Good Morning, fellow bloggers! I'm here with new determination to get writing! The snow is melting, the birds are chirping, ...now if the city can just find the manhole cover they lost while scraping the ice on my street, life will be just about back to normal!
The comments have been great...thanks especially to the Social Work Fairy for such a thoughtful, and insightful, essay...and I was struck - while re-reading this morning - by E2's comment about T3 - which seems to forecast the recent patient death there.
Out here, in the world of community mental health, things don't feel as desperately bleak and hostile as they seem to be there in the Enchanted Castle. Partly, no doubt, it's because we aren't locked in together...but there are other factors, too. Big on my list is that I'm allowed to actually do something to improve the lives on my caseload...I'm encouraged to act, instead of encouraged to shut up and check the little boxes. Ahhhh!! what a relief.
...a side note here - I suspect that being allowed to "act" at work, makes it less necessary to "act" by blogging....thus these long gaps in essay writing....
And that's why, Social Work Fairy, I think you underestimate the effect Administration and/or Leadership has on an institution....Leadership creates the atmosphere - the "attitude" - by valuing certain qualities in the workplace. It is certainly possible to create an atmosphere where action is valued, for example. If personal motivation, independent and creative thinking, effective interpersonal skills, etc. were cherished, reinforced, appreciated...you'd have an entirely different hospital there.
I think that's why Hickenlooper, bless his heart, is doing so well. He's got a similar, complex of factors - and regulations - True, he's not locked up with his co-workers, and that does count for something. But he's action oriented, creative, and honest...he doesn't have to do it all, he just has to let others do it...be able to make sound judgements about what helps and what hurts an effort....have some notion of what the "goal" is.
The other important difference between working in the Enchanted Castle and working in the community, is the "fun at work" factor. When I was there (at the Castle), I had the impression that "fun at work" meant "patient neglect" somehow. Some people seemed to be having fun only if they were ngelecting patients - and others seemed to be viewed as neglecting work if they were having fun with the patients.
Out here in the community, we have more fun - it isn't frowned upon as much...on Friday, for example, the center had its annual Christmas party. (Apparently, nobody had time at Christmas.) We went - on the light rail - to the Wynncoop Brewery (there's that Hickenlooper, again). We had lunch, played a little pool, saw an improv comedy show. Went home at 3.
Mandatory attendance. "Just Go!" was the Administrative message. "Have fun!"
And I agree with the SWF about the effect of the entire "social" attitude on the mentally ill - or other dependent members of society. I was complaining to an attorney, (my "consumer" was consulting her to make an appeal on denial of benefits) , that the Social Security office was difficult to communicate with. She said, "You know why that is, don't you?" "No, tell me" I rejoined. She said, "Since the start of the war, the Social Security office has been on a hiring freeze. As time goes by, there are fewer and fewer people to do more and more work. The money is going to the war. It'll only get worse."
Today in the paper, there was an article saying that the government intends to spend - is required to spend - $2.9 million dollars to implement regulations that will save $300,000 for Medicaid....and then there's the president's Medicaid/Medicare budget for this year.....
I saw something last week in the paper about how welfare roles had dropped by some good percentage or other, indicating that more people have gotten jobs to support themselves. Ha! nonsense...there's just that many more poor people out there with nuthin' - nuthin at all!
I just think that's not good for society...and I think Leadership has a lot to do with it.
