would not talk to him. Yep, one of those kind of sessions. By the time it was actually time to leave, she didn’t want to. I think what broke the ice is that he said that maybe it would help if he told her something about where he’d been. It really did help as her curiosity is stronger than her frustration. I’m trying to think now what was talked about on her side. I think for the most part was the problem she had of not being able to remember anything. She said it was like having been put in a corner facing the wall. When he asked if that had happened, she answered yes. She shared some of the details and then he asked if it felt like he was punishing her. Again yes. He stated that he was sorry that happened. It seemed to help.

Then as it happens ... we woke up this morning from a dream of being again with our first real therapist. He had to leave too. I guess that is a big part of our fears is that sometime our therapist is going to go away and never come back again. We’re pretty tied into the experience. In reality, we’ve lived through this horror a couple of times already. In this last dream, our kids were involved. They were younger. Our first therapist had met up with us at long last and he indicated he was interested in us again. He said that we should spend an overnight at his place. There was something in there about having the appropriate clothes and that we’d brought dirty clothes that got mixed in with the good. And, as often happens we have dreams of bathrooms. The bathroom that he had established for me was a closet attic (the boys were apparently using his master bathroom, but it was considered to awkward for us to see him in light of this much privacy because we’d have to go through his bedroom).

The bathroom we needed to used was on a second floor. You’d have to go through the closet first with all kinds of old clothes and boxes and such. Also beams and flexible aluminum type air vents (thanks Viv ... I think this part came from viewing your pictures this morning hehe). Anyway, the toilet was something put together and of a crude nature as might be something in an army site. It was more like a commode where the remains part would actually sit in a box that would have to cleaned out by hand later. It horrified us at first that this personal part of us would later be available for examination.

In the dream, our therapist, the first one we’d had that had abandoned us so clearly, was giving the boys and us many things to make us feel more comfortable like special discussions and even house shoes. With us it was a matter of catching up with the boys it was more letting them play. The boys were very happy and had found things to climb on etc. Tanner found a previous locked room to a very expensive mansion. This seemed to frustrate our host and in a short amount of time he stated, it was time to go. He said he had other appointments. We started the difficult process of pulling everyone back together. We went though the old clothes trying to find something for them and us to wear "home," because he wanted all of his things back. Although that seemed a very iffy place. The boys were very confused as to why they had to leave such a wonderful place. We placed on ourselves some kind of armor coat as if to say it didn’t matter and that we hadn’t trusted he wouldn’t do this to us anyway. There was one more trip up to the bathroom and as we sat, he opened the door and invited a large group of people to see what had been going on. This time it was more a specimen as if he was truly disinterested and disengaged. We left that situation highly embarrassed collected clothes and half dressed boys. He had already packed for us and he loaded the car. He definitely wanted us gone. In the car was our father, our friend and our ex husband. The last thing I remember was trying to get everyone in the car. Tanner wouldn’t get in. That’s pretty much it.

Hmm, think we’ll have to send this one past Dr. M. It is probably revealing of our mindset, although we’re figuring the kids were actually more our small parts. The feeling of being deprived and bisected feels pretty real. :(

I don’t think I want to think of all that any more. Makes us feel uggy.

After the session, we stopped by to pick-up Chinese and we had gotten extra because we were to meet our friend at our house. That was pretty nice. We had dinner and played around and stuff. Usually about 8 or so, we’re very exhausted. We get tucked in and then it seems we’re falling asleep before we hear him leaving. Never even hear the door shut. I’m not sure all that happens so quickly and easily, but I guess that’s just the way things go.

So, that’s pretty much the night. We slept until 3 am, walked around J-block for a bit, before we ran into our computer friend, and then again got tired about 6 this morning. We slept for a couple more hours and now here we are again.

I’m not so sure what happened to us through the week. I know the Pope dying has been a pretty big deal. We started watching the continual feed on-line the day before he died and we spent a lot of hours on vigil looking at the three bedroom windows alongside the crowd at St. Peter’s Square. We listened over and over again as newscasters started repeating themselves throughout the evening. We were online and watching as the news was reported of him having died. We had to pry ourselves away from it all, then we worked very hard at not returning, but by yesterday all attempts failed. We watched about half of the funeral service before being able to stop again. We understood that there would be 9 days of grieving. We’re setting ourselves up for that. I’m glad the Cardinals have made a resolution to go private. I’m not so inclined to listen to empty predictions from newscasters. Prince Charles’ wedding has no interest to me. We were a big Princess Diana fan and have not yet adapted to this change in relationships. I’m sure we’re one of millions.

