Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Update on first Level I Fieldwork

So, I've started fieldwork and it is very interesting to say the least. There are good time and there are bad times but it's all interesting. I'm doing a mental/behavioral health fieldwork right now.

As I've mentioned before the girls are homeless and were in foster care or just recently came from an unfit household. New girls come and go weekly and sometimes they run away. They all have some pretty serious problems, unfortunately, and it's pretty obvious when we talk to them. Sometimes I see them blow up at the staff for no reason; sometimes they have a HUGE issue with saying please and thank you; and sometimes they just have an attitude for no reason.

I am also working with children with some of the same issues. All of the kids are in foster care and that is another post all it's own. In a nutshell I feel sorry for both the kids and the older girls. They have no one but themselves--no parents that love them and many times the foster parents take them in for the money. It's very....disheartening. Last week I started to tear up when hearing some of the stories from the staff.

The most interesting and heart tugging thing I've heard over the last week is that some the girls come to the home with just the clothes on their back. As a result, they often only have 1 or 2 pair of underwear. 1 or 2 pair! I have enough underwear to last me over a month, just so I can avoid washing! How blessed I am! Can you imagine having only 1 or 2 pair of underwear????!!!! Every day you would have to wash your underwear and hope it's dry by morning, assuming you choose to wear underwear given your circumstances.

The girls are very guarded, as would be expected in these types of situations. When you say hi you're lucky if they speak, and very rarely do they speak with a smile. Some of them are nice and I'm always curious why, given their situation. Generally, they are dry, uninterested, resistant and combative.

It's interesting....

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