Less Correcting ~ More Connecting

I don’t feel like I can win. 

If I don’t make suggestions and do the ordinary work of the RCWs then I’m made to feel like I don’t do any work.

If I make suggestions, show enthusiasm for the work and ask lots of questions then I’m made to feel like I am being patronising. 

I personally think it sounds quite arrogant to suggest that some people are intimidated by me and my qualifications, but perhaps that really is the case. Lord knows I have felt like that from almost day 1. 

But what do you do when the staff feel that way about you? How do you approach it? I can’t change my personality into someone who is loud and brash just to fit in with the rest of the staff team. I’ve always been someone who quietly mulls things over, analyses situations and most definitely avoids conflicts. 

My whole childhood was a conflict and I was always an unwilling, weaker participant. I don’t want to engage in that sort of behaviour as an adult when I have the choice over what I do and don’t participate in. I don’t have to feel intimidated by anyone who is trying to grind me down. 

Only I do feel like that and I don’t know what to do. I am returning to the thoughts where I question whether this placement is right for me and I don’t like it. I got upset last night at the thought of prematurely saying goodbye to the young people who I work with. It would break my own heart and I believe that they have formed enough of an attachment to me to be similarly sad if I leave, even if they never would show it. 

I’m torn. 

This is the challenge of finding the balance between putting my professional development at the forefront of all my thoughts whilst contemplating the personal relationships that are forming with each young person, and the staff members to be fair. I look up to some of them as examples of brilliant residential care workers. 

Can I let a few people stomp on my confidence, my self esteem, my dreams… on a daily basis…? Is it worth letting that happen? I am developing but I feel like the opportunities aren’t coming as thick and fast as I believe they could be. I’m not being involved in all the work, at least not in my opinion. I want to be included in the role that the senior team are included in, not just the RCW role. 

I am blind in this placement. I don’t know what amount of opportunities I should be getting but instinct tells me I am being held back. 

I can’t afford to be held back though. 

Tomorrow it will be a month since a started working with these young people and the people that care for them, at least by job title, though many go way beyond what the job role demands. 

These children make me realise the responsibility that it takes to care for children. They might be pretty much fully grown but at heart they’re tiny  things just craving love, attention, commitment, boundaries. It is painful to have a placement with them for such a short amount of time when I can’t realistically wave any sort of magic wand to make it better… I can only hope that I can make some small differences and it isn’t all reversed when I leave again. 

Every day I dread the day when I will have to say goodbye. 

I’m going to learn how to make friendship bracelets and make some for them for when I say goodbye. I haven’t got much money so it’d be really pointless thinking about anything pricier than that (and probably not too appropriate anyway) but at least friendship bracelets can mean something and they’ll take my own personal effort to produce. I think they’d be a really apt present to them. 

I hope so anyway. 

I feel sad now :(

One day I might be blessed to be a mother. If that happens, I can imagine that every day of my life I will look back and think of the children that I work with at the moment, the ones I’ve worked with in the past, and of course the kids that I am yet to work with. The kids who were born addicts, the kids who have been neglected and left with nits in their hair and dirt on their faces, the kids who have been beaten black and blue, the kids who have been told they are a mistake and they aren’t loved, the kids who are raped and are left with shame and STDs, the kids who feel they need to pay for love with every penny they have, the kids who break their own possessions out of frustration and inability to say how they are feeling, the kids who feel like they have no home, the kids who have to grow up too young, the kids who can’t cry, the kids who can’t trust anyone else, the kids who love their abusers, the kids who run away from home, the kids who seek thrills through crime, the kids who have no sense of identity, the kids who are bullied for no fault of their own…

the list goes on. 

I love the children I have worked with and currently work with. I might not be a mother yet but I ache for these children like any mother would. I want to shake them until they listen to me when I tell them that I get upset/angry/frustrated because I want the best for them. I think they know that deep down but they are unable to let themselves believe it, or if they do believe it then they are unable to show it. Probably out of fear of rejection or abandonment. And I can’t blame these kids for that. 

It is all very exhausting. 

One day I’ll be telling my own children about all of this, when they are old enough to appreciate what it all means, and I hope that they’ll go on to do work that helps others as well. 

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Yesterday I helped make lunch, washed up, walked a young person to the bus to get a bus ticket for them, wrote in the journals, log books and diary as I needed to following phone calls I had taken…

These are part of the role that normal RCWs will do on a day to day basis. They aren’t things that I mind doing at all. 

However, I was also asked to log other people’s calls for them, file the paperwork they had been doing… and then I was pulled up on lack of detail in a journal when it was all the detail that I was able to provide when I am in a position where I am not being guided or supervised to find out more.

