Half way there!

I hit the 600 hour mark on my internship on Wednesday. Pretty exciting to see that I am half way through with the hours requirement for my degree! And, although I acknowledge that there is still SO much that I do not know, I am in many ways beginning to feel a little more comfortable in my surrounding. My goal had been that by January I would be able to work the week without having my hand held and I think, for the most part that is already happening. I am beginning to feel like I can do it on my own, of course I still have a bazillion questions all the time, but I don't feel the need to stop everything that I am doing and call my supervisor(s). So that is a huge step.
Here is a list of some of what I have got to do so far:

• Assessed 14 kiddos (13 for specific learning disabilities, 1 for autism)
• Progress monitor about 15 kids each week on oral reading fluency
• Pretty much figured out the RTI method for SLD determination
• Done school wide screenings for oral reading fluency at three different schools sites (using 3 different methods)
• Provided individual counseling for 4 students (and did one session with a parent and the student)
• Presented at 2 IEP's
• Worked with about 8 kids for behavior modification
• Assisted in Crisis Intervention counseling

I really like it all. I like how my day can be made up of testing, counseling, meetings, and report writing and that I get to figure out how to make it all happen. Most mornings I spend the first 15-20 minutes just trying to figure out how I am going to get my giant list of things smashed into my schedule. It's a challenge, but I enjoy how every day is a bit different.

Psych Reports - Friend or Foe?

Thursday was spent typing. Out of the 8 hours I was at internship, I believe about 6 of them were spent working on 2 reports. My days have been so short at my Thursday-Friday site because of trainings and holidays that I typically just have time to run in, progress monitor, do part of an assessment/observation, and then head off to training. So because next week I wont be at that site at ALL, Thursday was spent getting caught up on reports since the IEPs will be the week after Thanksgiving. I finished one report completely, signed and copied it. The other report is put together, but it is a very rough draft that is probably filled with typos. I hate having to have my supervisor read over that mess, but sadly that was as good as I could get it by the end of the day. That kid got more tests than we typically do: WNV, PAT2, Conners, BASC, WJIII, and CBMs in math and reading. So needless to say, it was a LONG report. But, for the most part it is done so I guess that is one less thing on my to-do list. 

Crappy Day #1

I knew it would happen, eventually. I am happy with how long it took, I mean, I am into month 4 of 10 of this internship and today is the first truely crappy day? That really isn't too bad, right?

It all started with a planner. I write down everything into my cute polkadotted calendar. And it is always with me. Last night as I was laying in bed, I thought of all the things I needed to accomplish today: Observe a kid in SDC classroom, counsel my little tattletail, compliance training with kindergartner, Progress Monitor Tier 3 kids, meet with behavior kid, and lastly, go over info for IEP on Wednesday. Did I check my planner while I was making this beautiful mental list? Nope.

So then I get to my school site today at 8 AM sharp and am greeted by a giant, highlighted IEP notice hanging on the wall. IEP. Today. 7:45. Different School Site. WHAT?! That's not possible. It's supposed to be on Wednesday. I think to myself. I pull out my polkadotted companion and what do I see marked on today? IEP. 7:45. So at this point I am already 15 minutes late and I have no idea where the school is that I am supposed to be going to. I call my today's supervisor, Mr. H. He doesn't answer. I call my later in the week supervisor, Mr. P and he thankfully picks up and gives me directions. I get to the meeting 25 minutes late and right as my supervisor is finishing going over the results that I was supposed to have done. The mom was sweet, everyone laughed off that I was a dingbat and the meeting ended with no major issues. I however, felt, and continue to feel, like a moron. I apologized repeatedly to Mr. H who didn't really seem to care that I was late. But I continued to beat myself up. I get in my car and discover that I am pretty much out of gas. Super. I managed to make it to the gas station but that causes me to get back to my site even later and since I already feel terrible it just adds to it.

I do a classroom observation, thankfully it goes smoothly. I sit  in the corner of the SDC room and get that done without screwing anything up.

