The Black List

As a paraprofessional, I’ve been in some pretty tight spots.  Getting hit in the head making sure that a driver can safely stop, or trying to stop a participant from going after a vanilla-normie…  There’s many situations where it’s uncomfortable to try and explain what’s going on, and a good number of those where even the best para isn’t going to know all the details.

And while there are many people who will come by and thank me for doing my job, and tell me that I’m such a good person for basically making it to work every day (spoiler alert:  I’m not such a good person all the time), there are a fair number of people who walk into a situation and automatically decide that they know what’s going on basically because they were the first vanilla-normie on the scene.

That leads to some pretty questionable calls.  Paras that will be getting punched in the face will have cops show up, and have had it reported to them that people saw them punching the participant in the face.  Paras who use a commanding voice to try and kick a guy out of whatever they’re doing are told to stop yelling at the participant.  I’m not saying that our students and clients shouldn’t be taken seriously, but it does lead us to being put on the line, more than the physical, mental, and emotional stress already placed upon us by performing the job as per usual.

It leads to The Black List.  Now, for anyone who is reading this who isn’t a para, “The Black List” is pretty much the same thing as a burn on a spy, if you’ve seen Burn Notice.  It’s an unofficial listing of people who will, for one reason or another, never hired by any agency that works with our population, as well, often, as in any agency that works with children or the elderly.  It “doesn’t exist” in the same way that modern racism “doesn’t exist”.  There is no website that has the names and the offences of people who have been black-listed.  There’s just a cultural backing, a rumor mill, and a mutual understanding between parents and agencies, as well as by other paraprofessionals.  When you’re on The Black List, you’re looking for a new career, probably in a new area.

It exists for a pretty legitimate reason:  You don’t want bad people working with people who cannot speak up for themselves.  You don’t want Chester the Molester running around with a trenchcoat and teaching kids about how to dress themselves.  You want that mofo under lock and key, and as far away from you and yours as possible.

But the problem is, it’s not a “real” list.  There’s no court that sentences you to sign your name on The Black List, and thus you have to stay 50 feet from schools and animal hospitals or whatever, and post that you’ve been listed.  There’s no set of checks and balances to do quality control on who is on the list, and who isn’t.  Say that a perfectly capable and earnest para gets caught in the crossfire of politics or a parent with an axe to grind, and the rumor mill carries away an outright lie.  They’re still black-listed.

It doesn’t help that organizations that tend to work with our clientele are also constantly looking to be noticed for how just and true, good and kind they are.  I mean, seriously, they’re like sad little puppies that are looking for love and affection- except instead of love, I mean money, and instead of affection, I mean good PR.  The minute the story of an abuse case comes up, suddenly they have a band of parents with pitchforks and torches ready to go to town on them.  So what do they do?  At best, they pull the person from working with the participants (often without pay) so that they can ‘investigate’ the matter for weeks or months at a time.  At worst, they fire the person and never even really look into it.  In the latter case, the para is instantly on The Black List, and in the former… well, they just as well might be.  No one wants to trust a person with their loved ones who has had allegations brought up against them.  The same employee who was indispensable to the company for years, is suddenly too hot to handle, and the company either throws them directly under the bus, or they do nothing to help repair that person’s reputation and they go the way of the slow burn.

It’s sad, in an industry that pays so little, that has as hard of a time hiring people as it does, that the reward for service is often a kick to the curb.  I mean, pretend that the turnover rate among paraprofessionals wasn’t so high.  Pretend that a person outlasted their forties in the field, and started getting up to their fifties and sixties.  How much time does a person have to spend in our position before they end up with a bad back, bad knees, bad joints…  When that worker bee runs out of juice, it’s not like they find a place where you can still be useful (most of the time).  The rule tends to roll, “you can’t do the work, you can’t work”.

No, by and large the beginning and the end of our stories are all the same.  You come in with hopes and energy, and then you try to burn out before you black out.  Perhaps there’s some solid proof that financially we’re kind of screwed in this kind of work.  Perhaps you have to take the aches and pains with a grin.  But when it comes to The Black List, we deserve better.

