My First Post-Placement Home Visit

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to a post-placement home visit with my supervisor. After a family brings a child home, the agency has to do monthly post-placement visit for 90 days. These visits are to ensure that the child is thriving, developmentally on task, the parents are adjusting to routines, etc. This couple adopted an infant. She is almost 2 months old and just beautiful! Supervisor held the baby but since I just met the couple, I did not feel comfortable asking them to hold her. People can be weird about that, ya know? The visit went smoothly. The baby is growing, eating, and is developmentally on task. The parents are adjusting well and seem very grounded. It was a happy moment!

This morning, I will be meeting my sup. at the local hospital for an intake. She sent me an email about it, so I'm not really sure what that entails. I assume it is an intake of a birth mom?

Cross-Cultural Casework

I'm reading this Cross-Cultural Casework "training" guide that my supervisor has. I am really enjoying the explanation they have at the beginning of the manual. It really makes sense and puts it into laymen terms.

• Preparation for the trip
• Check your vehicles (self) out thoroughly. (This is something all social workers should do on a continual basis. Acknowledging your biases, prejudices, values, morals, etc. upfront will help you to recognize them in practice, esp. if they are impeding on your professional work with clients)
• Leave behind extra baggage (hidden agenda) (I was not sure I understood this, so I asked Todd. He gave me this example, which is personal. I was raised by a single mother who was abused. She broke the cycle and provided me with a wonderful childhood, and is my best friend. Now, if I were interviewing a woman who wanted to adopt, and she had the same background that my mother had, I may show favoritism toward her as a choice for a child (when she might not be the best choice) because I have baggage/experience with a woman who overcame her abuse. It could also be a negative bias, etc.)
• Pack useful stuff (strengths and experiences) (This is self explanatory. I can definitely relate to people, and I'm a good listener. My real skills do not naturally lie with people though. I excel in organization, working with data, research, etc. I know that I am shy around ppl I don't know and my nerves can screw up my thoughts and speech So, it will be interesting to see how my strengths play out, and I will definitely be working on my challenges!)

• On the Road
• Pay attn to road signs (msgs, info) (Makes sense. Be aware. Pay attention. Be open)
• Watch for potholes (biases, prejudices, presumptions, negatives) (This is also self-explanatory. We ALL have these, and just knowing about them ahead of time, accepting them, and NOT applying them to your clients helps. You have to look at everyone with a blank slate. Not everyone fits into a mold, no matter how much we believe that)
• Choose travelling companions carefully (friends, mentors, colleagues) (Agreed!)

• Moving down the Road
• Lifetime journey (continuous growth) (I am such a fan if education and professional/personal development. I will NO DOUBT be that social worker that attends numerous trainings/events/conferences to further my understanding and ability to assist people be the best they can be!)

Amazing Initiative to bring Education to girls in Sudan.

I met the creator of this program, a "Lost Boy of Sudan," back in Tampa during my anti-genocide advocacy days. He is pretty awesome and I'm so pleased his organization to bring education to the females of his country is moving full steam ahead. It looks like one of his team members is heading out to Sudan to make some dreams come true.

http://neseiblog.blogspot.com/

No one can prepare you for what you're about to see.

Which would be ME, role playing a counseling session with a classmate, with the teacher and other classmates watching, and being video taped! eeep! *falls over* People watching me during my very first counseling attempt is nerve racking enough, but being taped, watching the tape with the class, and hearing all the criticisms (don't mind this so much) is even worse! Gah. I can do it though - I CAN DO IT! My partner is going be a young women who is pregnant and not sure of what her plan is. Fitting, no?

Met with my field supervisor yesterday to go over the learning plan, since the draft is due tonight. C. laid out every opportunity under the rainbow, and allowed me to choose which ones I wanted to focus on. Needless to say, I want to experience ALL of it, but my crazy life is not so accommodating to that these days. Once the plan is finalized, I will have a guide, and a guide is much needed. I want to make sure I stay focused. H O C U S F O C U S!

