I've never been in a room, house, or camp, where there wasn't a full cast of characters- And I don't mean students, participants, or campers either. We work in a field that draws us to be emotionally complex people, able to act and sing and dance on a moment's notice. Certain people get drawn to that. In a world where "Everyone has Special Needs", some of 'everyone' still find those of us who choose to work here a bit eccentric.
Why are you looking at me like that? Something stuck in my teeth?
Work can be a stressful environment, especially when you're working between a number of participants who are being watched by a number of staff. Something goes wrong, and no matter how well the situation gets taken care of, there's some emotional residue that goes with it. After a long week, you have a powder keg of people who feel resentment, frustration, exhaustion, or conversely, gratitude and appreciation for those people who helped us get through something tough. These tough segments drive people together and drive people apart. At the end of the day, it's hard to call your coworkers enemies, friends, or simply acquaintances. These are complicated relationships with complicated people who are stuck together.
In short, they're family. You've got your brothers and sisters, older and younger. You've got a weird uncle or two, and your friendly grandpa figures. And when you fit in, you feel safe. And when you don't... Well...
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let me introduce you to your Weird Other Family:
HBIC:
I swear, I didn't make this name up. The honor of that privilege goes to an old friend of mine who taught me right from left when I was just starting. She used this term to describe herself. It stands for Head Bitch In Charge. Some of you are probably raising an eyebrow and asking "WTF mate?". Then there's a small group of you with a side grin who just chuckled and said "Yeap."
HBICs are typically ladies who have strong, outgoing personalities. They're veterans who have seen the organization change, and have gotten tired of trying to hide how they feel about it, or you, or pretty much anything. You know, if they had tried to hide that before. They can take anything that comes their way, and with as little as a look can turn a crisis into a "sorry ma'am". They're some of the most dedicated advocates of our guys, and they'll let nothing stand in their way to getting what is right and fair for them.
HBICs also serve as the barrier between the 'in group', and the 'not so in group'. They make it very clear who they consider to care for the participants, and who is incompetent, lazy, or outright harmful. Through this function, they create a culture of solidarity and consideration, because no one wants to be on an HBIC's bad side.
Life of the Party:
Every job has its share of Weekend Warriors, and this job is no different. They're the first person to start counting down to Friday, or to Spring Break, or to whenever it's time to not be at work. Because someone's gonna get crunk this weekend. They know every sports statistic, and fluidly are able to work their way into conversations revolving around basketball, hockey, baseball, football...
Of course, this wouldn't be interesting if it was just a stereotype that transcends job boundaries. The cool thing about the guy (traditionally) who is The Life of the Party, is that they just don't give a fuck about acting. They've got this swagger that's sort of like The Fonz, mixed with anything more relevant than The Fonz. They don't tap dance around participants, so participants realize this guy is the shit, and they focus on trying to impress them. They tend to get along with guys who really care about how they're viewed socially, and go out of their way to be perceived as masculine.
The Pretty Girl:
While times are changing, and gender roles are as flexible as those old Stretch Armstrong guys, Special Needs and education still are viewed as primarily female fields of interest. Consequently, many young ladies, fresh out of college, go out of their way to join organizations that work with people with special needs.
The pretty girl is the darling of the workplace, the person who all the young men, student and staff alike, spend an uncommonly large amount of time around. This gets to be frustrating, usually, for this person, who tends to be the first one who realizes that people are revolving around them mostly out of superficial concern. However, since these are often the only people that actually PLANNED on going into this line of work, they're usually quite trained and capable. Balancing between being a trained expert, and being an unintended figurehead, they usually end up being rather humble and worldly, having to have a rather thick skin to deal with all the bullshit.
Chatting Cathy and Talking Timmy:
Occasionally a staff member talks a good bit. Other staff members gossip about getting trapped into never ending conversations. Teachers have meetings, and then reminder meetings, about not using the cellphone for personal reasons during the day, and limiting verbal cues. But somehow the message never really quite gets through.
There's nothing wrong with a talkative staff member, in my personal opinion, though the grape vine might tell a different story. Usually this person is the best person to come to when you yourself need to talk about something on your mind.
Yet, because of the proclivity towards talking there are some pitfalls for a CC/TT to keep an eye for:
1) Make sure your cellphone time isn't causing you to ignore your charge. I'm not going to say that I endorse making personal calls during work, but if you're going to, make sure that you remember to keep an eye on what you're doing. I can't tell you how many crises could have been averted if the person in charge of the AOP had simply been paying attention to their charge.
2) Learn to notice anxiety and cut verbal cues that may be leading a person to acting out. How can I tell a person to stop doing what they're naturally brought to do, in this field? It may not be the prime teaching technique for all cases, but some students really benefit from having single-sided conversations. But if you're prone to talking, make sure you're not on the path to setting someone off, and if you are, make sure to learn how to limit your verbals when you need to.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Staff Trainings and Extracurricular Activities
For reals staff trainings and exercises:
I've found over the course of my employment in the special needs community that there are a few kinds of officially-official staff trainings. There are, of course, the state mandated ones- CPR, DCFS, medication distribution training, ect. Accompanied with these are the organizationally mandated ones- NVCI/CPI, Population Training, professionalism... While it is a hassle to take the courses, especially at the rate at which we are told to retake, and keep these classes current, I don't know too many people who really disagree that most of these trainings are necessary.
Then there's the 'TV is my babysitter' training. Organizations usually include these 'trainings' on days when the administrators are otherwise occupied doing negligibly more important meetings, but don't want us to get used to the idea of going home early while we're being paid. I don't know how many movies the 80s produced on the topic of special needs awareness, but I DO know the percentage. 100%. As in all of them. It's always got that technicolored roughness, despite being recently remastered for DVD re-release. The sound quality is a little off. And the message is simple: "You don't know anything about people with special needs? Here's a story of a person going through the labors of dealing with special needs."
They are movies that primarily appeal as documentaries to people who have never actually co-existed with this population and basically tell them what our job is, roughly (and in a candy-coated package), to do. If it were to be able to train a staff on anything, it would be basic empathy- a skill that without, no paraprofessional would have any amount of success. Basically it is an effective time-waster which literally qualifies as being involved with our line of work, and by the end of the movie you really just feel like your bosses don't trust you to use the teacher scissors.
My favorite trainings I ever had, though, were the ones which expanded my perception on what the current special needs community has to offer. It was my first non-seasonal job placement where I worked with transitions-age students who have special needs, and really helped me appreciate the field at large. We went to visit different adult day programs, and see where our students who graduated would potentially end up.
We only really had a chance to visit the programs in our immediate area, but the programs that we got to visit really opened my eyes to things that I really only got to hear about from down the grapevine. Places like Arts of Life (a program in which I am an unrepentant fanboy, by the by) which specialize in a specific interest area of participants, and really get it done right. Places which existed in the area for decades, from back when it was considered kinder to the child with a developmental disability to remove them from their family, and place them into state care. Places in cutting-edge buildings, newly built out of funds from cleverly worded grants.
The only thing that would have made these trainings cooler, was if we also got to spend some time appreciating the places where our participants came from. I mean, when you're in a single age group for a long time, people start talking about rumors of what the guys in high school, junior high, and grade school coulda/shoulda done. The general consent becomes that they weren't really trying hard enough, and that the classroom we were working in was that much more stellar for being able to overcome those challenges. Which, honestly, couldn't have been further from the truth, though it took until I became a substitute teacher in that same school system to fully appreciate the wealth of caring, hard-working individuals that I didn't know I had been working aside all along.
Those are the types of trainings that I've had, which I was paid to participate in. At least, they WERE, until I landed in my current organization.
Extracurricular Activities:
You see, where I work now has this cultural anomaly. On Wednesdays, after the students leave, but during our paid planning time, all the menfolk get together and guilt-trip one another who try and ditch out. They file into the gym, and put on exercise clothes. And what do we do? We play basketball, of course.
