Bright Ideas (Lame Jokes)

Source

A Motto For Social Work (and everyday)

Source: Therese on Pinterest

Cuppa Care

In my personal life, I have a pretty simple solution for just about every problem in life.  TEA!  When faced with just about any ailment or annoyance, a quick cuppa can help me feel better.  If only I could apply this to social work.

Depressed?  How about a colourful flowering tea to brighten your day?
Feeling anxious? A warm cup of ginger with honey to sooth and take the edge off.
Feeling lonely?  Why not spend some time with your friend Lady Grey?
Can't get to sleep?  Drift off with some chamomile.
Lacking energy and motivation? Some zesty lemon green tea should get you going.
Trouble getting along with the people in your life?  Bond over a boiling pot of chai.
Feeling broke and cold?  Hold that mug in both hands and feel it's warmth.

I mean, the list could go on all day.  If only our work were so simple and delicious.  I'm going to go brew some now!

Maybe her social worker

suggested she write a letter to "show her feelings"  

Original photo at Jeff Simmermon's photostream

I first saw this on And I Am Not Lying

The Twelve Days of Christmas - Social Work Edition

Like absolutely everyone else, those of us in social work often find the days leading up to Christmas to be particularly hectic.  It can be a hard time of year for many of our clients, so they may need additional support.  There are many charitable goings-on that we may be involved in, and most of us hope to get a couple days off with our own families.

Here's a little ditty to give you an idea of what the holiday rush looks like for us.  Feel free to sing along!  (I'm not typing out the verses over and over, you all know how it goes!)

Twelve grocery gift cards

Eleven overdue assessments  

Ten client Christmas parties  

Nine home visits 

Eight food hamper deliveries  

Seven flu shot clinics    

Six church hall turkey dinners  

Five volunteers!!!!!    (we love our volunteers)

Four donated toy drives     

Three office potlucks  

Two emergency room visits    

And one last minute crisis call!

  

Mental Health Practitioner

A little funny for your Friday.


Mental Health Practitioner
by: tortuga713



*If you're having trouble viewing the video go here

What makes a Social Worker?

I have a confession to make: I am not a social worker.

That is, I don’t have a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) or a Masters of Social Work (MSW). I’m not even a registered Social Service Worker, which is a two year diploma.

This does not stop my clients, or even friends and family from referring to me as a social worker.

I did go to school. One year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts (dropped out) and a diploma in Assaulted Women and Children’s Counselling and Advocacy (AWCCA). It’s an awkwardly titled and unique program, but I learned more there than in any other school I’ve attended my whole life. And it is in the Community Services department.

I believe in a recovery model of mental health work. Recovery is a word I’ve heard kicked around in mental health departments for a long time, but a lot of the time it seemed to be more of vague notion of an ideal rather than an actual working philosophy or model. It’s only been in the past year or so that I have really learned how the concept of recovery can be used to help clients and improve the work that I do.

I took to the recovery model very quickly, because it jives well with my feminist and anti-oppression perspective. These are things I learned in the good ol’ AWCCA, as well as my life experiences. 

Most of the time, I feel pretty well prepared to handle the work I do. I attribute this to my training, but also to my ‘lived experience’ - the things you don’t get out of a book. The recovery model values this highly. It emphasizes the importance of lived experience and in particular peer-support in doing mental health work.

Meanwhile, the social work sector seems to be headed for increased professionalization. I don’t really have numbers to back this up, but I have certainly noticed it from my constant perusing of job postings. More and more jobs are requiring BSW’s and even MSW’s for community work that has often been done by people like me. While I strongly believe that further education is a good thing, I do question whether this trend can be congruent with the recovery model.

I also would never want to disrespect or devalue the years of effort and hard work that others have put into their professional designations. Goodness knows I was proud when I graduated my program (with honours thankyouverymuch) but is completing a two or four or five year degree the only way to be a Social Worker?

More to come in a new blog series I am going to call Recovery 101.

Important Things My Work Has Taught Me

#1 - How to say "I don't know".  No point pretending you are an expert when you are not.

Records and Receipts

Source: Wikimedia Commons

We in social services spend a lot of time in coffee shops.  And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT.  My agency will reimburse me (up to a certain amount) for beverages purchased on client meetings.

Of course I always forget to ask for a receipt.

