Hmmm, first day at the newest job today. Very organized, everything is networked on computers, cute kids with extreme deficits in functioning everywhere...
This industry is pretty rough to stay in for a long time. The newest challenge for me is working with a population of kids who I can only describe as unfortunate victims of circumstance. Of the nine kids aged 5 to 13 on the SCIP side, seven have a history of being sexually abused, and most have a case worker or foster parent as their direct or only contact. At the lockdown, I have kids whose parents gave them pot at age nine and cocaine at thirteen. We even have a five year old who is cute as a button, but tried to strangle his mother while she was driving the car one day. Mom is severely bipolar and admits that she never attached to her child.
While sitting at my desk typing, I am much more on the sympathetic side than the empathetic side that I display to these kids in face-to-face interactions. In my opinion, it is just ridiculously unfair that these kids have ended up institutionalized at such young ages when it is primarily for the behavior of their parents or caretakers. Sure, some of the kids really do have chemical imbalances or disorders that developed even with good parents, but it is just disturbing as all hell when a correlation between abuse and functioning levels can be found in such a high percentage of the clients.
Now, I am a person who does a good job of separating myself from the reality of the situation. I do realize that I am helping to create a safe and nurturing environment for kids who would otherwise have none. But I am still on the bitter side and finding the ideas of 'sterilization' and 'castration' to be very useful preventatives to the outcome at the moment.
I think it is time to refocus my goals. Something in me says that I should continue the job search for a little while longer, but also force myself back into grad school within the next 12 months so that I can get my Masters Degree in Higher Ed. Admin. I really just want to work in a college or university setting and help get first generation and minority college bound kids in the door. That's been my passion ever since I was one of those kids, and it's probably time to get on with it. Until then, I'll be riding the waves of troubled youth for a little while longer.
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Yikes, you've got a handful with the Axis II kids running around there.
Have you read the books Savage Inequalities (Kozol) or The Freedom Writers Diary? Both of those books are on the first page of the booklist on my blog. I think you might like them.
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