Justice Schmustice

One of the painful and frustrating things about interning where I do is the extreme ball drops that happen from time-to-time, and usually from the social worker. Take this case for example.

Imagine 4 kids being severely sexually abused by their uncle. The older kid tells his teacher, the school nurse but no one helps him or his siblings. Or so he thinks.

Come to find out, those mandated reporters had been calling but the complaints were going unheard despite the state law requiring a follow-up within 48hrs. Eventually a CPS worker did make it out to investigate but claimed the allegations were 'unfounded', meaning no evidence was found to support them (never mind that he didn't conduct a forensic interview or take into account he bore a strong resemblance to the uncle and dad).

And now, a year later, after the kids were finally removed and placed into foster care, yet still not given any trauma counseling, there is a 95% chance they will be returned home. There is talk and speculation about the kids possibly "making it up" because they are "mentally retarded", too.

It all just makes you want to SCREAM! sometimes.

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Workin' Workin' Workin', Keep Everybody Workin'

(Sadly, the title of this post was done to the tune of "Rawhide" for whatever reason. My mind is a human jukebox.)

So I'm on page 9.5 of a 12 page minimum paper. Tomorrow and Saturday it will be finished then I need to begin on the other one, which I am currently on page 6 of. The first is harder because it is also going to be presented so I have to construct both in my head almost simultaneously.

The good thing is I've titled the paper "Disability Conceptualized". It's something I know a lot about and it is a great excuse to get on my soapbox for a mostly uninterrupted 20min.

April 22nd and 23rd are my last 2 classes for this semester; May 18th to June 18th I'll be in my "summer" class for 2.5 hours 3 nights a week. This will all be worth it when I get that 2 months in between. I hope.

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Wednesday is Hump Day

And unfortunately, not the sexual kind either, at least for me anyway.

This evening in class I realized how great it was to be around people who actually think and do it well. We were presented with a group in-class exercise and beefed about how to define "community boundaries" and "organizational boundaries" rather keen-like because, only when you define what a boundary is can you decide what a community boundary will be. Boundaries can be permeable or a concrete wall, they can be imagined or real; that's what we had to decide. In under 15 min or so we had what we thought were valid points and maybe even an answer the prof would consider spot on.

So yeah, it was great to be around people who think and do it well. Critically even.

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See if you know what any of this means

Preconscious Awareness
One begins to realize that he or she is not self-aware.

Simple Conscious Awareness
For the first time, one experiences awareness.

Reflective Awareness
One thinks about and reflect on what has happened in simple conscious awareness.

Reflexive Awareness
One pays particular attention to and understands how personal history and one's personhood affect the situation.

Social Constructive Awareness
One recognizes the mutual meaning-making that shapes what has happened in a situation.

Critical Reflectivity
One accepts responsibility for the role she or he played in the situation and asks questions about biases and power dynamics in the situation.

Contextual Awareness
One recognizes how raising questions about biases and power affect others, seeing the self in context.

The assignment?

Having read these definitions, see if you can provide an example of when you used each type of awareness. If you have not experience a particular type, make a plan to go to that level of awareness. Think about the costs and benefits of each level of awareness.

These 2 books were cited at the bottom of the page:

Who is the "self" in self-aware: Professional self-awareness from a critical theory perspective and Organization practice: A social worker's guide to understanding human services.

The former is something I would have liked to read prior to this exercise or at least peruse it a bit to get a better understanding since it is really hard to go backwards once you've successfully stepped into a certain amount of self-awareness, or enlightenment if you will.
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The Democratic Convention

As much as I love politics, watching Obama speak and smack myself for missing Michelle Obama's speech, I've had tons of reading to do. So the TV has been off, music on and I catch the highlights on the Today Show the next morning.

My education is quickly becoming paramount. So I really don't have anything to say on the matter.

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So about my classes....

Can I just say I’ll have a lot of reading to do?

I think the highlight of my evening yesterday was when the prof was telling us to do it right the first time, write professionally, read, read, read, check behind yourself, etc. So I started psyching myself out.

And then I read this:

Please read the Preference, Introduction and Chapter 9 of Social Welfare: A history of America response to nee.d

I decided I have nothing to worry about writing wise. Because he won’t know when I mess up, grammatically, anyway.
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Information Overload!

I attended the Masters in Social Work (MSW) Graduate School Orientation today. The first half was boring, the second half did nothing to assuage my fears.

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