Starting to feel like us again :)
Good morning. Just me. It’s about 5:30 am now. We’ve been up long enough to make the coffee and erase the junk email. Good coffee. Funny cup though … it’s a long tall one, because we’ve gone through the rest of the mugs and their waiting the swishwasher. Its got a snowman on it. Ok, that’s enough to Earth-shatter you in the morning. We believe we have conquered the problems we were facing over the last several posts. We’ve been clear now for 24 hours. WOOHOOOO. Which is a good thing, because we didn’t like our doctor’s way of figuring things out and that process included a couple trips back Yeeks! Yesterday and today we’ll have crackers and 7-up at work and we’ll go on from there.
Being back yesterday for work was a good thing. It always seems harder when we are at home than after having gotten to work. However, we were very confused as to what we were doing initially. We knew the part about going through the mail, but there wasn’t too much there. The stack was big, but it was easy to sort. We did stuff toward all that … oh, I know and we were working with the new Q on housekeeping tasks. We wanted between us to conserve on some space for certain papers that tend to gather themselves and there were items that needed tidying up. I think she spent hehehe the majority of her day though in finally working through the task of cleaning her desk. Whoosh! That was a lot. She had been sharing the desk with her mother, so she was there for a while too and they managed to throw away a garbage bag full. I don’t think she is done yet. Good girl!
We took care of getting the newest DSP registered. The paperwork had mostly been done before so it was a matter of finalizing it and getting it to sister for mailing. Sister had started the day mentioning a 2 month review for this new person and then later, she came back to our office to do the meeting with the DSP. I’m not sure why it was back in our office, but that was comfortable too. I didn’t even have to get out of our chair. My position is to support sister’s views and look-out for anything that might fall in the crack. This is a self-perceived notion. I try not to do too much talking because I think it’s a lot for staff to be listening to sister – their boss review them, they don’t need the help of me criticizing too. I did work with her after sister left and I tried to answer the questions she wasn’t bold enough to ask when sister was there. We also agreed that we’d meet at noon and I would do an observation of her room, and that we’d meet for a half hour toward the end of the day where we’d talk about the observation and what was on the pre-formatted agenda of state certification items.
I think the DSP had done well to prepare for the noon meeting. This was an hour of watching her teach her group. I think she surprised herself. She made sure there was a lesson she thought I would like, and that’s all fair game. I’m not there to see she does well each time, I do like to know that if given a choice, CAN she do well. And, she passed with flying colors. I have a checklist that’s about 10 pages long the state puts out and it lists for half of that things qualifications they would like for their DSPs. I paid good attention during the presentation and smiled and such, but then dated all the times I saw her doing the good things the state was looking for. There were a few more notes I wrote on the side and then before the 2 pm meeting, I typed up what had been written along with the examples of things she was doing well.
That all seemed to go over pretty well, but I’m pretty sure there will be a fall-out today after the shock of being evaluated twice runs its course. This is the sort of thing where if she’s not strong enough, she will stay home sick. Hehehe not a good thing, but it happens. Nervousness is something that we’re working on here anyway.
Hers not ours.
So, that was about that of that. We figured we should spend the rest of the day working on CARF. So, we steeled our nerves. We had plugged back in the laptop earlier and we stayed until 5 pm when we realized we had a dinner note in our email and that we needed to confirm and get ourselves out the door. Pshwoo. CARF needed figuring out like everything else. Thoughts were harder to come by during parts of the day. The easiest thing was to sit-up in the DSPs group.
For CARF we figured we better touch basis with the Paper Tiger program if that is what we were going to bank our next four months on. We had talked to our friend who was there about meeting after the administration meeting on Friday, so we knew we should wait our thoughts on Program Director and that whole organization. I did talk to Sr. when she was turning over responsibility of the lunch group to us. She said that she’d talked to the Intern and had her sit in on an interview with a new client, who would turn out to be hers. I asked if she were still going to turn over the caseload like we’d discussed and I think that’s still good, as well she talked to the new Q about maintaining a day to work with the other Q and she said that would be ok with her too. I had thought it best to keep the other Q happy and to maintain that the Q’s work was done, so I could use it in my own progress. I think that sister talked over her plans for the new Q. We recommended that the new Q be on the Administration team too, so we’ll find that out, but it seems good to go.
There was something to look out for though, in that Sister confessed that the new Q had been asked or had volunteered to monitor the work needed to be done by the other Q. I think this is a fairly devious thing to ask of the new Q in “spying” on a Q that’s been established, but I know how sister works. Best in those situations to stay in front of the 8-ball. I had also known, when the new Q was asked to do the same with our work. I didn’t have anything to lose because we were doing what we were supposed to do, but it’s still uncomfortable a process and relationship being set-up with the new and younger staff. Bottom line was that Sister knows for sure that the other Q never got caught up in her part of the Qnotes or files. Sister will do with what she has to with that, but for certain if the state finds out … she’s going to be pretty upset. I know from working with the other Q’s files that she’s done the front notes and the initial ones, and left the ones in the middle undone. Good luck with that … she’s got better nerves than me.