How’d that happen. I know we were writing here, but then we were trying to figure something out. We ended with now having soft jazz playing in the background. Don’t remember how we got to one place from what other. *Sigh* Music is nice. I think we paid for a lifetime membership to something music or movie related, but we don’t remember what that was. Seems like several downloads have been made at our computer. It’ll be ok, it’ll be ok...

I don’t think there is much real interesting stuff going on at work. We go there, time goes by, we do stuff, then we come home. There was one day, we were home early, because our car needed a new water pump, or something of that nature. $250 problem :( Eh, what are bills?

Hmm, feeling a little frustrated, but I don’t know why. Kind of like being lost in time. Not sure what is going on. Shoot, V’s not on. Maybe he would know. It’s like I know it’s Saturday, but I’m not sure what to be doing or writing about. Trying to tap into memory. I know if I look around, I see a very cluttered desk. Certainly we’ve been here a while. Sr. Tess memories? Nope, pretty much a no go on that one. I just remember her saying no admin meeting this month. I think short coverage. One of the DSPs and sub gone. Means the other Q has to step in and was unavailable to meeting. Oh and I figured out who is braiding one of the DSPs hair. One of the other DSPs. Didn’t know. What else.

I can remember we had Thinking Group .. Oh I know ... we were talking about topics, issues, reasons and conclusions. We went back into critical thinking skills. The clients were very good at bringing up topics. They listed out about 15 of them. Boyfriends and love always make it to the top of the chart. After we listed them all out, we went back and picked out issues. Like they had already concluded they like boyfriends, so we imagined an issue to be .. "Is it ok to have three boyfriends?" Then we let them come up with reasons why or why not. That was pretty cool. Or, another issue was .. "Is it ok if a set of girlfriend/boyfriend be asked not to sit together?" Quite a few had vested interest in that one. Hehe .. We did about eight issues. It was a pretty good group, but we had to ask one of our continual troublemakers to leave. He was sitting next to us and every time we made a statement he would go off, then he would get up and down. He kept trying to get the group’s interest, but we weren’t in a space we were dealing well with it. We talked to Sr. Tess and the second time, she removed him. Seemed like a lot of people were gone. That’s about what I remember.

Let’s see staff training with the new DSP. First thought. Only two days left. We’re still not happy how easy it is for the DSP to lose her place. She has a good heart, but she’s not as orderly as I would like. She gets sidetracked in all the diversions and the group is very good at making them for her. I suppose there are a lot of personal needs, but she needs to be able to do group time too, where they are working from her level. Frustrated that I can’t get time in for her to do the formal structure part of staff training. She isn’t caught up in either scheduling the group or doing her evaluative weekly notes. Kind of hard to push for other stuff when we know that isn’t caught up. And, it seems the more important it becomes, the worse she is. She’s havinga very hard time concentrating. A good part of it is that she’s been preoccupied on personal matters that were distracting. *sigh* I know we’re all just people.

I think we have grant writing to do this weekend. I might do that in a while after clearing the desk. I’m having trouble concentrating myself. Must be a Saturday... Shoot, I know ... forgot to take medicines. Hmpf! Figures ... hold on. Almost 11 now .. Pshwoo that took a while. We’ll check back in a half hour from now see if our minds feel better. Not so opposing each other. Like you go first, no you, no you!

Relax, relax... Dr. M. is back again. He’s pretty amazing. One of our parts is pretty unsure he will ever figure out her secret. She’s not budging on it even though its been a month or two. Hmm, wonder what’s going on with that one?

What else, what else?

It’s pretty much a mess around here. ‘Cept our friend helped with some of the dishes again. He got to the place ahead of us. There’s still messes, I need to clean up. Things out of order. Don’t want to do that.

Let’s see, we went to get our lungs tested. Might have mentioned that though. We weren’t able to interpret the results he gave us. All worded in code. I’m pretty sure we could figure out more by going on the internet, but we don’t feel like doing that either. And, we forgot to bring it to Dr. M. I wonder if it automatically went to my computer file at the University. He gave me a sheet of paper to give to my doctor, but she is like 2 ½ months away. Eh. We had to sit in a glass cube that was small and inhale/exhale into a tube. Then he needed to check the oxygen in my blood with a needle and he left over a 50 cent piece worth of a bruise :( That’s no good. It still hurts and that was back on Wednesday.

