Meeting Eileen

Monday I went in at 2 pm to met my actual supervisor Eileen, who was just returning from holidays. It had been kinda weird because before meeting anyone at the centre, Eileen was the one I was sending emails back and forward with about my placement. Now she has become one of the last people I am meeting on the team. This was the woman who would be judging me, mentoring me, and giving me my final mark so I was hoping we would get along. I have had two very different experiences in my first and second placements a million years ago when I first took my diploma. My first year, my supervisor and myself struggled at times to connect on the direction I should be going in that placement, which made the practicum not always something I was looking forward to. My second placement I found my supervisor to be brilliant and very on board with helping me learn and get the most out of the placement while I was there. I was very thankful for this and felt like I was able to learn a lot more than during my first placement. Keeping in mind that it it the interaction, not just the person, and it's about taking out what I put in, I was very positive I would be able to make this placement work in most circumstances (especially due to the experience I have had with this over the past few years)
Once I met Eileen, right away I knew this was going to be a good match as Eileen seems to be very open, direct (no BS), upfront, down to earth, and passionate about the work. All things that I appreciate in people and practitioners. Right away we got into it and I went over the things I had done over the last week and she asked me about some of the things I had learned already about the programs in the centre, areas I was interested in, and asked about ways she could help me get the most out of my placement. We went over goal review together, and like Catherine, she pushed me to be more clear on what I wanted to learn and how I was going to learn it. Eileen asked about if I was feeling comfortable in the placement, and asked about areas I am finding challenging. I told her that I was starting to feel much more comfortable in the placement as all the staff had been amazing and so welcoming to me. I spoke to her about how during the first week it was slow in regards to actual contact with youth but that I did have an understanding of why that was. The conversation was great and I really enjoyed how supportive and excited Eileen seemed to be about having me there.
After chatting for awhile we started to get ready for what needed to be done that week. Eileen spoke to me a bit about the process of getting group back up and running which would be a big piece of her day; trying to get the youth back involved she told me can sometimes take up to three weeks after the summer (which doesn't go well with me already being in my second week) as youth are out of the routine and just getting back to school. She sent a couple of her groups texts and asked them to come in during the evening to talk about when they wanted to set up their group times for this year and to find out who still wanted to be part of groups as she had not seen some of her youth all summer (those who chose not to take part in summer projects or drop ins).
We then joined other staff to help with cleaning and clutter removal from the centre to get it ready for the year ahead.. Due to running summer programs they don't always have time to do this in the spring or summer months so the best time is when they are just getting back to things in September, although Eileen did tell me that she wasn't sure if there had ever been this much work on on cleaning out and organizing the centre in years. So I helped clean out the kitchen, art room, office area, and copy room. Its hard when it's not your space to know what should go but eventually I figured it out as even most of the workers there had no idea what most of the stuff was. The whole process seemed to be very therapeutic for the staff themselves.
Afterwards Eileen caught up on some emails, while I worked on my goals for a few minutes. She got excited about a course she was going to be able to take on Monday as a space had opened up in Suicide Intervention training. Eileen explained to me about how this training was not mandatory for youth workers to have when working with youth but how it was something she felt like was so important. She also explained that training was not something that there was often much opportunity for as they often only ran these courses a couple of times a year and they always had very long waiting lists. Eileen explained this training was something she had been trying to get into for almost a year now as within her time at the centre (under two years) there had been two suicides with young people who attended the centre and one attempt made in the centre, where a youth tried to hang himself in a closet and that she had been the one to find him and deal with the crisis. To me it's crazy to think that those very important training programs are made so hard to access here and not something workers are expected to have to gain employment. I mean I'm not completely ignorant. I understand there is no funding for it so it is hard to make something happen or mandatory when it's not available. But we take things like this for granted in our practice in Alberta, even get grumpy sometimes about needing to renew training every year to every couple years.. but this makes me so grateful that somehow it has been seen as something important and needed to help support us and the youth we work with, not something that should be looked upon as a extra, for those who are lucky.
Later in the day she took me for a drive to pick up some biscuits in case her groups showed up that evening. She drove me around the community to show me Finglas a bit more and explained to me about how the community was formed. She talked about how a lot of the housing was set up as row housing from the governmental and that the community was not funded well. She showed me the Dunn’s store in the middle of the area that was set up as the community services building that needed to be build in order to build so many residential homes. Instead of putting in actual services, a store was put in to do the job. Also due to the row housing and having it be government owned, it created an effect of having large numbers of people often with lower incomes all living in one area, plus the addition of a general store instead of services kind of sets the community up for lack of social supports.
Only one youth showed up in the evening to talk about group times. We had tea with him and had some biscuits. Chatted with him about his day, starting school, and where he thought the direction of the group was going. He was really friendly, and super funny kid. He asked me some questions about Canada and my placement and stated that he would try and contact the others and let Eileen know.
That brought me to the end of my shift for that first shift with Eileen.