What to do...

Oddly enough, today there was little to do. Yesterday I sent out the consent for assessment forms for the upcoming IEP and inputted my next IEP kid's info into the SELPA database. I was done with all my assessments for the school, caught up on all my emails, and prepared for my counseling sessions. I did have one kid to meet with for a 20-25 minute counseling session and that went smoothy (we talked about what "bugs" us and did and art project while we talked). But beside that there wasn't much to do. So I played with my current psych report, added in some tables to make it look neater, backed up all my files on my flash drive, wrote stupid joking emails back and forth with my other supervisor, and hung out in the special ed room. The day went by at a snails pace due to my lack of anything to do. But then all my behavior mod kids showed up at the same time (not my plan) so I had three kids in an extremely small space all fighting over the video game. Lovely, just lovely. I managed to shoe them all out of the room but one of them still ended up missing her bus so I had to march her up to the office to have her mom called. Bummer. But seriously, besides this maybe HOUR of work, I was pretty much sitting around researchering various topics of interest (my current one is kids who can read fluently but without comprehension - whats that about??) and designing a counseling game for next week (think candyland +problem solving questions). Not that those are not worthwhile ways to spend my time, but still I didn't feel like I met my productivity quota for the day. At around 2:30 I had the special education teacher mention to me that she needed some data regarding the previous intervention groups so I contacted my supervisor and asked if it was something I could do. It was. So I finally found my chore at 2:30. I ended up working until 5pm processing a pile of RtI intervention data. LOL, so at least I left the day feeling like I had accomplished something. Too bad it was only the last couple hours of the day!

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.