Now, let me preface this a little bit. I never really played basketball growing up, but it should not be any surprise that, like everything, I have a natural gift at playing ball. Especially shooting. I felt that I was so good at making mad dunks and shooting three-pointers that I decided that it was unfair to my coworkers to have to compete with me. I gave myself a proper handicap, and now only shoot the ball by wildly flailing my arms in the air, and letting the ball go wherever. As for defensive skill, I have been complimented so many times for how good I am at it, that I felt that it was necessary to let you all in on my secret. At one point, someone told me that a good defensive person "sticks onto their opponent like white on rice". If there's anything I know how to be, guys, it's white.
You may be wondering, "Hey Barry, what does any of this have to do with special needs, or staff training?" First off, we play alongside people who are in the residential part, which really is quite amazing, actually. These guys know how to play, and because of that, the staff members hold nothing back.
Which actually brings me to the part which makes this activity particularly interesting to me. The staff members play their all, and go running back and forth across the court. Games are short, but intense. Teams are evenly matched, and push each of us to give our all. In a field where on a rough day, you could be called to be exceptionally fit, this is exactly the kind of thing that more programs should be doing. The most active members hired face off against the rest of the group, and for the less active members to keep relevant in the game, they have to push themselves harder to keep up. In the end, the it's sort of a reverse of the 'weakest link of the chain' parable. You've got this one guy, who is in better shape than anyone there, and the guy facing off him, who is only slightly less in shape. As people keep trying to play amongst them, those fit guys drag the rest of the team, kicking and screaming, into cardiovascular health.
While I feel badly for the guys trying to keep up with me, it really makes the team stronger if they end up shooting for the stars.
My only regret about this tradition is that the girls don't join in. I mean, sure, it's fun when one of the young ladies wanders into the gym to go do some small errand and covertly check out the game. But in my vision of what these sorts of extracurricular activities could be to the special needs community, it limits the team to not have the ladies pushing themselves alongside us. Plus, growing up with the whole 'women are equal' thing, it's sort of weird for me to see an actual gender divide presented to me. Yet, no one seems to complain about how the game is set up- it seems only to serve as an amusement to the ladies that the guys get together to do these sorts of things, rather than some sort of "boys only club", but I only get to see from my perspective.
Regardless...
The interesting thing about this basketball game, is that before I knew that programs had this sort of thing, I had been trying by myself to make this sort of thing happen in other programs. There's a lot to be gained from the community of people who have fun together, and keep in shape together. Better working relationships, better team-working skills...
And when you apply that mentality to other types of extracurricular activity, it really opens the door for other non-conventional staff trainings. Lots of people pulling muscles, getting sick, getting stressed? Try including a cheap-to-free yoga course before or after school one or more days of the week. Want to help get your staff into a mentality which is quick thinking, and empathetic? Screw the 80s movies, and pony up for a Improv Comedy class. In each of these, you're building a better paraprofessional, a better community, reducing stress, and increasing morale. Maybe they cost a little more than traditional trainings, but they don't have to. When you're hiring, look for people who are able to do these sorts of extracurricular activities, hire them, and then offer them a stipend to do a couple things at your different buildings a few times a week.
Or hell, just start looking around in your current hire pool. How many paraprofessionals have a cool talent or trained skill that they don't even think of bringing into work on a daily basis? How many other paraprofessionals might appreciate a class in auto-repair, computer repair, cooking, cleaning, accounting, paranormal forensics...? And what if you have a whole team of people who know how to repair cars, play basketball, and teach trigonometry? Well maybe you'll be able to supply the first program in Illinois that teaches participants math, while they do trick shots off of junked cars. That'll look really spiffy in the next issue of Special Parent.
I've found over the course of my employment in the special needs community that there are a few kinds of officially-official staff trainings. There are, of course, the state mandated ones- CPR, DCFS, medication distribution training, ect. Accompanied with these are the organizationally mandated ones- NVCI/CPI, Population Training, professionalism... While it is a hassle to take the courses, especially at the rate at which we are told to retake, and keep these classes current, I don't know too many people who really disagree that most of these trainings are necessary.
Then there's the 'TV is my babysitter' training. Organizations usually include these 'trainings' on days when the administrators are otherwise occupied doing negligibly more important meetings, but don't want us to get used to the idea of going home early while we're being paid. I don't know how many movies the 80s produced on the topic of special needs awareness, but I DO know the percentage. 100%. As in all of them. It's always got that technicolored roughness, despite being recently remastered for DVD re-release. The sound quality is a little off. And the message is simple: "You don't know anything about people with special needs? Here's a story of a person going through the labors of dealing with special needs."
They are movies that primarily appeal as documentaries to people who have never actually co-existed with this population and basically tell them what our job is, roughly (and in a candy-coated package), to do. If it were to be able to train a staff on anything, it would be basic empathy- a skill that without, no paraprofessional would have any amount of success. Basically it is an effective time-waster which literally qualifies as being involved with our line of work, and by the end of the movie you really just feel like your bosses don't trust you to use the teacher scissors.
My favorite trainings I ever had, though, were the ones which expanded my perception on what the current special needs community has to offer. It was my first non-seasonal job placement where I worked with transitions-age students who have special needs, and really helped me appreciate the field at large. We went to visit different adult day programs, and see where our students who graduated would potentially end up.
We only really had a chance to visit the programs in our immediate area, but the programs that we got to visit really opened my eyes to things that I really only got to hear about from down the grapevine. Places like Arts of Life (a program in which I am an unrepentant fanboy, by the by) which specialize in a specific interest area of participants, and really get it done right. Places which existed in the area for decades, from back when it was considered kinder to the child with a developmental disability to remove them from their family, and place them into state care. Places in cutting-edge buildings, newly built out of funds from cleverly worded grants.
The only thing that would have made these trainings cooler, was if we also got to spend some time appreciating the places where our participants came from. I mean, when you're in a single age group for a long time, people start talking about rumors of what the guys in high school, junior high, and grade school coulda/shoulda done. The general consent becomes that they weren't really trying hard enough, and that the classroom we were working in was that much more stellar for being able to overcome those challenges. Which, honestly, couldn't have been further from the truth, though it took until I became a substitute teacher in that same school system to fully appreciate the wealth of caring, hard-working individuals that I didn't know I had been working aside all along.
Those are the types of trainings that I've had, which I was paid to participate in. At least, they WERE, until I landed in my current organization.
Extracurricular Activities:
You see, where I work now has this cultural anomaly. On Wednesdays, after the students leave, but during our paid planning time, all the menfolk get together and guilt-trip one another who try and ditch out. They file into the gym, and put on exercise clothes. And what do we do? We play basketball, of course.
Now, let me preface this a little bit. I never really played basketball growing up, but it should not be any surprise that, like everything, I have a natural gift at playing ball. Especially shooting. I felt that I was so good at making mad dunks and shooting three-pointers that I decided that it was unfair to my coworkers to have to compete with me. I gave myself a proper handicap, and now only shoot the ball by wildly flailing my arms in the air, and letting the ball go wherever. As for defensive skill, I have been complimented so many times for how good I am at it, that I felt that it was necessary to let you all in on my secret. At one point, someone told me that a good defensive person "sticks onto their opponent like white on rice". If there's anything I know how to be, guys, it's white.
You may be wondering, "Hey Barry, what does any of this have to do with special needs, or staff training?" First off, we play alongside people who are in the residential part, which really is quite amazing, actually. These guys know how to play, and because of that, the staff members hold nothing back.
Which actually brings me to the part which makes this activity particularly interesting to me. The staff members play their all, and go running back and forth across the court. Games are short, but intense. Teams are evenly matched, and push each of us to give our all. In a field where on a rough day, you could be called to be exceptionally fit, this is exactly the kind of thing that more programs should be doing. The most active members hired face off against the rest of the group, and for the less active members to keep relevant in the game, they have to push themselves harder to keep up. In the end, the it's sort of a reverse of the 'weakest link of the chain' parable. You've got this one guy, who is in better shape than anyone there, and the guy facing off him, who is only slightly less in shape. As people keep trying to play amongst them, those fit guys drag the rest of the team, kicking and screaming, into cardiovascular health.
