Week 16 continued

The remainder of the December follow-up was exciting.  We had a sex education seminar that lasted about 2 hours.  Lots of great questions were asked, plus there were several diagrams and props.  The speaker passed around examples of forms of contraception and most youth leaders stayed awake the whole time.  We were all very tired.  The entire group participated in a wild and crazy gift exchange afterward.  We had dinner, too.  Then we all met in the peace center for a college board.  I was a part of the panel.  About 7 college kids positioned themselves in front of a seated audience of about 60 youth leaders to talk about their experiences and advice concerning college.  We all had topics like "freshman year" "college partying" "scholarships and grants" and so forth.  I had a great time answering questions and talking about my unique experiences as a college student.  I spent the rest of the night hours planning for the next morning's trust activity for the mentors and mentees.  I made lines on the floor using blue tape and asked each pair of youth leaders to take a line.  Their mission was to blind fold one of the partners and guide him or her to the end of the line without letting either foot leave the line.  Afterward, we debriefed and played clean-up.  It was a very successful gathering.

Week 16

The past week has been insanely stressful.  Monday was a day for catch-up.  I was sick on Wednesday, and worked from home.  I had spent most of my time preparing for the follow-up activities.  I hosted an activity called "popcorn" with about 60 people present.  I didn't have the most energy as my body is fighting infection, and the crowd was barely manageable since it was a crazy first night of follow-up.  I think the leaders and potential leaders got at least a little something out of the activity.  I spoke about how leaders are like popcorn and we animated an analogy for why leaders need support.  We also extended the activity to include an analogy of the infernal kernel that represents the things that get in our way as leaders.  The main prop was a beach ball.  This morning, we woke up early to host the Holiday Party.  We set up and manned a table that had applications for the toy drive, information about Jameson Camp, the toy-pick up reminder sheets, and lots of pens.  We also handed clipboards around for evaluations at the end of the movie.  The main events were watching Madagascar 2, pictures with santa, gifts for kids, concessions, and food basket raffles.  Now we are preparing for a sex education seminar.  

Week 14

Monday and Wednesday of this week were spent arranging final products, producing a binder for the mentor/mentee program, and meeting with supervisors.  I got to have a wonderful lunch with Irene.  We talked about the structure of the practicum and my personal struggles being a student operating in a professional environment.  I updated her on my learning plan, and we spoke of social work as a powerful arena for social change on all levels.  The meeting was insightful and fully enjoyable.  I also got to catch up with my previous field instructor from the last practicum over lunch.  It's been such a tough week outside of the agency trying to piece together final projects for classes and make some last-ditch efforts to avoid getting a cold.  Boo for winter weather.

Week 13

I only worked Wednesday of this week because of a trip to Florida.  However, I accomplished a great deal.  I met with Tim this morning to go over the last Follow-up that I missed.  The mentors were paired with mentees.  They interviewed each other in sets of twos and threes.  Some groups got along better than others.  The entire group came together for an activity I proposed that we call the "balloon activity."  This was mostly a relay race.  Participants had to run and pop a series of balloons using body parts other than their arms and feet.  Wish I could have seen it.  

I did some planning for the next time the mentors and mentees see one another.  I will be leading the group through an activity from a book called Learning Leadership by Michael Brandwein.  The activity is called Popcorn and the Infernal Kernel.  I also got a better idea about what the next follow-up will look like by talking with Tim.  

I'm still waiting to finalize the schedule for the toy drive.  We still don't know when Jameson Camp will be able to pick up the toys from downtown Indy.  But the bulk of the work for the toy drive will be copying all the data from toy drive applications onto an excel sheet to submit to a higher power.

I accomplished a great deal of work for the learning plan today.  There are only a few more products to produce before the semester is completely finalized.  I'm excited to be coming up on another 2-night follow-up in December.  Tim even offered me the opportunity to continue attending follow-ups as a paid employee.  Exciting times!

Week 11

Last week was productive.  I had a long meeting with Tim to discuss all elements of the Learning Plan.  Tim and I came up with some better ideas about what products seem most appropriate for different objectives.  He gave me a lot of great ideas to end the semester with.  

There was also a great low ropes session with the good people of Endangered Species Chocolate.  The group had 18 employees present for the challenge course.  We started with Trolleys.  Two staff members then took half the group to 2 elements of the challenge course, then we all met up in the end to see if the entire team could climb a 10 foot wall using only 2 helpers at a time.  They had some interesting approaches to apply to the wall, but the group seemed to learn fast and stay calm.  The most beneficial part of the activities this time was the adequate amount of time spent debriefing with the groups.  We had about 2 hours to spend with this group, and they got to do about 4 elements per group.  

Week 10

I haven't worked many hours this week, as the last follow-up was enough to keep me occupied.  Hanging out with the youth leaders this past weekend was a tremendous learning experience.  The challenge now is quickly processing and recording the things I learned into legitimate products.  

This week I have produced my own version of Mentor/Mentee applications, reviewed some additional information about the toy drive, estimated the amount of hours I should have by the time the practicum ends, and perused the Masters of Social Work application information.  I've been trying to organize my portfolio products to ensure that I will have a complete set of products to turn in with the final learning plan.  A lot of my products will be nearing completion soon, and I am excited to be a part of it all.  

