Seminar - Doing

This week I started my practicum experience at a workshop put on by the Alexian Brothers Behavioral Care center. This workshop was very fancy with breakfast and plenty of handouts. It was about school refusal which is a problem I think many schools face -- especially high schools. While I was hoping for interventions or information that I could use practically in my profession, what I got instead was an overview of the Alexian Brothers internal program. It was still worth it because it would appear as if their program is pretty comprehensive. It addresses all kinds of issues regarding school refusal and is based off of Kearney's model of school refusal.

After 4 hours or so, I was sold on their program. I believe that if there is a student that the school just can't handle, I will remember their program on school refusal as an option to look at before alternate schools at the very least. I was able to do some networking and chatting with people from surrounding school districts. Most of their reactions to the workshop were filled with bitterness and a desire for interventions. They were primarily social workers who appeared to have seen enough in their days to feel hopeless. They seemed jaded by many of the changes in schools and lacked all kinds of guidance or information. At one point a woman informed me how it was great I was learning all of the things I was learning at graduate school, but that I should not expect any of those ideas to get done. Fortunately, I don't typically give in to speeches like those.

After the workshop, I returned to the high school for the remainder of the day. It was an early dismissal day, so the afternoon was taken up by faculty/staff meetings. I went to a total of three meetings with different types of people. The first and last meeting were more about procedural steps that faculty should take in IEPs or in regards to special services. The middle meeting was about the program I am hoping to do my research project on. The group discussed how they could improve their program and handle special cases of students. While I did not come early enough or stay long enough in the meeting to discover what kinds of goals they were planning, I did get a sense that they were interested in program improvement.

So far, my experience has been somewhat limited. As with the week prior, I feel as though I am being under utilized. Perhaps it is because I am only attending one day a week. The meetings that I have been attending do not feel like the most beneficial thing I could be doing. I would much rather spend time in the classrooms or special services programs to help see what kinds of supports are in place. I am not as interested in procedural tasks or voting on whether a student I know nothing about requires services. I am a "doing" person and require more "doing."