Then, it is off to compliance training with my little Kinder. The problem with little Diablo* is that even after 4 weeks of us being in his classroom, his behavior really isn't changing. At. All. Sure, he will come with us to the room to get a prize at the end of the day, but that is pretty much the greatness of his accomplishments. Little Diablo had a rough day today. Although he did manage to sit on the carpet during carpet time his hands were on everything. I mean, EVERYTHING. Drumming on the wall, pulling things off of the teacher easel, trying to squish up behind the teacher. I honestly wasn't sure what to do. Since he was up at the front of the class, if I tried something it would interrupt the entire class. So I let him be since, for the most part, he was at least sitting where he was supposed to be - which is his goal. Then, an unknown teacher comes in to pull him for bench mark testing. Ummmm bad move. He flat out refuses to go with her and I have to bribe him to get him walking. Then the teacher makes us wait for a while, which is not a good plan with Diablo. We finally get into the library where he is going to test and he refuses to go to his seat. Once I coax him to sit, he begins to pull out all the crayons and throw them as well as his test on the floor. I pick them up and hand them back to him and he gets a crayon and proceeds to color on his table and his seat. I verbally ask him to stop and he actually does, but then goes back to the previous behavior of throwing the crayons. By this time I am completely at a loss for what to do with him. The teacher gives up and tells us we can go since he is just distracting the other children. We start walking to the psych office and he starts running ahead - a major no-no that I thought we had gotten past a couple weeks ago. Once in the office I am conflicted. My supervisor had previously told me that we try and reinforce him if he has done some good. He was pretty good during carpet time and he did go with a stranger to the library - so I provide him with reinforcement, but I am pretty sure that is a stupid thing to do since the last several behaviors he had exhibited were not what we were looking for. But I give him the prize and try to explain that he got it for the smiley face behaviors we saw. When we get back to class - teacher is pissy because he got a prize. But then again - so am I.

I really don't think this strategy is working. I think the kid needs a more frequent reinforcement. He's a low functioning 5 year old. A half hour is an eternity for a 5 year old. Regardless of the strategy that is put into place - he needs a new one, because the current one doesn't work.

I emailed my sup and filled him in on Diablo's behavior today and all the difficulties I had. I asked for tips since, even the teacher pointed out that the kid does not respond to me. Hopefully he can give me some guidance.

Well, it is only lunch time, the morning has definitely sucked and made me feel like I am not cutting it as an intern. Lets hope it gets better this afternoon.

*Not his real name... wouldn't it be sad if it really was though?

Fixin Some Kidlets

Parts of School Psychology remind me of my previous gig as a Social Worker. When I worked at the children's emergency shelter as a Social Worker I was frequently asked by staff members to come in speak to a child because they "wouldn't stop crying" or they "are refusing to get up and go to breakfast," things like that. Basically, the kid being sad was getting in the way of the shelter's schedule. The deal was, these kids had usually been in the emergency shelter for less that 24 hours and, in being at the emergency shelter, that meant they had recently been removed from the care of their parents/guardians and may even have been seperated from siblings. Usually I went and talked with them when asked. I tried to explain what was happening now and what would/could happen in the days to come. If they had questions, which the typically did not, I would try my best to give them answers or put them in touch with someone who could. I would let them cry and tell them that how they were feeling was completely normal. And then, after sitting with the kid for a while, I would let them know where to find me if they needed me in the future and then would walk out and tell the staff member to leave the kid alone for a while and if they chose to not eat breakfast that was fine. So, did I fix them? N-O-P-E. Typically when I left they looked and felt pretty much the same as they did when I got there. Sure, they were probably a little more informed, but they still felt and looked like crap.

These same expectation about "fixing" kids problems seems to have carried over into my current role as a school psych intern. This week, I was asked to talk with a girl. Her mom had contacted the school because her daughter seemed "sad." So basically, I got a directive to go speak with her and figure out what the problem was. *Sigh* When I got the request I had a flashback of my children's shelter experiences. So I went and got the girl, who of course was pretty shy and possibly scared to be pulled out of class by a complete stranger. I gave her an opening spiel explaining my role and telling her that sometimes I talked with kids to make sure everything was going ok and to see if it wasn't if I could help. I told her that her mom had asked me to talk with her because she was worried about her and asked her what was up. The girl told me her cat, Willy*, had been sick and was throwing up and she was afraid it would die - that was why she had been feeling sad. So we talk about the beloved pet for a little bit, she says she feels better, we play a card game a casually chat for a bit and then I let her know if she ever needs to talk how to contact me in the future. I call mom to fill her in with what the kid said and mom says that cannot be the cause of the child's sadness as the pet was only sick one day and the kid has been sad over a week. Well that would have been nice information to know before meeting with the kid! She then goes on to share with me a bunch of familial drama that has been occurring that she has been trying to shield the kid from. Her form of protection? Lying. I offer to meet with kid on a regular basis to check in with her and mom decides that she wants to join in. So now, I think I am doing a family counseling session next week with a kid who is sad and a mom who wont tell her the truth. So I guess this situation is a bit different - now I need to fix the kid and the mom. Next week is going to be fun.

