Internship update & progression

I have been working with my Internship at ARI for almost two months now. Hard to believe that it has already been that long. Today I had my first counseling type of session with a girl that we will J. She is 21 and I was just getting to know her a little bit today to make her feel comfortable with her being around me. I took a pad and paper with me to help record how the conversation went so that if I had to do a process recording, I would have at least something to go off of. :) The session last for about 20 minutes. I thought it had only been 10 minutes and then realized that it was already 20 minutes. I will start out at 20 minutes, but will eventually have a full 30 minutes to an hour with J. My supervisor wants me to work with J to explore what she thinks a relationship is and what a friendship is. It was a good short session...we didn't break any ground quite yet. Give it a couple sessions...and then maybe I will get somewhere.

In my group work...I am observing or using behavior analysis with the special needs adults that I work with. Today the job was to help place price tags onto some shawls that will be soon sold at a store like Burlington Coat Factory. Anyways...I was sitting down next to one L who tends to have jealousy issues when other people talk to me. She will tell them to shut up or be quiet. I worked with her today though and told her that was mean of her to say to her friends and she needed to pretend other people were not making noises or talking to me. She gets distracted real easily and so I modified her job. Her job was to take the shawls out of the package, place them into a pile so that I could put the price tag on them. What did I do?? I made the job a game. I asked her to just concentrate on five bags at a time rather than the whole stack. She would then count out her five, open them, place them on the pile. I would reward her by saying, "good job! Now do another five!" She was getting antsy with about twenty minutes before lunch. I told her, "ok...lets see if you can finish that whole stack before you leave for lunch, ok?" She agreed and wanted me to time her. With this she completed the stack that she had with in 15 minutes. I was proud of her and told her she did a great job! When I left for the day (at lunch time for her), I told her, "Now when you come back from lunch, I am not going to be here. So just pretend I am sitting right here and asking you to do five at a time." She liked that idea and I told her that I would check back in with her on Monday when I am in next.

When my group goes to lunch, I head upstairs to talk to my field supervisor and give him the run down on what has happened. He was impressed that I worked with L and made some type of progress. He said, "see! you are using the behavior analysis that I have been teaching you for the past two months!" I felt that finally all of this is clicking. I am just hoping that I will get my full 100 hours in by May. At this point...it will be awhile as I only work 2.5-3.25 hours each time I go in. I know that the readings that I am doing is counting towards my hours as well. I would have more hours in if this snow would not have came so often.

Hats

 I woke up this morning to pouring rain and massive wind. I figured I would just wear a hat today due to such crappy weather. Why would I take the time to do my hair when it is just going to be ruined the second I step outside to go to the car? So a hat it was for today. I have many hats. Two pink ballcap, a white ball cap, a green ballcap, then a straw hat from my trip to TN, and then two stocking caps. Yes, I think I have an over abundance of hats. But shh...they all have their purpose. Over just the past couple of years I have been wearing hats more often. I never thought I would be a person who would wear a hat as often as I do now. I now understand the purpose of having them. :) To either block the sun on a bright day, to hide a bad hair day, or to make a statement.

In life we all wear hats, as well. We all have many different hats that we put on from the time we get out of bed until the time we crawl back into bed. I felt that way today. I woke up and put my "intern" hat on and headed down for a two hour internship shift. After that I put my "dentist patient" hat on to get three cavities filled, then I went home and put my "student/wife" hats on as I was home to finish up some homework and print out everything for class. An hour later I was leaving the house again with only my "student" hat on as class was from 5:30pm-8pm tonight. I have other hats though. Like the "birthmother" hat which is a constant reminder since Kaylee's birthday is on Sunday. Another hat that I have is the "daughter" hat. It is Monday and I normally call my mom on the phone either Sunday or Monday evenings. It is almost 10pm and I have yet to pick up the phone to check in with my mom. It has been a crazy day though. I then have my "work" hat that I put on when I am at the theatre. I could go on and say I have a "sister" hat or a "friend" hat.

As you can see I have a lot of hats, but if you think about where you are...you may have more hats than me.

Internship - Session 2

This morning I went and worked at my internship for about two and a half hours. Most would say that is a pretty short shift, but my field instructor advised me that I would get more hours later on. Today I worked again with the special needs population down in the Production area. Today they did have a job to work on, so no Bingo today. Today their job was to put together a game for a store to sell. What game?? It is called "Get Bombed". As I looked over it a little more closely...it is the official "beer pong" game. I kid you not. If you play this game you can go to Getbombed.com to check it all out. So what was my job?? Well I worked in the last station that placed the little clear seals on the boxes and also the price tag for the stores to scan when a customer wants to purchase the game. I am assuming that this game would be sent to a store like Hot Topic or Spencer's. After two hours of working in the Production room, I went upstairs to talk to my field instructor. We talked a little about the readings he had given me last week. I am working on one chapter for each meeting. The readings are about challenging behaviors that I will experience when I am working in the Production area and as well out in the field. I also met the field supervisor that takes teams out to work in the area for cleaning and landscaping. I will go out tomorrow with one of the cleaning crews to see another aspect of what ARI does in the community with this certain population.

I hope that my other classmates will all experience a type of internship like mine, rather than get stuck filing papers and making coffee!!

Internship

Today was day one of my junior placement internship at ARI of Connecticut. For a full review of what I will be doing at my internship please read this post first (Junior Social Work Placement).

I met with my supervisor at 930am. He went over what I will be doing for the next couple of weeks while I am at ARI. He told me that for the first two hours of my day I will start down in the production area and work with Renee who is the production supervisor. Then I will spend 30 minutes with my field supervisor discussing how I am feeling and learning while I am down in the production area in addition to the readings that he has given me. The readings that I will be taking a look at will help my learning of how to respond to people who are mentally disabled and what behaviors to look for to help correct if needed.

My two hours today in the production room was fun. I was with Renee and she said that when there is no mailings to do or any other paid projects to do, then she has her group of adults play games to keep them busy for the day. Today we played Emotional Bingo. Basically BINGO with pictures of emotions on each square rather than numbers. Renee let me run the game which I found fun. Today there were close to 12 or 13 people in production room today. When I came into the room, Renee told me that everyone was on break and so they will be surprised and excited to see me as I am someone new for class. One by one everyone started to filter in. They all noticed me quickly and came up and said hello, asked me my name, and some tried to make small talk. I could tell that some of the mentally challenged adults were more higher functioning than others. I noticed that some had downs syndrome, a few may have had a mood disorder, and I think a few may have been autistic. As I get more comfortable with Renee, I think I will ask if she knows what each person is challenged with only so that I can have a better idea on how to respond to each adult in the production room.

12pm ended my session down in the production room as it is lunch time. I wandered back up to my field supervisors office to see what he had for me next. He had the full reading packet for me and so he went through the entire reading packet with me. He and I agreed that I would come in Mondays and Wednesdays from 10-1230 for now. My reading part will consist part of the remaining hours each day as I need to have 8 hours per week until I have 100 hours completed.

I am looking forward to next week when I can go again. :)