I was reflecting on my post from two year ago, about my feelings about my work experience, and interest with doing CASA. It is amazing that I had those feeling all along, and they didn't change. My initial perceptions are usually accurate. The problem is that I hesitate to act, or don't make change right away. I do find that it is amazing that the same feelings I had over an over about my job experience, and I let it affect my development. Looking back it marginalized me, they kept me just where they wanted me to be. No one cared about the me as a person. I was just convient for them, as long as I kept quiet and did my job as expected, it made everyone elses lives easier. They all could continue getting their big paychecks, and I got what rolled downhill. What was missing was my lack of support. Looking back I made it through because of the benefits that the job provided, like health insurance, and a 401K, and a paycheck that helped me take care of my family.So, really I maintained lies to myself about being okay with where I was at so that I could keep my other life at home at peace. I resorted to keeping my personal suffering, at 40 hours per week, so that my family could continue their lives at home. What did I di while I was there? I kept the peace as best that I could. Mostly, I tried to maintain order within the group home so that they respected eachother, and learned to live in the confines of that environment. Essentially, they are not better off being placed in a residential home. Primarily, the outcome of the youth recedivism was a low 40% with this place. They have sex offenders, and kids with mental disorders, and just juvenile delinquents. They all were placed there, usually stepped down from another facility. The goal was to return home or foster care. What I observed is that for the better of 2007-2008 they often failed to have a timeline to get the kids out of there. These kids came in an often stayed for up to 8-12 months at a time. The DCS and treatment staff, gave them no timeline to work towards. If there was anything it was arbirtary. To some kids this seemed forever. Then their communication was effectively cut off from their family. it was my job to minimize the number of phone calls per day. This was to prevent possible runaways, maintaining contact with negative peers etc. Ultimately, it cut them off from family. They intentionally never provided calling cards for the youth, and most of these kids came from other counties, and the calls were long distance. They often said if the families wanted to call them, it would be their responsibility. Many times parents couldn't afford this, or didn't have phone to call. Many times youth didn't have families visit them. Some families did make an effort to visit, but sometimes they just couldn't make it, usually because of no gas or reliable transportation. These kids would often go months without talking with a family member, or not able to go home. There were kids that were as far as four hours away, and they didn't get to see family for months. They were left only with forming relationships with the people that came in contact with them daily. This included me. The most important thing I could do is to let them know that I was there to make sure they learned how to take care of themselves. This was my priority. The program was all about consequencing them. Weekly teams were always a dissapointment. It was a time where they would have to listen to staff, itemize each fault they had made during the week. Sometimes, there would be individual youth that were making progress, and we would discuss progress during this time. I found it would best give feedback to the youth individually one on one, and then just highlight it during team, okay you know you messed up, lets move on, I know you can do better. Lets punish the crap out of these kids. One has to find the balance, and work individually with each kid where they are at. I found that giving verbal prompts was effective. Another problem, is that they kept running out of supplies. They always blamed staff for not controlling the use of supplies, but the truth is that they neglected this part of their budget, and many times I have to admit I removed toilet paper from the main building in order to supply the cottage. I also would take cleaning supplies from the bathroom, because the request weren't filled timely by the supervisor. Boy was she a joke. It's all about sitting on thir asses, and doing as minimal work as possible. When this supervisor was on duty, I never saw her, unless she had to conduct one of her groups. They also were so lazy, they never developed any new ideas for group discussions, that they often used the same groups several times in a month. I would then be asked by the coordinators to do groups for them, and then was responsible for documenting the paperwork. There were many months that the coordinator would not set foot into my cottage while I was there. She only came when I asked. Then this would be carefully documented in my evaluation report, that I need to learn to be more independent. This also was my very first on call experience, ans subsequent experiences. I would be required to call to report a document I would be completing, as required. Then the on call person would often keep me on the phone in a conversation giving advice. They would then later make me look bad and say that I was the one to keep them on the phone. It was these first, and early experiences with other adults that were in a superior position that I learned to distrust them. My first write up, I should have taken the warning signs and left the job. I was threatened for my safety, and call for support, but left campus. I called to speak with the Director about the incident, and was asked to come back to discuss the incident. I went back and asked to keep my job. I needed it. In order to let other know that what I did was not okay, I was set as an example and written up, and suspended without pay for a few days. Another event that concerned my safety, which I wasn't written up, I was in the cottage with several Gang members that had managed to control the cottage phone line. I was directed to remove the phone line out from the wall, that was being guarded by several of the boys. I felt very uncomfortable about doing this. Eventually I mustered up the courage to walk over to the phone and pull it out. This was something that i had to get in the habit of doing for some time while those youth were there. I would voice my complaint to coordinators about my stuggles to maintin authority in the cottage. I was encouraged not to get into "power struggles with the youth. I was then reprimanded again, in a groups of my supervisors, for not letting youth "vent". There were some youth at the time who were always playing staff against eachother, and had done a great job playing me against my coordinators. Rather then support me, they told me to "let them vent". Little did they care what was going on. What happened shortly before this meeting, was I changed the way I was doing things. Mostly, I would consequence the youth myself, and keep track of consequences. Then I would not be able to enforce them. this meant that the youth was non compliant to prompts. They would continue their behavior regardless, because the consequences we were permitted to use were in-effective. They would always change what type of consequence we could use. Eventually, the youth that were consistently non compliant for weeks. Eventually, they would get a clean slate at team, and start the cycle over again. So, I started documenting these differently. I would be more strict with documentation, and write everything up. This would go on a form that went to DCS. I felt that maybe since I was having trouble with getting the youth to comply with rules in the cottage, that if I documented it to DCS, ultimately, they would see this and it would prevent them from getting home passes. This did work, until I was given a meeting shortly after about my "problems" in the cottage. What it seemed is that being honest about these problems only brought unwanted attention from DCS. If it's not the kids, then the problem is with the staff. this enables them to keep their program the same, and blame any failure on the staff. Place all the burden of supervising up to eight youth alone, without any support for long periods of time. This place never provided breaks. There were large periods of time where they were short support staff and there was no one to relieve me. I would work 9,10,16 hor shifts. Because I was responsible for my safety, and others there would be times where I did not have a bathroom break for full 16 hours at a time. Today, they still do not provide their staff mandatory breaks. I'm not talking about a sometime break. I'm talking about a Federal Law they violate today with all their direct care support staff. This had been the same group of youth that threatened to rip the jewerly off of my body,very threatening manner. I learned to not wear jewerly that I valued there to minimize these incidents. On to another incident where they placed my safety at risk. They had one youth placed at another cottage, and he was arrested on assault charges, and brought back to the campus. But placed in another cottage, where he lasted only a day or two, until he was transferred to my cottage. I knew it wouldn't take a day before I would have a problem with this youth. Sure enough I did. I got into a power struggle over the phone. As directed to remove the phone from the wall, I did, and went to lock it up. This yout followed me, and butted meby nudging his body against me, in my face demanding I return hi the phone. he cornered me, and forcefully tore apart the office drawers to retrive the phone he wanted. The police were called, and I attempted to place charges. No avail. I was questioned by two officers, one rotating in and out of the office, with one telling me that I could press charges, and the other telling me that by definition, I couldn't. i was confused. I was told that my emotions may have been upset, but my body wasn't hurt, and because he didn't verbally make an attempt to hurt me, there was noting I could do. This took place sometime in late 2007- or early 2008.