Special Olympics: My only complaint

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend my first Special Olympics event.  For whatever reason, in my adventures through The Community I’ve never actually been invited to attend them before.  Not in that ‘No Barry, last time you got everyone drunk and singing Irish whiskey songs’ not-invited sort of way, just that it hasn’t ever come up.  Anyways, here I am, for the first time ever, and I’m floating around working with people and watching events, and seeing people I haven’t seen in a blue moon.

            And it was genuinely a pretty good time.  I mean, with every special needs centered activity, it appears that there’s a pretty hefty lack of communication, and some general confusion, but in my group, at least, everyone who signed up to participate got to participate in every event they signed up for.  So, kudos for keeping it together, team.

            It was great, though.  A number of families came by to show support and watch their family member participate.  There were enough people that the stands were relatively full.  There were the girls- must have been from the high school that was hosting- that were going around to participants, and cheering directly around them.  Which, you know, considering the population, actually caused some incidents in itself, but for the most part it was rather charming, and many of the participants walked away with a big ole’ grin on.

But this article was prefaced with a title that leads one to suspect there was something amiss.

Very astute, Mr. Bolded Transitional Sentence!  My only complaint was that a handful of participants did not seem to actually have wanted to be there.  I mean, I’m not talking about people who signed up and changed their mind on D-Day.  Nor am I referring to people who went, did their schpiel, and then didn’t want to have to wait for the other students in their programs.  I mean people who probably didn’t have any interest in becoming a Special Olympian to begin with, but through pressure of institute, family, or some other outside force, they were conscripted to participate anyways.

            We work in a field of individuals who often cannot voice their own wants and needs.  And while the Special Olympics is an absolutely wonderful event, which truly benefits the people who go out of their way to train and participate for it, it isn’t for everyone.  I mean, yes, it’s for anyone who wants to sign up, come what may, regardless of physical capacity or condition which may cause a conventional competition to shut their doors in your face.  It’s for anyone.  But it’s not for everyone.  Just like our charges’ inability to vocalize wants and needs, they also may not have the ability to discuss preference.

            Let me put it to you this way.  Let’s say that there were a set of physical trials set for people who didn’t have special needs to participate in.  Let’s call them The Less Special Olympics.  Not everyone who exists outside of the special needs umbrella is going to want to train and participate in them.  I, for instance, am much more prone to the ‘modeling for stone statues’ side of ancient Greece rather than the show up everyone with expressions of physical finesse and strength side.  I’m just too humble, and it would really feel bad to kill all those poor athletes’ ambitions by thoroughly trouncing them.  So, maybe, using my ability to self-advocate, I’d do something like say ‘hey, don’t sign me up for them there The Less Special Olympics’.

            And then, having voiced that objection, I would follow up by then not actually participating in The Less Special Olympics.

            However, some of the people engaging in the Special Olympics seem to have had that choice stripped away from them.  Whether by an agency that wanted to show how many of their participants they could engage in them, or by family who wanted them to get ‘as much out of life as they possibly can’, somehow that person, who may have other dreams and ambitions- ones of art, of music, of automotives, or geography, or politics, or anything that lays outside of the quasi-Olympian sport circle- are made to participate.  And that frustrates me.

But don’t get me wrong.

I’m very much in support of the Special Olympics.  In fact, I think that the future of day programming is going to be the sort of specialization that the Special Olympics stand for.  I mean, have I mentioned how much of a fanboy I am for Arts of Life?  People SHOULD be able to pigeon-hole their interests, and do the sorts of things that they really love.  Artists should be able to do art, regardless of whether they have special needs or not.  And athletes should be able to compete.

       But not everyone is going to be an artist.  And not everyone is going to be an athlete.  Just as we should be pushing people to try new things, and let them be included in the world that lays just outside their doorstep, we also shouldn’t be forcing them to be who they may not want to be.

       Now excuse me, I’ve got a block of marble that’s craving my image.