Caught up to Tuesday Here...
Good morning … this is me. It is very late in the morning now and Sweetie Pie has just left. The time is 9:41 am. We’ve been up now since about 6:15 am. We’ve been sitting at the computer, but we were reading instead of writing and then our computer turned off, which usually means someone forgot to pay the cable bill. I thought we were within one month, but I’m not sure … there is always the chance that they are just working on the wiring. I suppose that I’m going to need making a call to see what the problem is, but I don’t really want to know because I don’t have the money in the checking account to pay for it at this moment. It might not be available until … hmm, let’s see go to work on Thursday, deposit check so that it goes in on Friday, then wait til maybe up to next Wednesday. Ok, let’s not get into that right now … I might have to panic after thinking no Internet for a week. We need to be resolved not to ask Sweetie Pie for the money. It is our fault that the check isn’t in the bank. We were the ones who chose not to go in for the check, remember?Hmm, Sweetie just called from the car … he said that it was in the 70’s and there is a nice breeze and that I might want to turn off the air and open the door for some fresh air … that seemed like a good idea, so we followed through. The kitties are all happy too. I think they miss being outside when the air is on. Ok, good, good.
We were a little dozey while we were reading the last post that is yet to be posted. We zonked out several times while reading. I don’t know if we were tired, it was an affect of the food we ate, or whether the system was closing down on us to prevent the material from going through. I don’t want to really venture out on that point, except to say that we’v been in and out of it. Prior to that, we had originally woken up, then woke up Sweetie, and then watched him after his shower getting dressed. That always makes us feel happy to see him progressing through his paces. Of course, there was sufficient time to do some good back rubbing. Our poor baby, he sure needs a lot of good treatment.
We then poured coffee for both of us and we stayed around him working in the kitchen for a bit. That’s when we eat cereal and take our medicine. It’s like a trance-thing where he becomes though more and more interested in what’s going on in his computer, because the statements he makes are just fragments of his thoughts. And, we find ourselves a little frustrated in saying, “What? What?” Mostly, because he’s so entranced his voice is low and self-hypnotic. We need to learn better when to just say ok, I think you want some time, so we’re going to go in the living room to be at our computer. I think this morning, not being rude, but he really did need some quiet uninterrupted time to be working on what he had to do. When we started reading yesterday’s post it was in mind to check it to see if we could send it to him. It is rather long – 14 pages – but, we wanted him to see how excited we were with the day before we both had that bad spell. That part is integrated into the writing too. I’m not sure in my groggy state, I really saw the transition point, maybe I could look specifically for that now.
Hmm, it seems like we had been writing and things were good and we were progressing with what we didn’t want to forget about the previous days. And, then there was the part where we could hear him getting angry. And, then we went in there and he started telling us all the things we had to do, which made us frustrated. But, we then tried to get back into our writing which was a little successful. We then finished our notes from before and had done the dishwasher while turning down going out to the zoo because of the weather. Then I think we had gone out there and had a bad experience because of all the things he was telling us to do. And, then we became upset, because we were on vacation and wanted to do whatever we wanted to do. That had pushed us in a panic because we felt our vacation slipping away from us. Looking now we can see that his pushiness might have had something to do with anger seeping over from his own business frustrations at the time. Us coming up with ideas that would be costly to him pushed him over his ledge, and then after getting snapped at we felt in a bad mood, and then stopped that by regressing to the coloring. After that we both started a calm down period and we apologized after he’d called to suggest going out, because he was too tired to cook. Dinner was calm and there was some good “in-bed” make up time. So, maybe that was part of it … we aren’t having enough sex! WooHOOO!!!
Ok, analysis done, and then the point would be … lesson #1 don’t spend his money, lesson #2 watch what is going on after he gets mad at work and how that might infringe on the personal side of life. Lesson #3 Get a grip on not only money, but the fact that we are going to need going back to work in a couple of days. Lesson #4 try to figure out the patterns of when he starts to give us lists of things to do. I think that is putting us in a regressed state of our rebellion. Sometimes he gives good suggestions and reasonable ideas, but at other times, we have already thoughts and plans in other directions and we don’t want to deal with his frustration because we are doing something on our own and not in line with his ideas. Lesson #5 … we love our Sweetie to pieces, but we need to acknowledge that we are in a relationship that is still being defined. He went into spaces dealing with his desire for freedom to go fishing when he wants or anything else. We explained that it was hard to be left out and we were a little jealous of the relationship with him and Bob, because it excluded us and seemed to be where he wants to go most in his free time. We felt that he was under an obligation to us to do stuff with us, rather than it having been his first choice. He took things personally in that he felt unappreciated for all the quality time we had just spent together. That’s why we wanted to send him yesterday’s writing is to say … no you weren’t unappreciated we loved every moment of our time together. It’s just … and then here skipping back to lesson #1, 2, etc.
