I was a bit tired Friday but it was ok. Right away we had a meeting set up to talk about summer projects. It was kind of funny because in the end, summer projects were never really talked about. I was a bit disappointed because I was interested in seeing how they evaluated programs and because I think evaluation is an important part of good programming that often gets missed, which turns into the case often because of stuff like this (more immediate issues take priority).
Everyone seemed to get super edgy and were pushing their agendas, I think we were able to get a lot done in regards to programming needs for the groups running right now. It's clear this work comes with it's own set of challenges and although compared to the shift work I am used to doing at home this type of shift work still has it's own challenges. When working with youth it's hard not to run into these kind of issues because our hope is youth are going to school during daytime hours making the most accessible times to be doing the work evening and weekends which can have huge impacts on the personal life and well being of workers because it is in such conflict with the norms of our '9 to 5' society values.
Later I had one on one supervision with Eileen. One of the major things we talked about is my need to work towards pushing myself to do deeper youth work and working on my relationships with the oldest drop in youth. I have comes so far and had so much success that the challenge is to just use every bit of time and unitize it to push myself and my learning.
I went to take a break and have lunch. As I was doing this some of the older girls came in and were waiting for Laura to get back to talk to her and get some help on some applications they were filling out. It was really amazing because it gave me the chance to chance to talk to some older girls and work on relationship building and get to know them. Its crazy how that stuff can sometimes happen like that. The in/opportunity I was looking for just appears. Now I am not a huge believer in fate or things happening for reasons. I more believe that when you are aware of something you are looking for and seeking out opportunities more. So although it seems like it just kind of fell into my lap I know that there most likely was other times opportunity like this might have been there but I wasn't taking full advantage of them like I should of been. Whatever it was, it was great conversation and helped me understand some of the issues going on with the older female youth in the community. I think it will also help me come next week during the older groups drop in. To bad it's going to be my second last drop in. I really do wish I had more time here. I feel like I am really just starting to get into this work. To end the day I had a programming planning meeting with Eileen and her CE from the FAS program. It was good because I think I got more of a look into how the CE program works, which is much like a student. I think the down points of the program are that there is much less time given for one on one interactions with youth and really no time given for support and supervision.
I am staying in town this weekend so today was my first real Friday shift where I stayed till the end of the day. I think it's good I’m staying in town this weekend as I am starting to feel a little run down from how crazy and fast paced this placement has been. But I find I also have put a great deal of pressure on myself not to 'waste' this weekend in Ireland as I only have one more after this. So I do hope to do a few more things in Dublin before I leave and it kind of seems like this will be my last chance so lets hope I use my time well.
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