Shoot, we’re doing some good complaining now. Is there something that would make us feel happy? Hmm, I remember doing something with the DSPs on Thursday about Quality of Life. I don’t remember too much about that. Must have been someone else.

Ahh, got some ice water when up. Feels good on the throat. Ahh beautiful day out. Just opened the door fully as well as the curtain. Hmm, our table relays that we’ve been eating a lot of Del Monte fruit! I wonder what happened to the garbage. It’s kinda messy. Nope, not ready for that yet. Not relaxed enough.

I know this is our process of letting go of the week. Been kind of a blur. Not sure if anything important happened. Probably most important is that we helped our client, I think that’s been having so many problems. I’m discouraged because I think the DSP is doing so little to help him out. But, we advanced on the housing. By the time I left Friday, he had been back to the better housing option. On Monday, he is going to schedule with the place and they are going to have him come for a practice sleepover. The representatives boss became involved after we started to complain the representative was doing little and had pressured our client into being at a place he did not want to go. Sister Tess got involved the day we stayed home to fix the car. YAY Sr!! That helped secure our direction.

Funny just remembering on when things had gotten to their worse. The representative was basically telling the father, he had to go to this place that nobody liked. It was right before we got permission to talk to her supervisor. I think we’d started to cry in front of her boss. I was just that sure that the 2nd option was going to be life forever terrible. It is one of those big warehouse places. They insist on each of their clients going to one of their five workshops.

The better place was much smaller and you were dealing with owners instead of low payed changing managers. The one place our client was eager to go to, the other made him sick. I knew that once placed it would be hard to change. I just felt terrible thinking, I couldn’t help him. I knew we could work with one place, but not the other. In fact, if he had gone to the bigger unruly place, our services probably wouldn’t be necessary. I’m not saying our place is the best, but at least we care about him and that’s important. We’ve been growing with him for the last five years. I still think he needs more literal work, but at this stage he is blocking all work. I think a good part of it is that his housing situation has been so in the air. He is a worrier. It will get better soon, right?

He spent a couple of sessions in my office this week. I think he needs a lot of time, but is not that difficult to help. I think he just needs someone nice to advocate for him. I think the DSP always acts to him like he’s not worth all the trouble. But, the way we figure it ... whichever client or clients are in front of us at the moment are the most important. I have to underline over and over again ... it’s about trust. Do they trust you enough to let you help. Cuz, in truth a lot of problems in themselves are not that difficult. Life runsfairly systematically. I was working with the group that’s been going through staff training. This week we concentrated on them individually as an example to the staff.

One client was having trouble concentrating during a computer group. Somehow we got to a screen of a spreadsheet. I thought this must be the most boring thing to her. But, then I asked, "Ok, how many boyfriends did you have when you were in elementary, middle school, senior high school, and now as an adult. She giggled herself through it. We placed the data on a chart, gave it some color and printed it out. She was just enthralled. This was like a picture of herself that she’d never put together before. Thing wasn’t the graph although she loved it and showed it off the rest of the day, it was that someone had spent a quality 10 minutes with her prioritizing her interests.

We had connected. We wanted them to know they made a difference. Now there is a sea of clients I see in my mind’s eye. I wanted good things to happen for each. One of the ladies came in for cards. She is pretty introverted, doesn’t speak much and rocks often. We let her pick out pictures of flowers, then printed half a dozen sheets each with nine flowers she could cut out, mix-up and match. It thrills me to death that after six years, she comes looking for me if she’s having problems. I know she knows who I am. Just makes you feel important to be helping others. I pretty much think clients are about the most amazing people. I feel it is part of my job as a staff trainer to convey this human interest in them.

The DSPs sometime get worn out from all the interactions. They work to some degree or another at setting up programs and experiences for their groups. I think all the extra behaviors and needs wear on them though. I can tell it when they start to gather to complain to each other, or avoid the subject of clients altogether. Too much personal needs they are needing to meet in one another. I do get involved at this support level too, but it has to be at a time it is not interfering directly with the clients. I had no patience for the DSP who seems to be using the last half hour of the day preparing for her weekend while she shoves a puzzle off on the one client remaining. You should at the very least be spending time listening to them. Communication is critical.

Ok, enough lecturing.

Maybe, we should spend the remaining time focusing on needs we can meet. Whatdid I learn this week?