Hmm, ok ok … bottom line? Don’t spend his money, don’t get in the way of his work frustrations, get ready to go back to work, look for patterns when he starts assigning tasks, and don’t forget we are just in the first stage of buiding an “in-home” relationship. Woohooo, got it! Lessons learned … now we have to move on.
What is next?
Time check … it’s a Tuesday – two days left of vacation, the time is 10:15 am, and we have no major plans for the day. We could go back here to thoughts that we’d assigned ourselves a schedule and we might want to consider some of those ideas.
Sweetie is now gone for the day and won’t be home until 8:30-10:30 pm tonight. That means we could have a little more time with him, or it could mean we have some time for reading at the end of the day. That is the situation that has lost out the most during our vacation. When we got that note from sister saying to go be on vacation, we took things literally, and since our reading was work orientated, we stopped that too. Since then, we have approached Rich twice with our request that he pay for a couple of books on fundraising and grants from Capella. He’s balking, so we told him we’d go so far as he could take it out of our pay check. I think we’re going to have to go over again with him, where our money lies in between us, but otherwise, we want to make sure to get the materials before we’re closed out of the program.
Also, it pushes a priority of whether our reading time is going to go into grants if the books are here, or whether we are going back more into program directing.
I think the priority when we get to work has to be in getting done with the Qnotes before the annuals start. I think we can organize it over the next couple of work days and then we have to budget time between that, annual report, and annuals starting up in July. We could start the prep work first week of July, because the first one isn’t until the 10th, but we have two right away so there is 2 to plan. I don’t know yet how we get past the upset we’re going to feel going back to work. We say this because the three projects will be pushing, plus whatever else we missed out on, such as staff training. So, what will be our plan so that doesn’t freeze us up?
We’re thinking there is a good chance that Sister will have an outline for the annual report, because she’ll want it her way and she won’t like that it’s still sitting there undone. We are going to need getting past our frustration that it is bothering our annual time and frustration from still being behind in Qnotes. One solution might be to do a few projects now. We could look at what we are going to write for the main portion of the program, and we could write out our plans for doing the annuals on their own. We should also think through some strategy in training new people. Mostly sister will want them trained on the job, but we’ll need to figure out what we will want the new Q to be doing. In the back of my mind, we see her doing some footwork, such as personal preference interviews, observations, and possibly, ICAPs. I think that would easily take up 3 days each week. We might too need to look at the possibility of losing her one day extra because Holly is going to need secretarial work done. We had wanted to think as an extra that she could pull the information from the Qnotes, for the reports. That means if nothing else get in the Qnotes for at least the first four people. Now, looking at a budget of time – how much can we hope for. Probably, we should look at getting her for only two days.
ICAP – 1 hour with test and 30 minutes typing
PPI – 1 hour with interview 2 hours typing
Observation – 30 minutes in interview and 2 hours typing
Pulling Agenda – 1 hour
Hmm, that’s pretty good … it says 8 hours, but that would be heavily concentrated in those specific tasks. If she were however getting more things accomplished on time, and we were helping with her schedule, then we could start to train her on Qnotes.
Hmm, I think that is a plan. We figure that between this combination, she will get plenty of time to get to know the clients. She’ll get a chance to be in each of the rooms, interview staff and clients, and observe clients, plus read some of their old material. We have to budget too for meetings. I think she is going to miss staff training, but may be around for the actual annual meeting. That would be good training.
