Thursday, September 20, 2012

Drop-Ins and Half Way Eval

Thursdays have turned into fairly busy days just because you start so late, so it feels like you are trying to get so much done before the drops in start in the evening. Today it started with having a supervision with Eileen and Catherine. We went over my goals and talked about how I am doing half way through my placement. It's so crazy to think I really only have two weeks left. We talked about all the progress I have make, where my strengths have been and areas I can still focus on in the last few weeks. It has been so nice to hear the Eileen feels like I have a lot of relationship skills. Mostly my focus has been on some of the skills needed for when you are working independently, such as making small talk to network with different people, being really forward and asking for what I need, being able to have people make time for me, etc. Things that I need to become more confident in a case load type role. After we chatted about all that and went over my mark for the first term I chatted one on one with Catherine for a bit to talk about the upcoming conference. I am actually getting very excited about the conference just because it's something that I haven't had an opportunity to do much of within the field. It's something I used to be very involved in through the United Church which is kind of interesting, not always the place you think a person might get conference experience but I found it to be super wonderful in helping me explore how to make contacts and understand issues deeper involving the community. I think one of the things I struggled with around getting more involved in United Church conference as I got older and I think might give me a bit of fear going forward in my own field is that some of the dream cloudiness of the ideals goes away. You are brought more to reality, what is not what is just talked about in some ways. I don't know if that will make sense to any one but it does for me. Politics become more transparent and the games start to formulate in somewhat more in-depth ways. Now again I don't know if this will be my experience, and please don't take this as all bad. I just think it might be the nature of this kind of stuff, but there is so much growth and opportunity that comes with it. I also do not know if this is what I am going to experience at a CYC conference, I just know this is some of the things that were brought up for me at another conference level type experience.

After the phone call I helped set up for drop ins. The junior's (12 and 13) came in first; there wasn’t many of them but I enjoy hanging out with these boys and they talk with me more the more they are getting to know me. I also find they are more responsive after being in groups with them because they are getting more time to see me working with Eileen and Martin. The young boys always seem to really look up to Martin and other males in the centre. I think a huge factor in this is a lot of them are lacking positive older male role models in their lives.

The middle group was great (14 and 15), I enjoy them so much. Some of my relationships have really started to form, even with some of the youth who just use the centre for the drop ins once a week. I am getting to know them and they are starting to come to me to chat and play games which really is pretty great since some of them I have only met two or three times before this for a couple of hours.

The last group, 16 and up, I seemed to being struggling with more. I think this is just because the relationships are coming much slower. I think there are several reasons for this. One being I am not working in the groups of any of the older youth, so I don't have that 'in' where once I am in with a few of them I am in with the rest. As well I think it's the age group itself that can be challenging. At this age youth pick more specifically who they are going up to and understand that some one who is here on a 6 week practicum is not going to be here forever. I feel like although relationships are coming slower though, I need to remember it's not necessary that I’m struggling but that the process might just be a bit slower. I did talked to Eileen for a few minutes after and I am going to try and focus for my next last couple weeks to try and build up these relationships and find different ways of getting 'ins'. Eileen explained that this is normally the hardest group to get into especially in a community such as Finglas.

So very tired tonight. Going straight to bed.

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