While I feel badly for the guys trying to keep up with me, it really makes the team stronger if they end up shooting for the stars.
My only regret about this tradition is that the girls don't join in. I mean, sure, it's fun when one of the young ladies wanders into the gym to go do some small errand and covertly check out the game. But in my vision of what these sorts of extracurricular activities could be to the special needs community, it limits the team to not have the ladies pushing themselves alongside us. Plus, growing up with the whole 'women are equal' thing, it's sort of weird for me to see an actual gender divide presented to me. Yet, no one seems to complain about how the game is set up- it seems only to serve as an amusement to the ladies that the guys get together to do these sorts of things, rather than some sort of "boys only club", but I only get to see from my perspective.
Regardless...
The interesting thing about this basketball game, is that before I knew that programs had this sort of thing, I had been trying by myself to make this sort of thing happen in other programs. There's a lot to be gained from the community of people who have fun together, and keep in shape together. Better working relationships, better team-working skills...
And when you apply that mentality to other types of extracurricular activity, it really opens the door for other non-conventional staff trainings. Lots of people pulling muscles, getting sick, getting stressed? Try including a cheap-to-free yoga course before or after school one or more days of the week. Want to help get your staff into a mentality which is quick thinking, and empathetic? Screw the 80s movies, and pony up for a Improv Comedy class. In each of these, you're building a better paraprofessional, a better community, reducing stress, and increasing morale. Maybe they cost a little more than traditional trainings, but they don't have to. When you're hiring, look for people who are able to do these sorts of extracurricular activities, hire them, and then offer them a stipend to do a couple things at your different buildings a few times a week.
Or hell, just start looking around in your current hire pool. How many paraprofessionals have a cool talent or trained skill that they don't even think of bringing into work on a daily basis? How many other paraprofessionals might appreciate a class in auto-repair, computer repair, cooking, cleaning, accounting, paranormal forensics...? And what if you have a whole team of people who know how to repair cars, play basketball, and teach trigonometry? Well maybe you'll be able to supply the first program in Illinois that teaches participants math, while they do trick shots off of junked cars. That'll look really spiffy in the next issue of Special Parent.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Care Campaign Update:
Alright, so a few things:
First off, my bad, I couldn't find the cord to my phone/I didn't really look hard enough for the cord until I got a new phone, and now the photo I promised about the flier on The Care Campaign is up. Fancy? Swift.
Secondly, because I didn't get the picture fixed in a reasonable amount of time, I decided to go get an interview with Bob Sandidge to make up for it. As soon as everything is compiled proper, I'll be posting the interview on the blog. I know, I'm so cool.
Finally, my company hinted to me in an e-mail on Monday that today and tomorrow, that I'm supposed to be calling Governor Quinn ((312) 814-2121) and telling him that 1. "My name is Barry Petersen, I am a DSP in a community disability agency who needs a raise to support my family," and 2. "Mr. Governor Quinn, please support the Care Campaign and include funding into your budget for a $1/hour wage increase".
(This final part will be the remainder of the post, heads up)
By hint, I mean that the e-mail told me that I 'had to'. Apparently there's some sheet that I'm supposed to record when I made the call, and what my name is. Now, for those of you who know me, I don't really like being told that I 'have to' do anything. I don't mind doing rough work, and I'm willing to do less preferred jobs. But the minute someone says 'mandatory', the first thought in my head is "or what?"
I think it's a familial thing. We Petersens are stubborn assholes.
Also, they attached a note reminding me to do this thing onto my pay stub.
Now, the reason why everyone is all up in arms is because March 26th is when Governor Quinn will announce his budget, and (I believe) SB 2604/HB 3698 are being deliberated upon.
I tried to find some information about the bills from an unbiased source (see: made a single Google search of the bills), and couldn't find much there. However, if you want to read about them from OTHER biased sources, feel free to adventure through the links below:
Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities: SB 2604, HB 3698
AFSCME Council 31
PR Statement from Little City Foundation
The Arc of Illinois
Now, I'm not big on pushing politics, so I'm not going to tell you to do this, and frankly, I'd love to see more than just a synopsis of the bills before I told you all that things are kosher. BUT I also really like cash money bling-bling. So hey, if you want the people that pay out your taxes to pay for more of my paycheck, I'm all up for it. Frankly, it is your duty as a citizen of the state of Illinois to make sure that more of your tax dollars end up in my bank account. So feel free to go ahead and practice democracy to go make and me a wealthy man.
(P.S. For those of you confused about how tax dollars make it into my pocket when I work for a private institution and am not a government employee, stay tuned. I plan to either have answers for how paraprofessionals get paid in an upcoming feature (most likely the interview))
First off, my bad, I couldn't find the cord to my phone/I didn't really look hard enough for the cord until I got a new phone, and now the photo I promised about the flier on The Care Campaign is up. Fancy? Swift.
Secondly, because I didn't get the picture fixed in a reasonable amount of time, I decided to go get an interview with Bob Sandidge to make up for it. As soon as everything is compiled proper, I'll be posting the interview on the blog. I know, I'm so cool.
Finally, my company hinted to me in an e-mail on Monday that today and tomorrow, that I'm supposed to be calling Governor Quinn ((312) 814-2121) and telling him that 1. "My name is Barry Petersen, I am a DSP in a community disability agency who needs a raise to support my family," and 2. "Mr. Governor Quinn, please support the Care Campaign and include funding into your budget for a $1/hour wage increase".
(This final part will be the remainder of the post, heads up)
By hint, I mean that the e-mail told me that I 'had to'. Apparently there's some sheet that I'm supposed to record when I made the call, and what my name is. Now, for those of you who know me, I don't really like being told that I 'have to' do anything. I don't mind doing rough work, and I'm willing to do less preferred jobs. But the minute someone says 'mandatory', the first thought in my head is "or what?"
I think it's a familial thing. We Petersens are stubborn assholes.
Also, they attached a note reminding me to do this thing onto my pay stub.
Now, the reason why everyone is all up in arms is because March 26th is when Governor Quinn will announce his budget, and (I believe) SB 2604/HB 3698 are being deliberated upon.
I tried to find some information about the bills from an unbiased source (see: made a single Google search of the bills), and couldn't find much there. However, if you want to read about them from OTHER biased sources, feel free to adventure through the links below:
Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities: SB 2604, HB 3698
AFSCME Council 31
PR Statement from Little City Foundation
The Arc of Illinois
Now, I'm not big on pushing politics, so I'm not going to tell you to do this, and frankly, I'd love to see more than just a synopsis of the bills before I told you all that things are kosher. BUT I also really like cash money bling-bling. So hey, if you want the people that pay out your taxes to pay for more of my paycheck, I'm all up for it. Frankly, it is your duty as a citizen of the state of Illinois to make sure that more of your tax dollars end up in my bank account. So feel free to go ahead and practice democracy to go make and me a wealthy man.
(P.S. For those of you confused about how tax dollars make it into my pocket when I work for a private institution and am not a government employee, stay tuned. I plan to either have answers for how paraprofessionals get paid in an upcoming feature (most likely the interview))
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Why Swimming is the Epitome of Everything Paraprofessionals Hate
Let me preface this properly. I don't mind swimming. It could be the way the water glistens off of my majestic body, or the fact that I can will the gross waters of a YMCA pool clean around me. I don't even mind working with participants in the water. I still hang up my "Great Pool Spirit Award" from my first year as a camp counselor on my wall with pride. I've made some really fun memories in pools, when there's really very little schoolwork to be done, and people can just chillax for a cool minute.
But I hate swimming. If there has been one complaint that I've run into more often than not, from program to program to program... If there's one place where staff delinquency is the highest among all, it's at the pool. In my experience, while everyone has a truly chilling 'poop story', if you really want to turn off the lights, and hold the flashlight under your face, and accompany the visage with a creepy voice, you'd better be talking about the pool.