Cool, cool … I’m happy with the plan and I think it will get her accustomed to the whole case load. I will beseech Sister to not give her just one caseload until January, 2008. That will get us through all the annuals and there will be more chance to see which clients she works best with. I don’t know sister’s thoughts on us giving her these particular tasks, but after the CARF interview … I think that we are going to fare well with getting the PPI in, if not the observation. Plus the ICAP is something that can be done by anything, because it is just querying the DSPs. The other thing she may or may not get into is the establishing of goals. I think we will keep the part of writing up the formal annual although, we might save a few of those toward the end for her benefit of learning.
I will need to consider her teaching qualifications and whether this schedule will appeal to her. I guess there the first concern would be if Sister took away more of my time, because she wanted the woman in the classroom. Too, we have to figure out if we are really going to get her assistance, because it wasn’t a done deal she would work at St. Rose Center. Sister had to negotiate her salary. So, then we’d have to think … what happens we have to do this on our own. I think its strong point is getting to know the clients and if she’s in the rooms observing, she gets a chance to follow the program from the point of view of the DSPs. If she wants to teach, she could follow us into Thinking Group and prepare to take over something on that order. We could also see that she take over Group #1 goals. We forgot about that part.
We know sister wants one of our days during the week to be for CARF. It looks like by this schedule there will need to be one day to do the above. There needs to be at least one day a week to be doing Qnotes. There needs to be a ½ day on goals. I guess we’ll hold to that only for the time being, because what isn’t taken up by meetings the last two days will need to be spent on the annual and catching up on Qnotes and completing other various tasks as float to the top. Hmm, that sounds like a plan … let’s check it over. Hmm, forgot one of the major tasks yet to be covered is doing the goals and annual paperwork, and scheduling and such. Man-o-man … I sure could use the help now. It’s fairly easy to train on the above. Question will have to remain … what happens she wasn’t hired? We need to look again at our priorities.
I think the one that will suffer first until we get someone trained is the CARF.
Qnotes and annuals have to be done, plus the extras that come up in the meantime.
It will be nice to take a break from the staff training, and I guess most of the work in retooling ourselves is going to need coming from home. That will bounce off of and between Rich’s needs for us. I think this is where the frustration comes in. For the next half year, we will need to concentrate primarily on the Q portion of the job. It is tempting to teach her only Qnotes, but that wouldn’t help her learn about the clients. Best I get through the Qnotes and keep her movin along.
That is the best prospect of training. She will get in a pattern so that she will then need very little supervision. Maybe her courses will be done by then and she will be able to take on full time, and preferably full client load, but of course that will need to be negotiated, because we don’t know and certainly Rich doesn’t promote us loosing full client load. It will have to be emphasized that I would take over certain aspects like … hmm, like what?
I think we did this the other day, but now I’m not recalling … were we going to take over observations, preferences, AND goals of all the clients? That would take off 6-8 hours of work for each of the Q’s so it would be like giving them an extra day to work on something else. We would need to sell sister on the point of view that observations and PPIs are worthy of each of the clients records. Consistency is one factor, but then if she isn’t letting them go to the parents, are they yet practical as a teaching mechanism, or possibly as part of the performance analysis. We could include it in that effort. I am going to go especially this year since all my clients were done last year as a comparison. I think the PPI will be good with its new CARF emphasis as an exemplar. Hmm, I think there were like 3 that Mirza didn’t complete and is still in her basket. Those will have to be done as well. I think they are of her later clients, so by then, perhaps the new person can type them up … maybe not … I don’t know if she would understand Mirza’s notes. We’ll have to check that out.
I think as to are the observations essential … we’ll have to look at the meeting structure. I don’t like it the way it is now, but I don’t know other possibilities according to Sister’s tolerance. I would if I changed it try to include more family into the planning of the goals. We would need to rethink that structure and be more open to not establishing the goals until through the meeting. But, everyone wants to know what the goals are and within 15 minutes time, that is a lot of pressure for me to come up with something close to what they are interested in. Sister is still going to want the meetings to be no more than 1 hour. Then there is the problem that parents are not in a good position for establishing goals. And, we need to consider that Sister is going to want to keep the goals simple. I think we get credit for having goals that are individualized and I don’t want to go toward Holly’s one goal fits all for a life time. There surely could be found something in between. Maybe that will come up through the curriculum work of identifying goals for independence and community awareness. It would be nice to use the support model in establishing the goal. That would come from using the support inventory. The new means of doing things is working not on the clients’ deficits, but on their positive attributes. That is something that we can look toward, but Sister is still adamant of getting needs met that are deficits.