*Name changed to protect the innocent.

Meet my new pal, Self Doubt. Yeah, she hangs out with me all the time!

This has been a challenging week in the life of this school psychologist intern and it's only Thursday morning! I have become very uncertain of my counseling abilities... or lack there of. On Monday I found out in the morning I was going to meet with a new kinder boy for individual counseling. I had actually met him the week before for a bit, but that was more for just a getting-to-know you moment. I had been under the impression that we were going to a direct behavior rating program with him so I was surprised to find out that I would be meeting with him one on one. I had heard that his behavior difficulties were surrounded around his hands - hitting kids, writting all over his desk, that sort of thing. So I got online and found a cute counseling lesson that was about Hurting Hands vs. Helping Hands. It was a group curriculum for and older group who were supposed to come up with a list of helping things and a list of hurting things and write them down. Well... I liked the idea, but my kid is coming to me for individual counseling and he is in kinder so he wasn't going to be able to write down a list of things. Now of course, I could write them for him, but I wanted him to be doing the action not me. So I decided to get online and print out a bunch of images - kids fighting, kids helping with the groceries, kids cleaning, kids sleeping in class that sort of thing. Then I got a piece of construction paper, crayons and a glue stick. I cut out all my little pictures and spread them all over our table. At some point in the  morning my supervisor appeared and saw my little art picture but he didn't ask what I was up to and took off. So I crossed my fingers and said a prayer that my little dude would get the point of what I was trying to do and went and pulled him from class. The activity actually went over pretty well. I traced his hands on to the paper with a crayon and explained to him that there were helping things we could do with our hands or hurting things and that I wanted him to go look at every one of my pictures and decide where the picture would fall - helping or hurting. I drew a line between the traced hands and marked one with a smiley face and the other with a sad face and he set to work examining the pictures and explaining to me why it was a good thing or a bad thing to do. It probably took all of 5-7 minutes, which is probably about the right amount of time for a kinder and he was proud of his work. I felt pretty mixed about the activity. I think it has potential, but I am not sure I am satisfied with it or how I executed it.

Yesterday, I met with another kid that I didn't know I would be meeting with regularly. I felt like the meeting was a complete waste of time. The kid has issues with lying, tattling, being a general busy-body, and she apparently kinda freaks out when she gets angry. I looked online hoping to get inspired by something there, but really couldn't find anything that I could make work quickly, then I looked through the one counseling activity book that I have and tried to pull from it. Again, no luck. So I ended up coloring with her. We colored pictures of our families and talked about them. She mentioned a cousin who sometimes picks on her and so we talked about that and I asked her how she would handle certain conflict situations and she gave me pretty good answers back. I don't think it was a remotely theraputic meeting, but I guess there is always next week.

After my poor week of counseling I came home on a mission and got on-line and went shopping. $80 later I am getting 6 books (good deal huh?) So hopefully once they arrive I can arm myself up with some better counseling strategies and I can get rid of my pal Self Doubt, because she is a complete downer.

Today's Lesson: Cover all bases when counseling

Guess that I forgot something when I was working with super ADHD girlie this past month. It's the simple things you forget to say, like, "Hey ADHD girlie, try not to threaten to shoot people, m'kay?" I didn't know we needed to cover that sort of stuff, but apparently I was wrong. So my girlie threatened someone with death at the end of last week. She went so far as to even lay out when and where it was going to happen. Why yes, she is only in elementary school. So needless to say she was suspended pending an expulsion hearing. Super depressing. I honestly don't think she would actually carry out a threat like that, but she is so impulsive I couldn't say it wouldn't happen with 100% confidence. So I guess my days of working with ADHD girlie are over. It's too bad though, I had really hoped we could make some sort of a difference. Guess this one is a no go.

I wonder what will happen to her. I hate to assume she will end up in juvenile hall, but I can kind of see that possibility for her. She is defiant and lacks self control which is a pretty horrid combo. I had hoped we would teach her to self monitor a bit, but I don't think we succeeded in anyway. I am afraid for her future, mostly because I have seen other kids like her with similar behavior problems and they don't seem to have very positive fates. Once they get into kid corrections they tend to just learn a LOT of terrible  things and then once back out in the real world they try out those new things they have learned. So then it just tends to spiral. I really hope that isn't what happens to this little one.