Overwhelmed, under staffed:
I mean, the pool is stressful. Not only do you have to march your crew through the changing rooms, trying to figure out how the male staff is going to take care of the onslaught of oncoming students, but then you have to get yourself changed, meaning that you have to trust that someone else has your pupil's attention while you try to rush through changing into your just-a-bit-too-tight swimwear, you have to carefully avoid touching ANYTHING, since it happens to be a universal rule that every pool locker room is the most utterly disgusting, awful place known to mankind... And then you have to get into the water yourself, with the iconic slow-wade as your sensitive bits come into contact with ice cold water. Meanwhile, someone is reliably slacking off, and you have to dodge between vanillas.
Why it's the epitome: Everything is worse at the pool. Everything. The bathrooms are grosser, and the bathrooming is more abundant. If someone poops in the hall? Gross. If someone poops in the pool? They literally have to evacuate the pool, drawing attention to yourself and your charge. Put even a small bit of effort in your appearance for the day, and by the end of the pool, you have walk-of-shame hair, and a chlorine smell.
You don't like it? Too bad:
And honestly, all this stuff is peachy in my book. But then you run into a student who doesn't want to get into the water, and someone that is heading your group is demanding that they get put into it. That's where the activity begins to truly lose the fun for me. I mean, it's one thing to sacrifice a year off my life, as the bitter cold and the germs eat away at my soul, so that someone I'm working with has a truly fun time doing something which would be prohibitively difficult without the protection of a structured programming institute guiding us into the waters. It's an entirely different thing when I have the spend the better part of half an hour trying to convince them to change into their swimwear so that they can get into the water, while my superiors get upset at me for not simply ripping their clothes off and changing them manually. Not that I have specific resource material for this gripe or anything.
Why it's the epitome: The effort to get into the pool is far greater than other efforts done to secure an activity. Don't want to do a T.E.A.C.C.H. Task? Cool, throw it on the floor. Took me ten seconds to get ready, and takes me twenty seconds to pick up. Don't want to go to the pool? Getting into the transportation = struggle. Getting into the building = struggle. Getting changed = struggle. Getting into the water = struggle. Getting OUT of the water = struggle. All the meanwhile that old lady is gaping and then going off to tell the people in front that you're making a person with special needs scream.
__________________________________________________________________________
That's where things feel frustrating, but it's also where some more subtle complaints begin to arise. And that's what brings me to the original topic of the article. I don't like the situation of having to deal with a student that doesn't get into the water. That's immediate. It's a sort of tangible dislike. The less tangible dislike comes out of something closer to pride. "Well," I ask, (to no one in particular,) "why are we trying so hard to get a student that doesn't want to swim into the pool?"
The buzzwords:
Inevitably, someone has an answer. Something along the lines of, "because it's therapeutic for x to go swimming. Study Y and Z blah blah blah." That person is my boss, and the one who is adamant about us going into the water, rain or shine. If you want to see a clear line of differentiation between those people who are considered 'administrative', and those people who are considered 'direct workers', look no further than a swimming pool. You see, because while this boss person may be able to quote IEPs, case studies, and familial goals, you can never find that person swimming come the -10 degree days, or sometimes at all, ever. Whatever anecdote you may have about a student not enjoying the pool is considered irrelevant and unacceptable because this boss person, who maybe hasn't ever even been to the pool, and certainly is not regularly in the changing rooms or in the water with the participants.
Why it's the epitome: Okay, so swimming isn't the end-all-be-all of buzzwords (that would be "Gluten Free Diet"). But it's one of the few bandwagons that we have to consciously engage with. It's specifically frustrating, though, to us because of how clearly invested in the buzzword some people are. Yes, for some individuals swimming is really quite therapeutic. I don't have the case studies to quote on it, but I've certainly seen how some people react to the water with joy and wonder and release. But some people don't. Just like peer inclusion, and art/music therapy, and any other thing that you could get some people to have great results from, swimming works well with some of the people, some of the time. They don't call it 'special needs' because everyone in the program reacts to the programming the same way, invariably. Hell, no two people, typically functioning or functioning like a badass or whatever, feel the same way about anything all the time.
Taxation without representation:
The boss person invariably is too important or busy to be able to do that little task. But considering how important it is to the students, and how much the families demanded that it be included into their children's life, it would look absolutely horrible if the program failed to include it. It stops being another part of the schedule which we can work around flexibly, and starts being an administrative buzzword that we have to live out while they get to sell it with gold leaf and cursive handwriting.
And worse, since it's uncomfortable, and since these administrative types don't have to do it themselves, the pool stops just being a frustrating task during the day, and starts becoming a reminder that we are not 'the people in charge', only 'the help'. The way it gets talked about breeds venom between a group of people who don't have to do the task, who get to drive Lexus' and attend organizational galas as guests of honor, and the supposedly 'most important members of the organization', who have to do the task, lest they want to see the other end of an unemployment line.
Why it's the epitome: Swimming is a task which you don't want to do, and your boss won't do, and yet they won't listen to your complaints either. Any other task, and an administrator could possibly facilitate, but somehow when it comes down to swimming, they're never around. That's why I think that swimming shows the space between administrator and staff:
It becomes clear-cut. Who is on "our team", and who is part of "the administration"? If you want one way to pick out who is inclusive, and who is exclusive, pick out the people that don't ever have swimming duties because they don't have to. The teachers that we accept as "part of our team" groan and complain about being made to swim as hard as we do. Meanwhile, the teachers that are part of "the administration" send us out and don't ask questions. Hell, positions which may be considered administrative might find themselves on "our team" if they dive into the pool with us from time-to-time.
When we get together in days, weeks, or months following, we start to add up our paychecks and compare them to the bills due, we complain about it with our teams, and we start to wonder whether or not this play against our pride is really worth it anymore, or if it is the final straw to break the infamous camel's back. And sometimes we get a pat on the back, and we look forward to more pleasant things.
But sometimes... sometimes that's when the newly waxed Lexus of our favorite administrator pulls up, and with silent nods and hand gestures we begin plans of mutiny. Sweet, sweet mutiny.
__________________________________________________________________________
So, to any administrators watching: It doesn't have to be this way. Listen to your staff. Take a dive in yourself. Hell, complain about the water and deal with a Code Brown with us, and you're set. But when you use your authority to put that barrier between yourself and those tasks you'd rather not be doing... We remember. :)
But I hate swimming. If there has been one complaint that I've run into more often than not, from program to program to program... If there's one place where staff delinquency is the highest among all, it's at the pool. In my experience, while everyone has a truly chilling 'poop story', if you really want to turn off the lights, and hold the flashlight under your face, and accompany the visage with a creepy voice, you'd better be talking about the pool.
Overwhelmed, under staffed:
I mean, the pool is stressful. Not only do you have to march your crew through the changing rooms, trying to figure out how the male staff is going to take care of the onslaught of oncoming students, but then you have to get yourself changed, meaning that you have to trust that someone else has your pupil's attention while you try to rush through changing into your just-a-bit-too-tight swimwear, you have to carefully avoid touching ANYTHING, since it happens to be a universal rule that every pool locker room is the most utterly disgusting, awful place known to mankind... And then you have to get into the water yourself, with the iconic slow-wade as your sensitive bits come into contact with ice cold water. Meanwhile, someone is reliably slacking off, and you have to dodge between vanillas.
Why it's the epitome: Everything is worse at the pool. Everything. The bathrooms are grosser, and the bathrooming is more abundant. If someone poops in the hall? Gross. If someone poops in the pool? They literally have to evacuate the pool, drawing attention to yourself and your charge. Put even a small bit of effort in your appearance for the day, and by the end of the pool, you have walk-of-shame hair, and a chlorine smell.
You don't like it? Too bad:
And honestly, all this stuff is peachy in my book. But then you run into a student who doesn't want to get into the water, and someone that is heading your group is demanding that they get put into it. That's where the activity begins to truly lose the fun for me. I mean, it's one thing to sacrifice a year off my life, as the bitter cold and the germs eat away at my soul, so that someone I'm working with has a truly fun time doing something which would be prohibitively difficult without the protection of a structured programming institute guiding us into the waters. It's an entirely different thing when I have the spend the better part of half an hour trying to convince them to change into their swimwear so that they can get into the water, while my superiors get upset at me for not simply ripping their clothes off and changing them manually. Not that I have specific resource material for this gripe or anything.