I think in some aspects, we are just going to need reading on what is ideal, and until something changes and sister is not here, we’ll have to work backward. I would like her to know that that is happening, but it is going to depend on how strongly my knowledge becomes on newer processes. One thing is for certain that if I don’t read I get behind in everything. There is another pressing need and that is to identify the programs strengths and weaknesses so that it may be improved. This may mean going back into the work of the clients’ satisfaction surveys. Problem with that is that there will be no time for it until we get someone in to help with Q position. We could though frame what is needed for the program.
I think when we start that we will center on structure. We would like to get to a position that we can write a training manual, and at this point, there is nothing to offer, because we’re not at the top of our game, nor does the center do what it necessary of a newer class program. The key will be in becoming flexible while covering areas that are focal concerns. Hmm, I am thinking of a design here such as the state of IL puts out for training DSPs. Would our program have the elements of lesson by lesson? I would see best it being a training program, with the usage of theory. But, is this novel? Would it sell? Has it been done before? For example, I could see one trend being less workshop and more getting people out into the community. I would have to establish a program that would get each out in groups no bigger than 2-3 at least once every? Hmm, once every cycle? Not sure if it could be once a week, that might be ideal. Maybe the first emphasis should be once a month? If we figured a 2 hour block of time for let’s say two individuals? Hmm, 25 sessions. Maybe we are going to have to take off the list the first 8 clients, because they are already in a work orientated program. That would mean taking it down to 21 sessions which could be done monthly at 5 – 2 hour sessions a week. When the week is short or there are absences, then we could go up to 3 clients to fill the gap.
I don’t know if I would be the person to take them out, there may be better people such as when the new Q was finally trained in, or possibly Margarita and Imelda could off-balance the load. There would need to be more work upfront in the training aspects. For example, the outing trainer could report to me on the general scope of the adventure, and then we could devise other learning activities that are much centered to reach the clients’ next objective. Hmm, if they were both going out, they could double up and each takes another vehicle. I would need to have an inventory of objectives for clients that would be checked off. I’m not sure where I would get this list now. We could say that I need staff 2.5 hours a day or if there was 2 staff, 5 hours a day. It would be good idea to meet with each staff individually 15 minutes after the trip, and then at the end of the week, we could meet for 1-2 hours to discuss learning objectives that I would further work on between their trips.
This could be a function of a program director. I think then the key would be to devise trips that wouldn’t cost much money and could be individually suited to each person from the lowest level clients to the upper. I wonder if sister has other plans yet for these two women. What as an example can we do to get the clients out and around? Maybe we would need a hot list of a variety of things that could be done with them. For example, at some of the major sites, we could get passes for one adult and guests. Hmm, that might mean though that each staff would specialize in each activity. This could be part though of a cultural activity. We could group other places out in the community.
Cultural
Sports
Shopping
Tasks
Library
Food
City Watch
Volunteer
Transportation
Religious
Parks and beaches
Health
Game - searches
Maps – direction
Animal
Educational
Art
Family
Music
Party
photography
Ok, that’s a good list to start from. From there we would design objectives from what? We would need something of training or goals, we should have a master list, but then specify individually as each client warrants. Definitely some what ifs.
Problem is that with the Internet down, I have no ability to check this out … to see how I could collect a master list. If I had the computer … where would I look?
And, could we consider these goals as one of the client’s regular goals, which would take some pressure off of the DSPs. That might be a very good idea, but the goals would need to be simple enough for Margarita and Imelda. Perhaps that would be evaluated during that 15 minute wrap-up.
Hmm, cats keep bringing in cicadas to play with … there has been 4 in the last hour. There … we resolved that. We threw the last one out and we shut the screen door. That was probably a good idea anyway, but usually I try to give the cats more freedom. They abused their privilege. Deal is not to bring inside critters! Ok ok … it will be all right I can let go of the two poor deprived kitties looking longingly out the screen door. Ok, you all no guilt trips … you are going to need handling just having fresh air. Hmm, noisy sirens all of a sudden there are several, plus fire trunks honking. I wonder what’s happening. Maybe something not too far from here. I can still here them. Ok, they are finally fading. Pshwoo that made me feel intense.