It is always the same two people who treat me like that and it really annoys me. I rang my practice educator and my university tutor and they said it was a matter of ‘finding the balance’ between helping and being used. Well I would say that I had found it, challenged it and been made to feel like a selfish idiot for challenging it. 

On Monday I challenged similar treatment: I had gone to get one bus pass as I had been asked but the moment I got back they then asked me to go back out for a second one. I mentioned that I wasn’t meant to be being used in that way and the response was ‘we’re just trying to integrate you into the team’. Well I’m not against that at all, but when it is my fourth week of placement and nobody is taking the time to do my induction with me or give me supervision (I’ve had one supervision in 4 weeks), or give me the guidance I need: yesterday I was told to ‘just do it’ when I expressed that I was unsure about writing a full day of journal entries. 

I’m not happy at all but as my practice educator has given me the advice of ‘find the balance’ I feel that I am going to have to continue with this until my next supervision at the earliest. Which will be next week or I will ask the university to pull me out of the placement completely. I’m fed up of directing all of my own learning without any input from this agency. How am I meant to know I am on target if no targets have been set for me? 

Some people are having wonderful placement experiences and I am envious of that, but I feel that this placement has the potential to be brilliant if people would just stop and consider whether I am fulfilling the role I am meant to be, or whether I need more guidance. I feel I do need more guidance. 

Anyway I agreed to go in today to keep my studies on target. Today is day 21 and I have 59 days to go. Some of those days are ‘study days’ which is good. I am counting down the days but I feel slightly bad for that. I’d rather be wishing that I could work here forever instead of wishing for it all to end! 

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There must have been something in the air today because the young people were all a pleasure to be around. Obviously they aren’t a pleasure in the same way your typical teenager might be a pleasure because these kids still have attitude, ‘issues’, frustrations… etc. (easier to say etc. than try and encapsulate all of their emotions in a sentence!). 

But today, the kids were wonderful. And if I’m honest I don’t want my placement to end when I have days like this. 

One young person constantly says I am boring, I’m a ‘mong’, I’m a loner… and I’ve probably said these things before so I’m not going to bore you with it all. The way she behaves is very much an obvious defence mechanism and I get that. I understand why having people come in and out of your life all the time gets tiresome and that it hurts. 

But today, she asked me to go and chat to her. And she called me a mong but she didn’t call me anything else. She even had a joke with me. 

And then a different young person who never speaks to me apart from a few one word answers and the occasional giggling at me, and she never looks me in the eye… but today she complimented me on my hair and had a bit of a chat to me with the above young person. I was so pleased to be building some sort of bridge with her. It has taken time but I respect her for that. She’s quite new to the home as well as me and she has no reason to open up to me - I’m just a stranger. 

Then a different young person came home from school. She finishes school very soon and will be leaving to go to college. She talked about her prom and shared messages from her school friends and teachers that had been written in notebooks to say goodbye to her with me and another member of staff. And she was so very proud of herself, and me and the other members of staff are pleased for her. She’s done so well because she’ll be leaving with some qualifications, and that doesn’t seem common enough, in my experience, for looked after children. She’s going to be a success story and that’s what makes working with looked after children so worthwhile.

There are other good elements from today but these are my happiest moments. I’m so happy. I can’t wait to speak to my practice educator to share these moments with her. 

This is a good day. 

lastfeminist replied to your post: Disappointment

If it is any consolation, this is not unusual. I think the #1 problem is lack of proper supervision. #2 would be the placement not treating students fairly. They ether give too much work or not enough.

See I feel like I have a reasonable balance of work right now. I’m certainly not overworked and I don’t feel like I have nothing to do. When my out of house practice educator did my supervision it was brilliant and lasted around 2 hours. She has booked in a time to see me next week and she appears to be really organised. She’s the kind of person that really does deserve some credit for the help she has given me so far, albeit a little bit later than I would’ve liked it. 

It is just the in house educator. I’ve felt from the word go like she is the type of person who doesn’t want anyone else to do better than she has done. She regularly mentions her own social work qualification and tells everyone who asks me what course I am doing that my MA is no different than the BA she achieved. And I’ve never even said anything to disagree with this but I have felt the need to point out that whilst it is the same, the level of intensity is higher because cramming a three year course into two years and adding more words to essays and a 15,000 word dissertation is obviously going to be somewhat different even if the topics covered are exactly the same. 

All in all though I don’t really care about what other qualifications people have as long as I am able to achieve my own! 

I didn’t go into my placement today but no shifts have been set for me anyway, but lo and behold that who should I see when I go to the shops? My in house practice educator! Fortunately I don’t think she saw me though as she was on the phone. 