Why it's the epitome: The effort to get into the pool is far greater than other efforts done to secure an activity. Don't want to do a T.E.A.C.C.H. Task? Cool, throw it on the floor. Took me ten seconds to get ready, and takes me twenty seconds to pick up. Don't want to go to the pool? Getting into the transportation = struggle. Getting into the building = struggle. Getting changed = struggle. Getting into the water = struggle. Getting OUT of the water = struggle. All the meanwhile that old lady is gaping and then going off to tell the people in front that you're making a person with special needs scream.
__________________________________________________________________________
That's where things feel frustrating, but it's also where some more subtle complaints begin to arise. And that's what brings me to the original topic of the article. I don't like the situation of having to deal with a student that doesn't get into the water. That's immediate. It's a sort of tangible dislike. The less tangible dislike comes out of something closer to pride. "Well," I ask, (to no one in particular,) "why are we trying so hard to get a student that doesn't want to swim into the pool?"
The buzzwords:
Inevitably, someone has an answer. Something along the lines of, "because it's therapeutic for x to go swimming. Study Y and Z blah blah blah." That person is my boss, and the one who is adamant about us going into the water, rain or shine. If you want to see a clear line of differentiation between those people who are considered 'administrative', and those people who are considered 'direct workers', look no further than a swimming pool. You see, because while this boss person may be able to quote IEPs, case studies, and familial goals, you can never find that person swimming come the -10 degree days, or sometimes at all, ever. Whatever anecdote you may have about a student not enjoying the pool is considered irrelevant and unacceptable because this boss person, who maybe hasn't ever even been to the pool, and certainly is not regularly in the changing rooms or in the water with the participants.
Why it's the epitome: Okay, so swimming isn't the end-all-be-all of buzzwords (that would be "Gluten Free Diet"). But it's one of the few bandwagons that we have to consciously engage with. It's specifically frustrating, though, to us because of how clearly invested in the buzzword some people are. Yes, for some individuals swimming is really quite therapeutic. I don't have the case studies to quote on it, but I've certainly seen how some people react to the water with joy and wonder and release. But some people don't. Just like peer inclusion, and art/music therapy, and any other thing that you could get some people to have great results from, swimming works well with some of the people, some of the time. They don't call it 'special needs' because everyone in the program reacts to the programming the same way, invariably. Hell, no two people, typically functioning or functioning like a badass or whatever, feel the same way about anything all the time.
Taxation without representation:
The boss person invariably is too important or busy to be able to do that little task. But considering how important it is to the students, and how much the families demanded that it be included into their children's life, it would look absolutely horrible if the program failed to include it. It stops being another part of the schedule which we can work around flexibly, and starts being an administrative buzzword that we have to live out while they get to sell it with gold leaf and cursive handwriting.
And worse, since it's uncomfortable, and since these administrative types don't have to do it themselves, the pool stops just being a frustrating task during the day, and starts becoming a reminder that we are not 'the people in charge', only 'the help'. The way it gets talked about breeds venom between a group of people who don't have to do the task, who get to drive Lexus' and attend organizational galas as guests of honor, and the supposedly 'most important members of the organization', who have to do the task, lest they want to see the other end of an unemployment line.
Why it's the epitome: Swimming is a task which you don't want to do, and your boss won't do, and yet they won't listen to your complaints either. Any other task, and an administrator could possibly facilitate, but somehow when it comes down to swimming, they're never around. That's why I think that swimming shows the space between administrator and staff:
It becomes clear-cut. Who is on "our team", and who is part of "the administration"? If you want one way to pick out who is inclusive, and who is exclusive, pick out the people that don't ever have swimming duties because they don't have to. The teachers that we accept as "part of our team" groan and complain about being made to swim as hard as we do. Meanwhile, the teachers that are part of "the administration" send us out and don't ask questions. Hell, positions which may be considered administrative might find themselves on "our team" if they dive into the pool with us from time-to-time.
When we get together in days, weeks, or months following, we start to add up our paychecks and compare them to the bills due, we complain about it with our teams, and we start to wonder whether or not this play against our pride is really worth it anymore, or if it is the final straw to break the infamous camel's back. And sometimes we get a pat on the back, and we look forward to more pleasant things.
But sometimes... sometimes that's when the newly waxed Lexus of our favorite administrator pulls up, and with silent nods and hand gestures we begin plans of mutiny. Sweet, sweet mutiny.
__________________________________________________________________________
So, to any administrators watching: It doesn't have to be this way. Listen to your staff. Take a dive in yourself. Hell, complain about the water and deal with a Code Brown with us, and you're set. But when you use your authority to put that barrier between yourself and those tasks you'd rather not be doing... We remember. :)
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
What is the unsaid job description of being a para?
So, Beck's "Loser" popped on the radio on my drive home today, and the quasi-meditative background sound that looped through the song made me feel rather philosophical.
There's a question that I hear from other paraprofessionals, but never from people from outside the field. "What exactly is my job, here?" I mean, if an outsider were asked what we do, it would be simple: "They work with people with special needs (person-first language notwithstanding)". Yet, for us, the people who do that work, who see these people AS people, and not merely objects of inconvenience, we have to, at points, sit and wonder: This person is a human being? What am I doing here?
And the answers I get always volley from cynic to optimist. At one point the conversation starts to lead to a place where we're these wondrous teaching translators, working to provide an answer to a specific person's subjective reality. On the other, we are these barbaric jailors, grimly locking away the things that makes a person socially abnormal, in a world where we rapidly realize, normalcy doesn't even exist. There's a sort of dance about it too; at some points in the conversation one person might be the obvious cynic, and then the other person makes a comment which WAY overpasses the first person's cynicism, and so the first person plays the role of the optimist.
By the end of the conversation, there's a lull, not usually because either person has run out of things to say, but rather that both sides don't really have much energy to continue. I mean, it is both, isn't it? Yeah, we go out of our way to make it so that our guys can actively and independently participate in the world around them, but almost always this comes at the cost of the individuality of the person. I mean, whatever little quirks that we don't find to be at all offensive, and indeed, perhaps endearing, we realize that when they end up with their neuro-typical peers, or at a workplace, that even these need to be scrubbed in order to present acceptable or professional.
And honestly, it kind of kills us a bit every time we have to do it. I mean, the reasons that these conversations begin is rarely because people got caught up in the fly beats of 90's Beck on the radio. It's the sort of conversation that occurs after we have to make the hard call of determining whether to try and engage our wards socially, or let them stay otherwise happy, but alone. It's the sort of thing that a person looks back on their efforts and wonders whether or not any of it was worth a damn. And, despite how that sounds, it's actually sort of depressing to consider!
I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I'm not writing this post to give you an answer to this question, nor am I really asking it to the crowds, to find an answer myself. What is the unsaid job description of being a paraprofessional? I don't know that there's a good answer, cynically or optimistically. We do what we can, as best as we can, with what we have available. We make it until tomorrow. Then we wake up and do it again. It's a sort of non-answer that politically avoids the harsher truths that you would naturally bring up when considering the question honestly.
But what can I say? I mean, society kind of blows. How many things did you have to give up about yourself growing up to become who you are today? How many funny little things do your parents remember about you, that you've long since grown past? What does it take to grow up, and get a job, and pay the rent, and survive as independent people? The fact is, as socially aware as we try to be ourselves, as we try to make the world around us... As conscious as all the advertisement by all the advocacy campaigns of every individual identity are, we still judge, and worry about being and appearing normal. The workplaces still don't want to deal with non-conformity. The kids at schools still make fun of the odd man out.
It could be worse. Gorillas rip each other apart when they have a deformity or disfiguration. We could be like one of the many Spartan-like cultures which leave any child born somehow "different" on a hillside. But when you stop and think about it, no matter how crappy the alternative could be, it still sucks that we're not somehow better.
I can't get onto this blog and give you an answer, but I can say: I've been there before, and I hear you.