Week 9ish- Second Follow-up

What fun!  Friday night was the start of the two-night follow-up for youth leaders returning to camp.  I felt far less stressed this weekend as there's only one more midterm to go, and since I knew most of the kids that would be coming to camp, I felt prepared.  I was paired with Ruble (a counselor my age) to go on "transport" to pick up a few youth leaders that didn't have a ride to camp.  The first youth (age 15, female) lived about 25 minutes away from camp.  Ruble and I knocked on the door at about 8:00 pm.  Both the mother and youth showed up at the door looking a little confused.  The youth recognized us and went into a conversation about how she was going to the movies tonight, and not to camp.  She said she called Tim to tell him she wouldn't be attending this particular follow-up.  Ruble and I were a bit disappointed, so we told her how we felt.  Everyone but the youth seemed contingent on the youth attending camp instead of the movies, but the youth was not packed and she had plans.  The mother invited us in to talk because it was chilly, then an argument ensued.  The mother said she would feel much better if the youth were at camp and not at the movies.  The youth was very upset and threw "a fit" as she later called it.  Ruble and I sat and talked to the mother for about an hour while the youth stormed through the house and packed her things.  The youth got a phone call in the middle of her packing, too.  One of her friends called to tell her that a few people the youth does not get along with showed up at the movie they had plans to attend.  We all decided it was fate, but the youth was still a bit grumpy.  Her mood improved as the weekend progressed.  A learning plan product examines this further.  Once we had all the kids picked up, we arrived at camp fashionably late.  Tim had started the introductory meeting where all the kids decide on rules for camp and talk about plans for the weekend.  The youth leaders also carved pumpkins while we were away.  Everyone was fairly attentive, but excited to break into activities for the weekend.  We had smores around a campfire that night and everyone exchanged their latest stories.  I slept in the boys' cabin with Ruble and two other counselors.  This was a stinky endeavor in more ways than one.  I thought the boys would be less rowdy than the girls' cabin was last weekend.  Nope.  Blaring music, video games, cell phone conversations, gameboy races, deep voices, limited sleep...  I also thought the boys would wake up later in the morning.  I was wrong there, too.  It was like pulling teeth trying to get the boys settled and keep the lights out, then we had to turn around and wake up early.  Saturday was busy, busy, busy.  We had breakfast, a morning activity, and then  my group jumped right into preparing for the haunted house.  We hung black tarp up to cover windows, bunkbeds, and doors.  We moved a ton of furniture around to suit our needs.  We spray painted some surfaces, added cobwebs, turned on some festive lighting, cranked up the music and made plans to scare people right up to lunch.  After lunch, we finalized our cabin, did a run-through of our haunted house without costumes for all youth leaders and staff to see.  We also went through the other haunted house that another group had been preparing that was supposed to be the "scarier" haunted house.  We met back in the dining hall for a quick dinner before guests started arriving at 5:30.  The Haunted Happening had games, food, pictures, costume contest, and trick-or-treating.  

I was the greeter for the first haunted house.  Families would walk my way, and I would offer to give them a tour of our "less scary" haunted house.  I had a lot of time to talk to families about costumes, their involvement with camp, and their ideas about the community because we had a bit of a line at some points in the night.  One of the youth leaders (the first one we picked up Friday night) offered to be the tour guide even though she was not part of our group originally.  She would take the group to meet "Bobo" the clown in the first room where there was a haunted circus theme.  We played Halloween music through a speaker system provided by a youth and using my iPod.  The next room was padded with mattresses.  The youth in this room was pretty scary when he jumped out behind the padding.  The next room had a doll theme.  We had the tour guide begin by saying, "There was once a lady who couldn't have kids so she became a witch and brought her dolls to life..."  Inside the "doll room" were two very alive dolls in perfect little dresses and pigtails.  The only light was a nightlight and the only movement was from the youth's mouths as they sat dressed as dolls singing creepy songs.  There was a fog machine clouding the air and stuffed animals lining the floor.  The next room had a vampire theme, a tunnel, a dead body, chains slapping wood, and a couple excellently prepared vampires.  There was a bunkbed to crawl through to escape the house.  The kids did an AWESOME job of putting on a show for about 8 large groups of families.  Each time a group went through, there was a different level of scariness.  Several screams were heard, and a few smaller kids decided to get out while they were still in the first part.  We had a lighted house when kids came through for trick-or-treating.  We were all still in costume.  I handed out candy through some arm-holes carved out of a tarp.  Creepy!  Clean-up was exhausting, and it took all my energy to keep people on-task.  I was working just as hard to get everything put away in time for the next activity.  We all met in the Peace Center for a movie (Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull).  I had the chance to tell the whole group that I was incredibly proud of the work they did for the Haunted Happening.  I was especially happy with my group for being so cooperative, open to new ideas, quick to clean-up, and responsible.  I had a blast!  The movie was cut short because everyone, including vampires, was soooo tired.  We crashed out in our respective cabins, woke up for breakfast, did some more cleaning, and broke out into two groups.  One group talked about "what I want out of follow-ups" and the other group did an activity with Tim about the conduct that makes leaders "good."  Surprisingly, most of the youths would like to do more community service at follow-ups.  They ALSO want to learn foreign languages and have reading and math tutoring.  I was on transport by myself afterward.  I got to talk with one of my new favorite youth leaders for about an hour on the way to her house.  The weekend was a HUGE success.