Tomorrow I am at the university anyway so if anyone noticed that I wasn’t there (not likely) then they’ll have probably forgotten by Thursday anyway. I don’t think I’m really helping myself though, though I was more concerned about my green hair today rather than just avoiding the placement! 

I had a hair cut at Toni & Guy today that felt sexual. The man doing it had such a firm touch but oh so gentle. At some points I actually giggled like a little schoolgirl. It was embarrassingly enjoyable! 

I feel like I have had foreplay in the salon and sadly I’m left wanting more. It ended too soon. 

Where is the orgasm?!?!?!? 

Never mind. I enjoyed it whilst it lasted. Definitely asking for him next time I get my hair cut even if he was on the top price bracket. Every penny felt well spent. 

I felt like I really needed to go and get my hair done today. Mostly because I dyed my hair yesterday and it turned slightly green, but also because I am feeling really down about my placement. I’m hoping that things will be sorted out soon and I can get on with enjoying myself.

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truthandclarity answered your question: Disappointment

I would call your out-of-house practice educator. I had a similar situation… my prac ed. said she wished I’d called sooner.

Yeah you are probably right. I’m going to make the call tomorrow. I think it is her day off on Tuesdays. 

I’ve just had a glance at some of your recent blog posts. I told my mother I was having counselling a few years ago during my undergrad as I was feeling very down and she had an argument with me and made me feel so small. 

I’d do anything to have a supportive mother. 

This is possibly related to why I am so slow to ask for help from people. I’m so used to people expecting me to be some sort of super human, always happy person who can’t possibly need any help, encouragement or praise. 

Thanks for following me :) 

 wholegrainlofat replied to your post: Disappointment

Leave. Talk to your school advisor and see if you can get a new placement. I had to do this my first year of SW school. It was painful but in the end made my experience so much better.

I don’t think I want to leave completely. My practice educator (out of house) has implicitly given me the option to go and work in the home she is based at if things don’t work out at the one I am at now. I just feel like I’ve spent three weeks getting to know the young people, the area, the way things run (or don’t run) in the home… just to have to start all over again. 

I’m going to speak to my uni tutor and my practice educator tomorrow and see what their opinions of this situation are. 

:)

I’ve decided that it is time to admit in writing that I am disappointed with my placement. 

It is with looked after children in a residential care home and I just think it could be so much better. I didn’t even go in today. Not that this matters because nobody has set me any shifts and my deputy manager/in house practice assessor was all too happy to acknowledge that she wouldn’t be seeing me all this week as she was off and still didn’t set me any shifts. 

Every week I remind her that she hasn’t set me any shifts. The incompetence astounds me. It is like she doesn’t want to take control of anything if there isn’t going to be the right level of recognition resulting from it. 

I have a recall day tomorrow and I am going to have to speak to my tutor. I have been trying so hard to build bridges with the young people in this home that I can’t bring myself to give up on the placement. Even if they pulled me out of the home and put me in a different one I would feel gutted. 

Yesterday was particularly annoying for me because last week my out of house practice educator, the person who has the responsibility for me more than anyway, outlined what she expected of me, including what I could and could not do. And when I asserted this yesterday when I was asked to do something I shouldn’t be doing I was found with ‘just trying to make you a normal part of the team’ in a very arsey way and a debate about how I should be making my own decisions as well as listening to my practice educator. I don’t really see the need to make decisions that counter that of my practice educator when I agree with the decisions that she has made. 

I’m unhappy and I shouldn’t be. 

On a different note, I think working with looked after children is something that I would like to consider doing when I have graduated. The difficulty is that this is all I actually know so far so I may be being a bit hasty in saying that. I do feel that working with looked after children is a very rewarding experience though. Even if they do ‘dome me’ or whatever the slang is! They’re all great kids, and I say this time and time again. I’d be really sad to have to say goodbye to them prematurely. 

I don’t really know what to do. Part of me wants to ring the out of house practice educator and let her know what I was faced with yesterday, another part of me thinks I should just keep quiet. I’ve also been told from the in house educator that she’s not going to be giving me any supervision this week. I wish she had told my other practice educator that or at least asked another member of staff to do it for me. I don’t think it really makes a difference though. Even if I say my concerns I don’t think anyone actually based in this home will make a difference. Except maybe the manager and he’s not responsible for me so it isn’t really his concern. 

I’m sorry to be ranting about this. I wanted to be able to say positive things about my placement but it doesn’t seem to be happening. 

What do people think I should do?

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How am I meant to build bridges with young people who are used to people walking in and out of their life, leaving them to feel abandoned, when we both know that in a few months I’ll be moving on as well. 

It is week 4 of this experience already and I just feel like time is flying by. Progress is being made but whether I can make enough progress in the next 12 weeks… I really don’t know. 

I never knew it would be this hard on my emotions. 

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