There's a question that I hear from other paraprofessionals, but never from people from outside the field. "What exactly is my job, here?" I mean, if an outsider were asked what we do, it would be simple: "They work with people with special needs (person-first language notwithstanding)". Yet, for us, the people who do that work, who see these people AS people, and not merely objects of inconvenience, we have to, at points, sit and wonder: This person is a human being? What am I doing here?
And the answers I get always volley from cynic to optimist. At one point the conversation starts to lead to a place where we're these wondrous teaching translators, working to provide an answer to a specific person's subjective reality. On the other, we are these barbaric jailors, grimly locking away the things that makes a person socially abnormal, in a world where we rapidly realize, normalcy doesn't even exist. There's a sort of dance about it too; at some points in the conversation one person might be the obvious cynic, and then the other person makes a comment which WAY overpasses the first person's cynicism, and so the first person plays the role of the optimist.
By the end of the conversation, there's a lull, not usually because either person has run out of things to say, but rather that both sides don't really have much energy to continue. I mean, it is both, isn't it? Yeah, we go out of our way to make it so that our guys can actively and independently participate in the world around them, but almost always this comes at the cost of the individuality of the person. I mean, whatever little quirks that we don't find to be at all offensive, and indeed, perhaps endearing, we realize that when they end up with their neuro-typical peers, or at a workplace, that even these need to be scrubbed in order to present acceptable or professional.
And honestly, it kind of kills us a bit every time we have to do it. I mean, the reasons that these conversations begin is rarely because people got caught up in the fly beats of 90's Beck on the radio. It's the sort of conversation that occurs after we have to make the hard call of determining whether to try and engage our wards socially, or let them stay otherwise happy, but alone. It's the sort of thing that a person looks back on their efforts and wonders whether or not any of it was worth a damn. And, despite how that sounds, it's actually sort of depressing to consider!
I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I'm not writing this post to give you an answer to this question, nor am I really asking it to the crowds, to find an answer myself. What is the unsaid job description of being a paraprofessional? I don't know that there's a good answer, cynically or optimistically. We do what we can, as best as we can, with what we have available. We make it until tomorrow. Then we wake up and do it again. It's a sort of non-answer that politically avoids the harsher truths that you would naturally bring up when considering the question honestly.
But what can I say? I mean, society kind of blows. How many things did you have to give up about yourself growing up to become who you are today? How many funny little things do your parents remember about you, that you've long since grown past? What does it take to grow up, and get a job, and pay the rent, and survive as independent people? The fact is, as socially aware as we try to be ourselves, as we try to make the world around us... As conscious as all the advertisement by all the advocacy campaigns of every individual identity are, we still judge, and worry about being and appearing normal. The workplaces still don't want to deal with non-conformity. The kids at schools still make fun of the odd man out.
It could be worse. Gorillas rip each other apart when they have a deformity or disfiguration. We could be like one of the many Spartan-like cultures which leave any child born somehow "different" on a hillside. But when you stop and think about it, no matter how crappy the alternative could be, it still sucks that we're not somehow better.
I can't get onto this blog and give you an answer, but I can say: I've been there before, and I hear you.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Keeping the Morale: Celebrate the good times, celebrate the bad times.
Look, we've all been there. Yesterday was a pretty good or at lease so-so day for me, but for you it was a shit-show. By the end of the day, it's clear that you've been hit hard on some emotional, physical, or spiritual level. We all go home, but the knowledge is there: we're all supposed to come back tomorrow.
There hasn't been a company that I've worked at that hasn't said "take off days that you need to. Stay off when you're sick, take the day off if you need to regain mental composure". But on the other side of that token, there's a lacking number of sick-days available, and even if the bill collectors weren't constantly calling due to our sub-par wage, rack up more than a couple of conveniently placed sick days, and your 'be well rested, be healthy' workplace starts up the rumor mill about how many unpaid sick days one needs to accrue before they find themselves in the unemployment line.
As a member of a team, it's not just a nice thing to do, but part of your responsibility to do something nice to that person when they get there the next day. I tend to spend a couple bucks and buy a snack for the person, so when they come in it's all happy and nice and sitting there. But really, it just takes some consideration, some pro-activity, and some effort.
What do you get for your little bit of time, effort, and possibly a small bit of money? You create for that person a feeling of appreciation in a job that can sometimes be heartless and thankless. You give them a small bit of safety when that element of their life may have just been shaken. And above all, you remind that person that they're part of something bigger than a single day of hardship.
I mean, people sometimes wonder about why turnover in our job is so high. And the fact is, if all you get at the end of the day is a bite mark, a torn shirt, a handful of people gossiping about your capacity as a worker, and barely enough money to afford a place to live in and food to eat, then hell yeah, people are going to drop like flies. I mean, we can all tell ourselves that we're doing it for our guys and that it's only shoddy workers that leave, but people need to have SOMETHING that they look forward to when they get to work the next day. And if every day is just another period of time shredding our patience and sanity against the grater of hardship, it's not the shoddy workers that are going to leave. It's every worker, eventually.
So if you want your team to be strong, and have people that stay in it for more than a couple of weeks, then you need to BUILD that team.
And while it's absolutely essential for people to show support for one another after a rough day, it's equally essential for your team to show support for good days. I mean, most classrooms I've seen celebrate birthdays. But I've seen how many people go from dating to engaged without so much as a couple of congratulations. C'mon folks, you need to show that love. At least have the students make a nice card or something: We're talking about someone that's putting themselves into their work every day, and we can't even celebrate peoples' life milestones?
Every time you make that effort into your team, that team gets stronger. If you want a group of people whom you can trust in a crisis, then you need to show that group of people that they matter to you. It may just happen that they'll show that love right back.
And c'mon guys. It was just BeetleMania. Didn't you read the News2You?
All you need is love.
There hasn't been a company that I've worked at that hasn't said "take off days that you need to. Stay off when you're sick, take the day off if you need to regain mental composure". But on the other side of that token, there's a lacking number of sick-days available, and even if the bill collectors weren't constantly calling due to our sub-par wage, rack up more than a couple of conveniently placed sick days, and your 'be well rested, be healthy' workplace starts up the rumor mill about how many unpaid sick days one needs to accrue before they find themselves in the unemployment line.
As a member of a team, it's not just a nice thing to do, but part of your responsibility to do something nice to that person when they get there the next day. I tend to spend a couple bucks and buy a snack for the person, so when they come in it's all happy and nice and sitting there. But really, it just takes some consideration, some pro-activity, and some effort.
What do you get for your little bit of time, effort, and possibly a small bit of money? You create for that person a feeling of appreciation in a job that can sometimes be heartless and thankless. You give them a small bit of safety when that element of their life may have just been shaken. And above all, you remind that person that they're part of something bigger than a single day of hardship.
I mean, people sometimes wonder about why turnover in our job is so high. And the fact is, if all you get at the end of the day is a bite mark, a torn shirt, a handful of people gossiping about your capacity as a worker, and barely enough money to afford a place to live in and food to eat, then hell yeah, people are going to drop like flies. I mean, we can all tell ourselves that we're doing it for our guys and that it's only shoddy workers that leave, but people need to have SOMETHING that they look forward to when they get to work the next day. And if every day is just another period of time shredding our patience and sanity against the grater of hardship, it's not the shoddy workers that are going to leave. It's every worker, eventually.
So if you want your team to be strong, and have people that stay in it for more than a couple of weeks, then you need to BUILD that team.
And while it's absolutely essential for people to show support for one another after a rough day, it's equally essential for your team to show support for good days. I mean, most classrooms I've seen celebrate birthdays. But I've seen how many people go from dating to engaged without so much as a couple of congratulations. C'mon folks, you need to show that love. At least have the students make a nice card or something: We're talking about someone that's putting themselves into their work every day, and we can't even celebrate peoples' life milestones?
Every time you make that effort into your team, that team gets stronger. If you want a group of people whom you can trust in a crisis, then you need to show that group of people that they matter to you. It may just happen that they'll show that love right back.
