Another day at the Crazy Camp...

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's official. I'm completely nuts. What a week it's been. I started my new job last Tuesday, and today was the seventh day in a row that I've been at work, so I'm starting to go a little nuts. Luckily today, tomorrow, and Wednesday is training, so at least I get a break from the kids, but for goodness sakes! Let me tell you, that place is a nut house. Literally. In fact, let me tell you all about it :)

Ok, so if you've been reading my blog at all recently (like, the last post I think), you know that I'm working at a place called Children's ARK, which is a residential treatment center for highly at risk boys. They certainly weren't kidding when they said at risk. At Children's ARK there are four cabins that the boys live in, with about 10- 15 boys in each cabin. Most of the cabins are roughly divided by age, except for cabin A, which is reserved for the sex offenders. Cabin B holds the youngest boys, Cabin C, the middling age boys, and Cabin D the oldest. Most people agree that Cabin B is the hardest cabin to deal with. The boys are old enough to know how to get under people's skin, and not old enough yet to know how to respect adults and deal with their emotions. So, of course, I've been in Cabin B all week.

Here's a breif taste of the kind of kids that I work with in Cabin B. We currently have a 12 year old kleptomaniac, a boy with possible multiple personality disorder, a 16 year old with an IQ of 56 or so, who doesn't understand personal boundaries, a couple of kids from rival gangs, several kids who have a history of drug and alcohol abuse. In general, it's literally a mad house. Not to mention that these kids are going through or about to go through puberty right now, and don't have the best hygeine skills. The boy with MPD doesn't like to wash his feet. Ever. There's another boy who's afraid to go into the bathroom, so a staff member needs to sit outside the bathroom for him to take a shower. I haven't seen him shower once in the six days that I worked with him. The boy with low IQ doesn't ever clear his throat or wipe his nose without prompting from an adult.

Each boy at Children's ARK has a program that he works with in order to work through his issues and become a functioning member of society. He has a therapist that he sees. He goes to school on campus, lives on campus, and all the staff are trained to deal with whatever issues might crop up. So, my job is to, along with other staff members, take care of these boys when they're not in school, and help them work through their issues. Most of these boys have very severe anger issues, and have gone through several other placements before landing at Children's ARK. Needless to say, incidents happen quite often.

For example, this week alone, we had more fights than I can count between the boys. We had boys go out of staff sight (OOSS, which is like running away, but they don't go off campus. It's one of the way boys deal with stressful situations, or act out) more often than I can remember. Several boys had to get put in physical restraints because they were being unsafe towards themselves or other people. One boy decided that a good way to act out would be to swallow a thumbtack, so that became a sort of medical incident. One boy got mad and ran outside of the cafeteria and threw rocks until two panes of glass broke. Another boy broke one pane of glass. One of our boys got taken away by the cops for a day, because he threw a rock at another boy's chest and the second boy decided to press charges. This is on top of constant posturing, milder acting out incidents, cursing, gang talk, and stealing. *Whew!*

But, I don't want you to think that everything that happens is bad. When certain boys are in a good head space, they can be great. It's neat to watch them help each other through rough times and talk each other out of acting out. And, every once in a while, no matter how tough they talk and act, they remind me that they are just kids that need someone to protect them. For example, the kleptomaniac, I found out the other day, is afraid of the dark. After a particularily long kitchen clean-up we were walking back to the cabin and it was dark outside, so he had to hold my hand all the way up to the cabin. And he needs a story read to him at night to go to sleep.

After today's training session, I'm actually pretty hopeful that things will get better as far as the way I deal with a crisis. I've been feeling a little out of control this past week because it's been hard for me to know what battles to fight and which ones to just walk away from. Training is teaching me out to deescalate situations before they become crises. And, if a serious situation does happen, I'll be able to intervene now, whereas this past week I've had to just sit by while other staff does the dirty work.

So that's my story for now, and I'm sticking to it. I'm sure I'll have more interesting fodder for stories than I know what to do with, so hopefully my blog can be come an interesting piece of entertainment again!

Later Gators :P