A Day in the Life

Thursday February 3, 2011

8:30am – park a block away from first appointment and check messages on office phone and cell phone. Remarkably few, possibly due to yesterday being a “snow day”.
9:00 – pull up to client’s building for first appointment. He’s a big guy (with severe back, neck and knee problems) who struggles to get in my little car, but we make it. We head off to check out a new grocery store, a figure out a route for him to take the bus there on his own next time.
9:45 – take same client to coffee shop for a caffeine fix and quick chat about plans for next week’s meeting.
9:59 – return to client’s building, help him load his groceries in.
10:00 – back in the car, call the pharmacy to see if next client’s prescriptions can be made ready for pick up. Ah, crap – there are no more refills. The pharmacy offers to fax a request to the doctor’s office, and I call the client. He swears that he did see this doctor in the past few months (can’t remember exactly when, but…) and forgot to ask about those prescriptions.
10:10 – Call the pharmacy back, they say it might take awhile. Call the client again, tell him it might take awhile and is it okay if I drop his meds off this afternoon. Yes, that will be fine.
10:20 – Eat my lunch in the car trying to ignore the fact that it’s -10 Celsius outside but I’m dressed in several layers so that’s okay. Relish the fact that I have a few minutes to listen to Q on the radio.
10:45 – Head downtown to start searching for a parking spot.
11:00 – Find parking, dash across the street to the church to set up for the Outreach lunch program. My co-facilitator has beat me there, as have several of the clients, even though we don’t officially open until 11:30, but hey, it’s still -10 out!
11:30 – Serve chili, chips, and veggies to familiar faces, and some new ones. The attendees are mostly male, 40+ and kinda rough around the edges. They make loud conversation about politics, people they know, their plans if they won the lottery, and “the way things used to be”. They’re a good natured lot, and the lunch tends to run a lot more smoothly than its breakfast counterpart at the other church. Breakfast gets a bigger crowd, and there is sometimes “trouble”.
12:30 – start tidying up as people leave. Spend some time supporting an elderly couple whose son lives out east and was recently diagnosed with bipolar. They’re frustrated that “the system” out there isn’t giving him the support he needs, and they wish they could do more to help. They went to visit him last fall when he was in the hospital, but the motel was expensive, and it’s hard for them to travel.
1:08 – I realize that I’m late for my next appointment, and try to call but get the answering machine. The outgoing message wishes me a “happy new year” and remarks about the date 01/11/11 for several minutes before cutting me off, so I don’t get to leave a message.
1:15 – I arrive to my “happy new year” client’s building, but there’s no answer when I buzz the intercom. I wait inside the front door for several minutes then try again. I call her phone, and the answering machine seems to work this time so I leave a message asking her to call and reschedule.
1:30 – Back in the car, I drive to the neighbourhood of my next appointment, and park across the street to check messages again. One marked “urgent” from a new client whom I have met only twice telling me that he found a room to rent and is no longer living in the shelter, and he’ll call me later to set up an appointment, because he doesn’t have a phone. Another from a current “high needs” client crying and upset because she’s lost all her ID. This could be pressing, but I know if I call her back it’s possible I’ll get stuck on the phone for a long time so it will have to wait for a more opportune moment.
1:40 – I check my email and notice a message from a client I did an intake with a couple weeks ago. He let’s me know that his housing arrangements “didn’t work out” and he, his wife, and their two children are now in the family shelter. He sounds pretty desperate for help and is planning to rent a truck to go sleep in. I remember him as extremely depressed, anxious, and suicidal. I email him back quickly to ask if it would be okay for me to refer him on to our outreach program which can meet him right away.
1:55 – I call my 3:00 to see if we’re still on because he often cancels. He has schizophrenia, and is also going through cancer treatment so he’s not always in the best of shape to meet. He asks if I can come earlier than planned and I say we’ll see.
2:00 – I check in with my next client. It’s dark in her apartment as the balcony door is blocked by the snow and she never opens her curtains. She finally let her dad know that her cat died, so he’s not worried any more about why she’s acting out of sorts. She missed her psychiatrist appointment last week because she’s scared that if her taxi runs out of gas it’s winter and she’ll be stranded in the snow. She’s scared that no one will save her. I try to understand, and try to support as best I can.
2:30 – Back in the car, call Mr. 3:00 and let him know I can come now. He wants to go to the grocery store and has his list ready.
2:35 – I pick him up, and off we go.
2:50 – I’m getting a grocery cart while my client starts his shopping inside. An older gentleman is trying to light his cigarette with a burnt out lighter, and I suggest to him that he’s probably not allowed to smoke in here and needs to go outside. He asks me for a match, but I don’t have one. He goes back to trying the lighter.
3:45 – Groceries are done, and after a stop at the post office I take my client home. We make arrangements to meet next week if he feels up to it.
3:50 – In the car I call the pharmacy from this morning and learn they finally got the refills, they didn’t think they would cause this doc has said no before. I call my client to update him, message my boss to update her about the changes to my schedule/location (for safety purposes, understand) and head off to the pharmacy.
4:05 – At the pharmacy we commiserate for a minute, and they tell me my client called them about 20 times today, anxious about his medication. They’ve known him for years, since he was homeless down the street from their store, long before I came around. They want to know does he also need his foot cream, I call, he doesn’t, I take the bag of pills (these have got to be worth $$$ on the street!) and zip over to his place.
4:20 – I get there (just in time) hand over the drugs and apologize that I won’t be able to stay and chat. I’ll call you tomorrow to schedule a check-in appointment, okay?
4:30 – I finish my day on time somehow, and call home to let them know I’m on the way.