I was glad in my own assuredness that the new Q wasn’t involved in work being done with CARF, so I wouldn’t be placed in the position of being undercut with it. It’s the same with program director responsibilities and staff teaching, or whatever … the new Q simply will not be involved. My understanding is that I will still supervise her, but she is capable of figuring out quite a bit on her own. We’ve shown her how to do what she’s supposed to get done and she’s going to need figuring out for herself how to have a relationship with each of the clients. That will be her next task. I think she’s going to be given more opportunities to be in the classrooms working with the clients and staff on goals. We’ll see. For these last few days this week before the admin meeting, it is an excellent time to be cleaning things up. We gave her a few clean-up tasks in addition like making sure the information sheets are caught up and in making sure the goal data sheets, and Qnote sheets are ready for this next year. We’ll show her how to do that after she gets her desk clean and we will invite her to make some small changes so that it becomes her own form. Somehow we’ll want her to leave her mark.
So getting back to our own tasks. We were working on how to merge old information with new CARF information, because the numbering system is changed, but if we change that 5-6 feet worth of notebooks from an old numbering system to a new, then we lose all what we’d done with the last sweep of CARF in 2003. So, I think we pretty much decided to leave the Old numbering system, but that we’d add in the Paper Tiger the new system. So, in the description box of for example … Notes from the Governance Committee 1.1.2.f, we’ll add 1.A.1.c … I know, I know it’s that silly. But, if every 2-3 years CARF switches around the numbering system just to keep us on our toes, then we have to do the best we can. I know because of its search function if I put in 1.A.1.c then all the links to that section will produce themselves.
We did one more thing. After CARF had come by last time, we had for the front books numbered in red marker toward the top of each document a consecutive number. So, we add this as a document number so that doc525 or whichever number would be listed in the title box of each item in the Paper tiger. This way it would be easier to replace items when necessary. For example if we have an organizational chart that changes because staff changes each year and that number is doc43, I can easily replace new doc for old doc and slip it into the doc43 space by labeling it and updating in the Tiger the new revision date. The other thing that I can do is just give it a new doc number at the end of my consecutive numbers so I can place doc2012 as the new organizational chart, but put on 1.A.1.c and it will still fall into place where it should when I call for those numbers.
One of the nice things about the Paper Tiger is that it will print out everything I’m putting in so that right before CARF gets here, I will save a couple of weeks for printing out everything according to the new order that we had put in. So that will be a book onto itself that will be used for a reference. And theoretically, the book should go to Sr.’s office and sit on her reference shelve. I would hope she would feel comfortable in using it although maybe that will just be my honor. I know the reference will be pretty long though because we are putting in quite a bit of information.
My grand idea will be that information from all of our resources will flow together, so if I type in the term “community awareness” not only the CARF materials, but my books and other papers will come up and be utilized. Again, the big deal is in integrating a vast amount of information at our hands. Before the break we had experimented and I think we wrote about getting chapters and indexes in the Tiger.
I think that will be extremely important as the years go on. I would like to create systems using the vast knowledge that is at hand. I’m not sure how it would work out either having use of the university library or not, but it is the same sense of being able to collect many things no matter which way you turn the sought after questions. It’s what makes the whole process so exciting and dynamic.
Whoops better catch shower and dressed, but we’ll be back for a few minutes after that.
Ok, back … that wasn’t too bad. Now have a noisy kitten in front of us though making her way toward the golden spot in front of us. She knows how to read the going to work signs and is taking great pleasure in fwopping me with that big tail of hers. I don’t know … wish she could come up and just sit down, but it would be an entirely different experience I am sure. I think some kitties just like to rub up. Damn she settled down but took the counter productive way so I had to get her up and so now she is lying against my wrist … shoot now she’s tried a third angle and still doesn’t have it right. Ohhhh good move though on the fourth and it is a good thing too, because we don’t have that many whole minutes left! Ok ok … settle down pretty kitty … damn she’s up again complaining I made her tail uncomfortable.
She’s now looking at me hopelessly. FWOP! Dear … what a kitty.
ANYWAY …
So that’s pretty much in work news for the day. We did meet up with our Sweetie for about an hour at the end of the day … we’re saying that because I didn’t spend too much up time after he left, before I headed for bed. He on the otherhand was heading out to a card game with the guys. It means that if I hear from him today, he’ll probably be complaining of losing money and being overly tired. Baby, baby, baby. There was a bit of teasing, because while there wasn’t enough time to eat and play … his shoulders and head did manage to get rubbed for about 15 minutes before he left. He said, what is wrong with me … he said this in relation to staying for more back rubs or going out to lose $50. We laughed said it was more like backrubs or being with a bunch of “grunty” males … ugh, ugh … lose money, ugh. Hehehe man his life is sweet! We each make our own choices.
Tonight is a Dr. M. night … so we’re looking forward to that. If we didn’t have to cover other things, I would like to talk more of developing the role of program director. I think I would like to be more prepared for the meeting tomorrow with sister. We think she’s going to fill in some part of a change in our position, but we don’t know how much room we’ll have to establish our own thoughts and ideas. We asked to meet with our friend and that will be good after the meeting, but we need some work going in before the meeting. We’ve done loose outlines, hmm, where are those … let me check. Ok, good they were both saved under 12/21/06. Maybe we’ll go over that this morning. See if we can do a rough outline. Let me check one more file.
Hmm. Forgot about that. We have that section we wrote … maybe it will copy over in an email.
Ok, good good. That’s all set. We’ve only a few moments to post now … better get going … the other stuff we’ll process when we get to work. Ok, top of the day to you now. Bye!!
posted by Ann Marie @ 1/04/2007 06:55:00 AM
Comments: 1