C. also sat with me a few hours (I feel so bad about this, even though it's part of the process, because she is SO busy) and explained some past situations with clients, some current issues she is dealing with, and some great successes. She's actually placed TWO sibling groups of FOUR with wonderful parents. Those type of successes don't come often, but man - that is certainly something to be proud of.

I really like C. and I feel blessed to have been placed in an agency under someone like her. She is big on reflective practice, which is looking inward and examining yourself in situations, asking yourself what could have been done differently, etc. I don't do this enough in my life so I'm looking forward to it. I am certain it will be of great help during this learning process.

She is also a counselor for pregnant women who are exploring the adoption option. This is a website created by Children's Home Society of Florida for these women: http://www.decisiontomake.com/

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I also must mention the HELL of a weekend I had! I had a migraine Friday night (not common for me, although I have headaches constantly from neck pain, hormones, etc). I went to bed and woke up at 2 AM to vomit! Ugh - not fun. Todd woke up and freaked out, poor guy. He stayed with me and got me some water. I woke up with the headache on Saturday, and my stomach was a mess all day. Boo. THEN, Sunday night, I couldn't sleep. I was SO alert, and didn't manage to sleep until 4 AM! Then, a rain storm woke me around 5 AM, and I had to get up at 6. So, my 2 hours of sleep was even interrupted. Lame. Yesterday sucked, but I go through it. Didn't end up going to sleep until late though, and now I feel really tired, even though I got 7 hours of sleep.

Anywho, I've got a lot to do. Ciao!

Today is the First Day of the Rest of your Life.

Today was my first day at my field placement. I am interning at a private, non-profit child welfare agency that handles adoptions for the Florida Department of Children and Families. My field supervisor, whom I will refer to as Supervisor handles private and international adoptions. She does the entire gamut:

• helps "birth" mothers explore their options


• finds "adoptive" parents for safe haven babies (mothers can leave their newborns at a police station, fire station, etc. without criminal charges)


• matches adoptive parents with children


• does home studies to ensure homes and families are safe/fit for taking care of a child,


• attends all court hearings for termination of parental rights, finalization of adoption, etc.


• takes care of all the paper work, progress notes, tracking and and managing the entire case, which is SERIOUS! I looked through a case file today. It was a 3 inch binder! Some of them require 2 binders!


• There is much more to her job, but she didn't want to scare me much. :)

So, I was able to sit in on an intake meeting that Supervisor had with an "identified" adoption, which means the adoptive parents were identified by the birth parents. This is not as common as the typical way, where a couple comes in and asks to be matched with an available child. Supervisor gave the adoptive mother a bunch of paperwork to take home and return, and explained some things to her - including the fees. Yikes! There are many details about this case, and some red flags, that Supervisor and I discussed after the client left. Since I was able to see this case off right from the beginning, Supervisor wants me to be involved in the entire process - court, home study, etc. :D It's a good thing too, since I need to do a case presentation, and an assessment paper for my classes.

Supervisor and I had many discussions throughout the day, about her day-to-day, some of her current cases, some of her past cases, the terrible experience she had with her last intern! eeep! I am going to be an ANGEL compared to that one! She is also flexible with my time. Since I live 30 minutes away, there is plenty of things I can read at home (lots of reading in the beginning), as well as certain projects. I will be putting together a mega packet of info for adoptive parents and birth parents. It will include all kinds of articles - is adoption for you? exploring your options, when/how should you tell your child they are adopted, all kinds of medical information, etc. This is research I can do from home, so she is fine with this.

I must keep track of everything I do with progress notes. I need to keep my administrative duties (packets, research, etc) apart from client progress notes. However, the admin notes will prove to her the time I spent on each activity (reading, research, etc), along with the questions I will ask her. I will always have questions, of course, because that is the biggest proof that you read the materials! The last intern read the Florida Statues on Adoption in 2 hours with NO questions. NOT!

In the afternoon, I did a lot of reading, mainly of ONE case file. Massive, very detailed, very invlved. The entire life story of both adoptive and birth parents. Every single legal, financial, health, family, social, historical, criminal, etc. detail possible.

She has already scheduled me to accompany her to 2 finalization of adoptions at the court house at the end of the month, and a home study in October. Weeeeeeeeee! My head is spinning.