P-R-O

After noticing mentions of it by Tanya at Trench Warfare Too and cb at Fighting Monsters, I had to check out this “Top 50 Blogs by Social Work Professional.” Lo and behold, there I was! #30 Going Mental (you’re there too, Social Worker Mom) Hurrah! Allow me this moment of self-indulgence.

I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a "professional." The word seems to imply someone who is an expert in a field with years of experience...I guess when I think about it, I'm getting there. It’s also funny to see written there “a mental health worker with sympathy for her clients.” It’s very rare that I get any idea of how others perceive my blog. I mostly write it for my own enjoyment, venting and self-soothing, and I tend to think that the biggest strength of my blog is simply that I haven’t given up posting. Absolutely no one that I know if real life has been made aware that I write it (although if someone from my workplace were to stumble here, I’m sure I’d out myself pretty quickly) and all of my lovely followers have gotten here thanks to the good ol’internet.

So thanks, Social Work Blog. It’s nice to feel appreciated noticed.

Update: I realize that including a picture featuring men only is not very representative of social workers, but it was the best pic that came up when I searched "hurrah" - I like it.

Extremely Cold Attitudes (Toward Homeless)

It's -27 celcius today, and snowing. Many of my client's find it difficult to get out of the house much at this time of year. I find myself less and less enthused about bundling up to get in the car and head out to see them.

My thoughts mostly are with the group I used to work with - the homeless and underhoused. An extreme cold weather alert has been called, but we know that some will still be outside.

An older gentleman that I support was distraught last year after his brother died on the steets of Calgary. He was found in a snowbank.

At least that city seems to have a plan in place to address the issue of homelessness, a plan that seems to be making progress.

Calgary's 10 Year Plan seems to be simple and straightforward. First, create permenant affordable housing for individuals and families. Provide support for mental health and addictions. Recognize the systemic issues that create homelessness, and acknowledge the economic toll that it takes on a community. It's great to see such an honest discussion of the problem occuring at a civic level. Several cities in the U.S. have similar plans and report largely positive changes so far.

I only wish that this was a conversation that City Hall in Toronto would have ears for. Instead, we have new Mayor Rob Ford's recent suggestion that social workers should be made security guards of the steets and force homeless people into shelters during extreme cold. Mayor Ford made no comments regarding plans for these folks once the weather warms (to greater than -15). As a city councillor, Ford made his feelings on the matter quite clear stating "People do not want government housing built in the city of Toronto. They want roads fixed, more police presence, but they don't want more government housing that will depreciate the value of their property."
He also cried that it would be "an insult" to his constituents to even discuss having a homeless shelter built in his ward.

So I guess it's up to us - front line agencies, community activists, and the people who need the housing around here to keep up the fight. To find the allies we undoubtedly have in city hall and elsewhere. Not that that is anything new.

Shout Outs

Someone recently pointed me in the direction of Homeless Man Speaks. I’ve been reading the archives, it’s great.

Also, thanks to cb for the mention in your “Weekend Links.” I’m working my way through some of the other bloggers mentioned.

Updates to the blogroll to follow!

Also...

I updated the blogroll, which was loooong overdue. If anyone knows of some stellar mental health/social work-y themed blogs to suggest, I'm looking to add more.

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

Okay, okay, so I know I’ve been a little neglectful of my little blog here lately (I can hear all 4 people who read it collectively nodding their heads) but I have good reason!

1) It’s summer, so I’m outside doing stuff
2) It’s summer, so it’s hot and I have less energy
3) And this is the real kicker – my home laptop crashed and has yet to be suitably replaced.

I haven’t even had time to keep up with reading all the blogs I follow, which is saying a lot because it is usually a highlight of my day.