And c'mon guys. It was just BeetleMania. Didn't you read the News2You?
All you need is love.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Let's Talk About Burnout
There isn't a lot that we, as paraprofessionals, are allowed to share as a culture. Yes, we all have a poop story. But we also have a word which everyone seems to know instinctively, a word we've all seen before, but rarely talked about. That word is (if you can guess by the title of the post) burnout.
But what is burnout?
When someone who had been in the field a long time, or had a very traumatic experience and can't seem to let it go, goes back into work the next day, and doesn't seem to give a crap anymore... They seem tired, and they don't find the same jokes as funny, or the same experiences as cute... In short, they don't seem to grab the same joy from the job as they used to... This is what we seem to describe a person who has "burnt out".
What I'm hoping to do through this post is:
A) Discuss the causes of 'burnout', and help you to avoid it if possible.
B) Describe what a 'burnt out' person looks like, and help you determine if you are one. (I'm not going to do this so that you can determine if a co-worker is one, because gossip is the ruination of our peeps, but if you have a close friend that starts acting in this way, you can use this to help perhaps)
C) What actions or activities you can take if you start to feel "burnt out".
D) Become super famous from writing about life stories (because why does anyone ever write blogs on the internet. Gotta make that dolla)
A) How do I catch the burnout?
No, obviously you can't catch 'burnout'. I'm playing around a little bit with a serious issue. I'm not coming from this as a doctor, or a psychologist; these are simply personal observations that I've made over seeing many different paraprofessionals over a long period of time. That being said, there seems to be a small number of events which cause burnout over time.
1) Pain
It can be, or at least often is associated with physical pain, but also emotional pain and stress. We've all worked with that newbie who couldn't let this stuff go after they got to the car that night. Many of us have worked with a tired veteran who was coming in daily talking about how they couldn't pay the bills this month because of our abysmal salary. But it also goes without saying that some of us pull our backs, or come home with bruises or bite marks because of being a hero-in-the-line-of-duty.
Problem is that when these problems don't stop being problems, and they go on day after day, week after week, then we stop being excited (or at least, let's say 'amused') to go into work the next day. Month after month, and we start to dread it. Pain, whether physical, emotional, or stress-related, prolonged over a period of time, is a great reason why people lose enthusiasm, and start considering another line of work.
How can you avoid it?: You can't avoid pain in all forms, obviously. What fun would that be, right? But especially in the terms of short term pain, you can go get a back massage, take a spa day, go to a chiropractor... Depending on the insurance your company carries, this might all be in your plan. If you're having a rough emotional time of it, go out and do something fun. Go see a show. Plan something to look forward to. And, if you're sick stay at home. You may feel like the room won't be able to go on without you, but trust me, once sickness gets into a program, it never leaves. Besides, if you feel like you can't let people down, that's gonna add toward burnout.
2) Money
I've talked about it more than a few times over the last few posts, but money can also be a factor of burnout. I'm not talking about being afraid to pay the bills, at this point, but rather, looking toward the future and seeing what your options are. Many people find themselves somewhat stuck in this type of position, with no good way to advance, and few future options to plan for. But that doesn't stop the younger crowd from ambitions of marriage, buying a house, or having a child. And frankly, all of those things cost money.
Thinking about this enough put people in a place where they stop thinking about the job at hand, and start thinking about where to go next, or even just succumbing to a trapped feeling where they spend time worrying about never being able to go beyond being a paraprofessional.
How can you avoid it?: Practice budgeting, and plan for the things in your life you want to have. Make concrete goals, and include job advancement and education in your schedule. If you don't feel trapped in your job, you may just learn to take a deep breath and enjoy it.
3) Working over a long time with a difficult participant
We love all our guys, in a completely professional way. We love them all equally, and come the good or bad days, we go where we're needed. But sometimes we're the best one at a specific task or job, or considered the person with the most rapport or highest success-rate with a particular individual.
How can you avoid it?: For people who tend to get stuck to us, remember to voice concerns. Sometimes you feel like you can't speak up, and that's bad for you, and it's bad for whomever you're working with. Just remember to voice said concerns appropriately, in the right time and place, and communicate with your team. As for the ones of us that have a particular buddy, remember that the rest of your team is good at what they do too (regardless of your individual opinion of the situation), and that a real look at what our guys might face in the community won't always have you there. Remember to take your breaks like everyone else.
4) Specific traumatic event or experience
Sometimes something really big happens and you don't even know what to do with the information after. For some people, this happens in a crisis on the field. For others, this happens when you hear a story about a parent, an administrator, or something in the community that breaks your heart or spirit.
How can you avoid it?: The worst part about these kinds of events is that you never really see them coming. The most jaded of us have kinks in our armors, and sometimes even we don't know when they'll get hit. Depending on how it happened, make sure to file whatever reports you need to, consider workers' comp time, or whatever you're allowed to have in your company or place of work. Some companies have counselors available. Seek one out. It may be that you just need to take some time off, or it might be that after all day playing Superman, you need to go out there and do something to show yourself that the world can be a cool place (even if it's you that has to go out and make it that way).
B) What Does Burnout Look Like:
I think I may have, myself, burned out after Always Learning went under. I tried to carry out as many of the promises I had made before we closed, and then there was a sort of float period where a number of people thought I was going to do something cool, like start a new company or something of that sort. And... I didn't. I really didn't want to look at the field again. When I got called up by my next employer (I hadn't sent them an application, someone just let them know I was available), I had all the stars and stripes from starting my program, and having experience in the field, but when I actually got to working... I can't even believe I'm saying this... I wasn't easily the hardest working guy there. I know that's shocking to everyone.
No, but seriously. I didn't feel much joy out of the work. My commentary was of a darker sarcasm than normal, and I didn't push my students, or myself, in a way that made me proud. I just kind of floated there for awhile, not really getting on my feet, and not really caring to. And I realized in that moment... I really wanted to work somewhere else. Anywhere else.
I'm not saying that my employer was bad, but at the time, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. I didn't want to hear another tragic parent story, I didn't want to connect with a student and try to have them overcome a difficult task. Younger, less experienced workers were coming in and doing a way better job, expending a hell of a lot more effort than I wanted to even LOOK at... I just sort of wanted to make my money and leave, and in a job that pays as little as this one does, each day was beginning to look like a dreadful experience.
I'm not sure if I could really claim that I well and truly "burnt out" in that moment. There was a lot of other life complications, and I ended up staying in the field, even going on to start some new cool projects (including, might I add, this blog you're reading). But a good bit of 'burning out' has nothing to do with whether you actually do, or actually don't. Burning out really just looks like getting to that place where you're pretty sure it's time to call it quits, and a lot of that has to deal with wondering if you've burnt out or not.
I suppose what someone who has really burned out looks like is something someone who retires from the field. They stop doing respite, stop working in the homes or talking to the parents, or working in the schools. They shut the door on the community, and don't look back. And because of how we are in the community, that really doesn't look like much, since when you leave the community, it's hard for many of us to keep in contact with you.
C) What Should You Do if You Start to Feel Burnt Out?
When you start asking yourself the question "Am I getting close to burning out?", or even "Am I a burnout?", it may be time to change something about your life. For one, consider taking a vacation. And I don't mean one of those, "I have to do all the work to get ready for the vacation, I have to take care of everything during the vacation, I have to clean everything up after the vacation"-styled vacations. I mean, one legitimate self-serving time to yourself, where you know you can really relax and pamper yourself. Use those days you've been saving up for... whatever excuse that you say you're saving them for. Take on a new beau. Take a class in ballroom dancing.
If that doesn't help, many organizations have ways of switching which classroom or housing unit you're in. They might gripe about losing someone as amazing as you are, and they're right, but for right now, you just need to think about you.
If none of this works, there's absolutely nothing wrong with switching your job to something outside the field. I'm actually planning on getting a job counselor to write a special column on the very subject- how to apply special needs work to other fields successfully. There's no shame in doing your time, and then moving on. Just remember not to close the door completely. There's a lot of cool projects like the Special Olympics that you can volunteer for without committing your whole life to it.
