6-23-08

This morning Amanda was back, but Pam was not here. I ran canteen while the consumers updated me on their weekends. One consumer lives with her family and she goes out with her mother every weekend to a movie. She told me about how this weekend they “changed things up” by staying in for a movie. The consumers always ask how my son is doing so I told them about going to PBS Kids in the Park, and going fishing.

After I did the progress notes Amanda already had a worksheet for the first group (stress management/coping skills). The worksheet was titled “Getting Along with Anger”, and discussed times when the consumers get angry and things they do to cope with it. It was hard to getting the consumers to think of situations that made them angry. I had to keep giving them suggestions, and most of everything included things other people said or did to make them angry. The consumers said things like, “people talking inappropriate, people borrowing money, people insulting me or cussing at me, people expecting too much, and people telling my personal business”.

The consumers could not think of any coping skills or ways to deal with their angry situations. I started giving suggestions, then they finally starting saying when people make them angry they either “leave the room, ask them not to talk that way, just be quiet, walk away, ignore them, or tell them off”. I explained the difference between defensive and offensive ways of dealing with things, and showed how most of their suggestions were defensive.

When I just asked regular coping skills for any situation they did not know any. I gave examples of counting to 10, talking calmly and softer, or writing a nice letter. The rest of the worksheet had the consumers list things that made them angry, angrier, then angriest. They were not able to differentiate between the three, although they still listed things like “missing a doctor’s appointment, can’t decided what to wear, people saying my work or cleaning is not good enough, running out of things, jewelry breaking, and parents in general”.

This activity did not seem to go very well since the consumers were not very involved. I always have to work at getting the consumers to participate and enjoy the activities we do. I have to try to improvise when needed but also remember to include models of practice that I have learned in the classroom. For instance when a consumer complains that they cannot do the activity everyone else is doing I try to help them see what they can do. One elderly consumer has difficulties during budgeting and cannot do the multiplication that others do. She will never use that information; therefore there is no reason to make her try to learn. Instead I help her see that she can do addition problems by herself, and that she can operate the calculator on her own. The point isn’t to make them feel bad for what they cannot do, but instead to help them feel good about what they can.

For nutrition group the consumers played bingo. In this activity they are pretty self-sufficient, except for a few consumers who were not present today. This left me time to continue my project of scrubbing down the kitchen. Since I have been staying until the end of the day I have been trying to get things more organized, clean, and sanitary.

While making sure I am keeping up with my learning plan activities I discussed some of the things I still need to do with one of the case managers, Lenice. She said she had a good opportunity for me to go with her while she took a consumer to a Medicaid appointment. Amanda said it would be a good experience as well. The appointment started at 1:30pm, and we stayed for an hour. I will write about the appointment in another post since it was an activity to be included as part of my learning plan.

Once I returned I assisted in finishing the end of the day activities, such as cleaning and putting things away. I also entered the consumers’ times into the Excel program. I sat in Amanda’s office at the end of the day, discussing my hours, time sheets, and learning plan.

Amanda told me I can go work with case workers more often and also suggested some ways to write my donation letter for the learning plan. We also discussed completing the e-learning and other times I can do it at home. I updated my time sheet and made a copy for Amanda, but I also made a projected time sheet so that we all have an idea of when I should be done with my hours at Cummins. Last time I do not think everyone was prepared for how quickly my last days came, so I wanted to make sure I was prepared as well as everyone else. According to my projected time sheet, if I continue to work 3 days a week, 7 hours a day, I will have completed my hours within the next two weeks. This will leave me a few weeks to also make sure I get everything done and together for my learning plan by July 30^th.