I promised some way back that I would follow up with a book review of Voluntary Madness, and I will get to it. I also want to get back to talking more about the work at hand, as I’ve been recently distracted by certain international photo-ops and spectacles – although I can’t promise it won’t happen again.

For now, I’m wimping out and posting this list that made the rounds of Facebook recently and was emailed to me by a co-worker. Even if you’ve read it before, it may be good for laugh, and isn’t laughter really the best medicine?

Onward! -->

You know you’re a social worker when…

1) You think $40,000 a year is “really making it”.

2) You don’t really know what it’s like to work with men.

3) You know all the latest lingo for drugs, where to get them, and how much they cost.

4) You’ve started a sentence with “So what I hear you saying is…”

5) You’ve had two or more jobs at one time just to pay the bills.

6) You tell people what you do and they say “that’s so noble”.

7) You have had to explain to people that not all social workers take away kids.

8) You use the words ‘validate’, ‘appropriate’ and ‘intervention’ daily.

9) You spend more than half your day documenting and doing paperwork.

10) You think nothing of discussing child abuse over dinner.

11) People have said to you “I don’t know how you do what you do”.

12) You’ve never been on a business trip or had an expense account.

13) You know a lot of other social workers who have left the profession for another.

14) You’re very familiar with the concept of entitlement.

15) Staying at a job for two years is ‘a long time’.

16) Your phone number is unlisted for good reason.

17) Your professional newsletters always have articles about raising salaries…but you still haven’t seen it.

18) You’re very familiar with the term ‘budget cut’.

19) You can’t imagine working at a bank or crunching numbers all day.

20) You’ve had client who liked you just a little too much.

21) Having lunch is a luxury some days.

22) You’ve been cursed at or threatened…and it doesn’t bother you.

23) Your job orientation has included self defense.

24) You have the best stories at any cocktail party.

25) Your parents don’t know half of the stuff that you’ve dealt with at your job.

26) You know all the excuses client use for a failed drug test by heart.

27) People think it’s a compliment if they mistake you for a psychologist.

28) It’s a common occurrence to walk through metal detectors.

29) You’re thankful that you have a license without having to go to school for umpteen years like a psychologist*

30) You work odd hours and wonder why others can’t also be as flexible, or why we have to be the only ones who work strange hours.

31) Despite the poor reputation of a social worker you job has you interacting with those in higher authority positions (lawyers, doctors, judges, government representatives, superintendants, directors, etc)…and they come looking for you in a panic when they need you…

32) You can make just about anything a client does into a ‘strength’.

33) You laugh at things “normal” people would be shocked by.

34) You constantly struggle with the work/life balance.

35) You find it hard to get babysitters as you don’t trust anyone with your children.

36) You’re exhausted but you keep smiling!!

37) Hearing the worst news stories does not shock you in the least bit.

38) You think nothing of saying the words vagina, penis, or anus in a daily conversation.

39) You assess your date (in your head) while out on a date just to see if they meet criteria for any DSM IV diagnosis.

40) Your mother tells people you’re a psychiatrist or a psychologist. For the umpteenth time, I’m a social worker.

41) Your significant other has learned that when someone greets you in public not to ask “who was that?”

42) You know the suicide crisis phone number, the food shelf and the community shelter phone numbers off the top of your head.

43) Your family/friends/acquaintances/co-workers will approach you with a “hypothetical problem” to help them with and you can’t charge them for your advice.

44) When people ask for your help, they expect you to have all the answers and solution to problems that do not even exist, immediately. We’re social workers, not magicians.

45) You know where to find ‘free’ anything (clothes, food, equipment, transportation) but you are not eligible for any of them yourself.

46) You are considered an “expert” in financial assistance for your low-income clients but you can’t keep your own cheque book balanced.

47) You have a file or a list posted in your office on “Stress Reducing Techniques.”

48) After a long week of solving other people’s problems, you recognize that you haven’t dealt with your own at home.

49) You don’t know what “sick days” are and you call your vacation times “long mental health breaks” or “burnout prevention days”.

50) The clinical staff find the patient/family situation appalling and in urgent need of intervention and in your “social work” opinion, you don’t really think it’s all that bad. You’re pretty sure you’ve seen worse.

51) You love/loathe the idea of role-plays and know that they are not necessarily something kinky.

52) You’ve found yourself in a group situation with other social workers discussing a super deep topic, and someone says that they’re happy they were able to have the conversation with other people who “get it” and everyone immediately agrees.

53) You really do have the best gossip around, but have to make sure to remove any possibly identifying information first.

54) You really know how to enjoy a good bottle of wine!

*I'm assuming this was originated in the USA, as social workers are not 'licenced' where I live.