Pshwoo ok, back to work … we need to figure out away to get all 50 individuals out in these various activities doing something.
Hmm, it’s me again … we finally got back on line about an hour ago and it is 5:30 pm now. We just ate a frozen dinner and am having a cup of coffee. We talked to Sweetie Pie a little while ago … his game starts in about 20 minutes. He’s in the not so far western suburbs, but his friend that had to cancel the fishing trip due to an aching business is pretty much down, so after the game, Rich is going out to spend some time with him. He’ll know what to say … I’m sure of that. They’ve been pretty good friends all the way back about almost 40 years now. They are through thick and thin friends. I hope he’ll be ok.
I know, I know … backing out … none of my business, cept I know its been bothering Rich. He knows his friend is hurting.
We spent most the afternoon doing reading from a couple different books, primarily one on Quality of Life for service providers. It seems to do most of its work through assessments in several different areas – 8 of them all told. They all make sense though I don’t have them memorized. AHA! Found the domain names … they are emotional well-being, interpersonal relations, material well-being, personal development, physical well-being, self-determination, social inclusion, and rights.
We’re still going through the slow theory building parts, but I’ve done some racing ahead to study how they are using the domains. I think it is going to teach us how to do the assessment without telling us explicitly, but this one part looks like it tells us professional assessments that could be used. I don’t think Sr. Theresa would buy all that, but maybe I can pull something from the book or internet.
WHOQOL-100
Domains Facets
Physical Pain, discomfort
Energy, fatigue
Sleep, rest
Psychological Positive feelings
Thinking, learning, concentration
Self-esteem
Bodily image and appearance
Negative feelings
Level of independence Mobility
Activities of daily living
Dependence on medication or treatments
Working capacity
Social relationships Personal relationships
Social support
Sexual activity
Environment Physical safety and security
Home environment
Financial resources
Health and social care: availability and quality
Opportunities for acquiring new information and skills
Participation in and opportunities for recreation/leisure
Physical environment (pollution, noise, traffic, climate)
Transport
Spiritual Spirituality/religion/personal beliefs
http://www.gfmer.ch/TMCAM/Evaluation_therapeutical_effects_complementary_medicine.htm
http://acqol.deakin.edu.au/instruments/ComQol_I5.pdf
http://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/ccarver/sclCOPEf.html
Hmm, now it is about 8 pm. We read a little longer and worked on finding the above scales on the Internet. We looked for many others too, but these are the ones that showed up in some form or tense. We just called our Sweetie to remind him that we are here and we’ll go on from there I suppose. We also ate a grapefruit and took our medicine, so all that is good. We have interested ourselves in the majority of the day with the assessments and am not sure where we are now from where we started. I should probably post a few entries and that would give us a sense of balance. But, it gets to this time of the night and we’re not as good as others. I feel like I fell short of the mark today, because we didn’t get too much overall resolved. I don’t think at least. Maybe I have to go back and see what we were thinking of.
Hmm, from the skimming I just did … it looks like we had come up with a couple of objectives and gone down the path to better understanding the annual process and the process for staff training, particularly if we were to get another Q. We veered off of the project to write for the annual report, because its better to talk to Sr. first, and I wanted to use the reading to become more clear on those objectives. We really got into the assessment part after we’d thought more about a framework that would get all the individuals out in the community. We got stuck on wanting to understand their needs before we gave them community options to resolve the point.
Hmm, how did that happen … maybe we were reading something or listening to something, but then we found ourselves listening to a person singing on YouTube, named Esmee Denters … they say she’s just signed with Justin Timberlake. It was nice to be hearing her. She’s pretty young, but is able to sing other peoples songs well. She’s also got a pretty face without all the make up. Hehehe she’s singing for a world audience from her bedroom – well not all … I think someone got her to a sound stage and then flew her over to the US to hear her out. She’s a Dutch citizen and quite popular in the YouTube medium. We’ll see … good luck to her. Keep singing!
Hmm, 9 pm. I was suppose to watch Rich’s show and tell him what was happening, I better hurry up … I can watch only from his bedroom … wooHOOO!!! Party!
posted by Ann Marie @ 6/20/2007 10:09:00 AM
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