And, of course, if you get your new fancy schmancy job, and start making oodles of money, then you can feel free to donate to many of the same organizations you worked for. I'm sure they'd appreciate it quite a bit.
But what is burnout?
When someone who had been in the field a long time, or had a very traumatic experience and can't seem to let it go, goes back into work the next day, and doesn't seem to give a crap anymore... They seem tired, and they don't find the same jokes as funny, or the same experiences as cute... In short, they don't seem to grab the same joy from the job as they used to... This is what we seem to describe a person who has "burnt out".
What I'm hoping to do through this post is:
A) Discuss the causes of 'burnout', and help you to avoid it if possible.
B) Describe what a 'burnt out' person looks like, and help you determine if you are one. (I'm not going to do this so that you can determine if a co-worker is one, because gossip is the ruination of our peeps, but if you have a close friend that starts acting in this way, you can use this to help perhaps)
C) What actions or activities you can take if you start to feel "burnt out".
D) Become super famous from writing about life stories (because why does anyone ever write blogs on the internet. Gotta make that dolla)
A) How do I catch the burnout?
No, obviously you can't catch 'burnout'. I'm playing around a little bit with a serious issue. I'm not coming from this as a doctor, or a psychologist; these are simply personal observations that I've made over seeing many different paraprofessionals over a long period of time. That being said, there seems to be a small number of events which cause burnout over time.
1) Pain
It can be, or at least often is associated with physical pain, but also emotional pain and stress. We've all worked with that newbie who couldn't let this stuff go after they got to the car that night. Many of us have worked with a tired veteran who was coming in daily talking about how they couldn't pay the bills this month because of our abysmal salary. But it also goes without saying that some of us pull our backs, or come home with bruises or bite marks because of being a hero-in-the-line-of-duty.
Problem is that when these problems don't stop being problems, and they go on day after day, week after week, then we stop being excited (or at least, let's say 'amused') to go into work the next day. Month after month, and we start to dread it. Pain, whether physical, emotional, or stress-related, prolonged over a period of time, is a great reason why people lose enthusiasm, and start considering another line of work.
How can you avoid it?: You can't avoid pain in all forms, obviously. What fun would that be, right? But especially in the terms of short term pain, you can go get a back massage, take a spa day, go to a chiropractor... Depending on the insurance your company carries, this might all be in your plan. If you're having a rough emotional time of it, go out and do something fun. Go see a show. Plan something to look forward to. And, if you're sick stay at home. You may feel like the room won't be able to go on without you, but trust me, once sickness gets into a program, it never leaves. Besides, if you feel like you can't let people down, that's gonna add toward burnout.
2) Money
I've talked about it more than a few times over the last few posts, but money can also be a factor of burnout. I'm not talking about being afraid to pay the bills, at this point, but rather, looking toward the future and seeing what your options are. Many people find themselves somewhat stuck in this type of position, with no good way to advance, and few future options to plan for. But that doesn't stop the younger crowd from ambitions of marriage, buying a house, or having a child. And frankly, all of those things cost money.
Thinking about this enough put people in a place where they stop thinking about the job at hand, and start thinking about where to go next, or even just succumbing to a trapped feeling where they spend time worrying about never being able to go beyond being a paraprofessional.
How can you avoid it?: Practice budgeting, and plan for the things in your life you want to have. Make concrete goals, and include job advancement and education in your schedule. If you don't feel trapped in your job, you may just learn to take a deep breath and enjoy it.
3) Working over a long time with a difficult participant
We love all our guys, in a completely professional way. We love them all equally, and come the good or bad days, we go where we're needed. But sometimes we're the best one at a specific task or job, or considered the person with the most rapport or highest success-rate with a particular individual.
How can you avoid it?: For people who tend to get stuck to us, remember to voice concerns. Sometimes you feel like you can't speak up, and that's bad for you, and it's bad for whomever you're working with. Just remember to voice said concerns appropriately, in the right time and place, and communicate with your team. As for the ones of us that have a particular buddy, remember that the rest of your team is good at what they do too (regardless of your individual opinion of the situation), and that a real look at what our guys might face in the community won't always have you there. Remember to take your breaks like everyone else.
4) Specific traumatic event or experience
Sometimes something really big happens and you don't even know what to do with the information after. For some people, this happens in a crisis on the field. For others, this happens when you hear a story about a parent, an administrator, or something in the community that breaks your heart or spirit.
How can you avoid it?: The worst part about these kinds of events is that you never really see them coming. The most jaded of us have kinks in our armors, and sometimes even we don't know when they'll get hit. Depending on how it happened, make sure to file whatever reports you need to, consider workers' comp time, or whatever you're allowed to have in your company or place of work. Some companies have counselors available. Seek one out. It may be that you just need to take some time off, or it might be that after all day playing Superman, you need to go out there and do something to show yourself that the world can be a cool place (even if it's you that has to go out and make it that way).
B) What Does Burnout Look Like:
I think I may have, myself, burned out after Always Learning went under. I tried to carry out as many of the promises I had made before we closed, and then there was a sort of float period where a number of people thought I was going to do something cool, like start a new company or something of that sort. And... I didn't. I really didn't want to look at the field again. When I got called up by my next employer (I hadn't sent them an application, someone just let them know I was available), I had all the stars and stripes from starting my program, and having experience in the field, but when I actually got to working... I can't even believe I'm saying this... I wasn't easily the hardest working guy there. I know that's shocking to everyone.
No, but seriously. I didn't feel much joy out of the work. My commentary was of a darker sarcasm than normal, and I didn't push my students, or myself, in a way that made me proud. I just kind of floated there for awhile, not really getting on my feet, and not really caring to. And I realized in that moment... I really wanted to work somewhere else. Anywhere else.
I'm not saying that my employer was bad, but at the time, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. I didn't want to hear another tragic parent story, I didn't want to connect with a student and try to have them overcome a difficult task. Younger, less experienced workers were coming in and doing a way better job, expending a hell of a lot more effort than I wanted to even LOOK at... I just sort of wanted to make my money and leave, and in a job that pays as little as this one does, each day was beginning to look like a dreadful experience.
I'm not sure if I could really claim that I well and truly "burnt out" in that moment. There was a lot of other life complications, and I ended up staying in the field, even going on to start some new cool projects (including, might I add, this blog you're reading). But a good bit of 'burning out' has nothing to do with whether you actually do, or actually don't. Burning out really just looks like getting to that place where you're pretty sure it's time to call it quits, and a lot of that has to deal with wondering if you've burnt out or not.
I suppose what someone who has really burned out looks like is something someone who retires from the field. They stop doing respite, stop working in the homes or talking to the parents, or working in the schools. They shut the door on the community, and don't look back. And because of how we are in the community, that really doesn't look like much, since when you leave the community, it's hard for many of us to keep in contact with you.
C) What Should You Do if You Start to Feel Burnt Out?
When you start asking yourself the question "Am I getting close to burning out?", or even "Am I a burnout?", it may be time to change something about your life. For one, consider taking a vacation. And I don't mean one of those, "I have to do all the work to get ready for the vacation, I have to take care of everything during the vacation, I have to clean everything up after the vacation"-styled vacations. I mean, one legitimate self-serving time to yourself, where you know you can really relax and pamper yourself. Use those days you've been saving up for... whatever excuse that you say you're saving them for. Take on a new beau. Take a class in ballroom dancing.
If that doesn't help, many organizations have ways of switching which classroom or housing unit you're in. They might gripe about losing someone as amazing as you are, and they're right, but for right now, you just need to think about you.
If none of this works, there's absolutely nothing wrong with switching your job to something outside the field. I'm actually planning on getting a job counselor to write a special column on the very subject- how to apply special needs work to other fields successfully. There's no shame in doing your time, and then moving on. Just remember not to close the door completely. There's a lot of cool projects like the Special Olympics that you can volunteer for without committing your whole life to it.
And, of course, if you get your new fancy schmancy job, and start making oodles of money, then you can feel free to donate to many of the same organizations you worked for. I'm sure they'd appreciate it quite a bit.
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