People get tired and frustrated. That seems to be the time to do what? Back-off ... step-up-the-pace? Not sure. I know that it was a different kind of week for us because Dr. M. was gone. We were able to work ourselves through it, but it took effort. We weren’t able to listen to our news station while we were traveling. It became to burdensome. We focused on the importance of the Pope. We’re not even Catholic, but he seemed to be the man that connected more people than almost any other put together. Think the idea of making him a Saint is a good one. Seems like this is a predominant thought of many people. It will take five years though before it can be officially considered.

Now, in our much smaller microscopic world ... what is it that we are doing? If I keep having problems in getting by day to day ... well, let’s ignore that part for the moment. It’s a certainty we need the support of Dr. M. Besides that? Well, yes and that of a couple of friends and our boss, well, yes, and children too. BUT, beside this hehe ... we’re able to support others. I can rationalize therapy in my mind thinking that with this one huge support, I can support 50-60 others. The odds even out.

Now, how is the grand plan going? Where are we at? We’re figuring the Grant work we’ll do is still on a process level. When I pick it up, I’ll siphon out the right answers. I have this much confidence in our ability at this point. We’re over the first one. That’ll be the hardest. Plus, it was accepted by a couple of the important people we focus on. Pshwoo. That still has me thinking though because it is a grander scheme of thinking than we have had to do. It asks us to imagine problems and how they are going to need resolution. Last grant was in imagining caring for a job developer position. I understand that our friend wants to focus the next need of getting a recreation coach. Someone that is hired just to take care of the clients’ physical needs. This person is supposed to work with either a occupational therapist or a physical therapist. I think the occupational therapist more directly. Most of the clients are physically able.

First thing I’m going to need doing is convince my mind of the value of a recreation person. The last one had left a bad taste in my mouth. In general though, each time you get a special person in to take care of specific needs, that is a good thing. It should always contribute to the whole. It gives our program strength. Be reallysuper if we could get a guy, and really super to get one that gone through some college and is able to plan a real program. It’s not that I’m prejudicial, but with only one male on staff ... one that is rarely in the building ... we really do need this difference in role models.

Hmm ... I’d like not to think of this specifically at the moment though. I need to look at a more global position. Not a particular job need, but more ... how is the program going in general. I like the contribution that I’m being able to make as a staff developer, but that and program development in specific could use some more thinking. I’m still thinking that maybe in this next year, the center is going to hire a program developer and I might want to try for the position if I were able to stack my cards right. Although, I think the social work and psychology portions of my job are very important, I am also interested in developing a grand plan. I’m pretty sure part of that would include my continuation of staff trainer and CARF. I’d put myself in a position of helping all the clients, not just "mine."

Let’s see ... let’s work out that position ...

Oh Man ... What about an on-line Education Masters?

Domains and Subdomains Below are all of the domains and subdomains that make up this degree program. Each subdomain is made up of specific competencies, or performance descriptions, that correspond to the specific skills or knowledge areas you must master. Click on any of the domains for more information about competencies.

Research Fundamentals

Locate, select and evaluate various information sources.

Locate and evaluate the relative merits of published instruments.

Summarize, critique and interpret research studies.

Develop and conduct action research.

Locate, synthesize and present research.

Management and Innovation

Demonstrate the ability to secure, manage and justify technology project funding.

Develop and justify strategies and tactics for introducing and integrating new technology tools and techniques based on change theory or a change model.

Identify possible risks, contingencies and compromises to project success.

Manage the learning environment consistent with the learning goals.

Successfully express opinion, articulate ideas and successfully communicate.

Oversee and manage a project team and its process. Provide for relationships between all stakeholders, clients and/or vendors.

Instructional Design and Performance Improvement

Articulate performance and learning expectations appropriate for a specific instructional or performance improvement goal, its target audience, and context.

When presented with an instructional or performance problem/opportunity (given the front-end analysis) recommend and evaluate alternatives for solving the problem/opportunity considering instructional, performance support, or other institutional approaches. (Generate a general approach.)

Using established production standards and message design guidelines, select and design instructional materials.

Recommend, critique, and develop instructional strategies to create a learning environment that involves students in intentional, authentic, and generative activities. Justify strategies by referring to a relevant research and theoretical base.

Measurement & Evaluation

Design, improve and implement appropriate strategies for gathering data and summarize results that will support informed decision-making.

Employ appropriate tools and techniques to determine needs and other information to guide the design, development and implementation of a learning and performance improvement intervention.

Construct valid and reliable instruments to collect quantitative and qualitative data.

Design, improve and implement appropriate strategies for gathering data that will inform the revision and further development of the learning environment and performance improvement system.

WOW!!! This was worth a day spent!