Life continues to be hectic at the Eau Claire Academy. I was once again offered a promotion at work, which I had to turn down due to leaving the country shortly after graduation. I was offered a more than full-time permanent position complete with benefits, effective immediately or upon graduation. The interesting part was that it was offered to me on the exact day I came in armed with my official resignation letter, complete with last date of employment. My boss came in and stated that she was not trying to badger me into anything and was not trying to change my future plans, but that she had been authorized to give me another promotion with a salaried position. The offer came completely by surprise and I was very flattered to be given the opportunity. I politely declined the offer and gave her my resignation letter. She seemed genuinely disappointed but congratulated me on my move none the less.
Her offer made me reflect upon the work I am doing there. It seems that every time I get wrapped up in my work or stressed out then something happens to lift my spirits and remind me of the quality of the work I am doing. It is nice to know that my hard work and concentration has been noticed by others in the facility to the point where I was rewarded for it. It makes the past few weeks a bit easier to digest. In addition to notification by my co-workers at the ECA, I have been receiving verbal recognition from agency workers and parents of my clients. This is also a small way that my work has been recognized.
During the chaos of the past few weeks it has been easy to see the downfalls of working in a residential treatment facility of that caliber. It has been interesting to watch how my colleges have coped with the changes in dynamics in the building. Some of them have begun to isolate themselves to become more focused, others have reached out to one another, a few have taken personal days, and a couple have become a bit less patient with co-workers. This has been a good thing for me to reflect upon because it has given me the chance to see how each of these options has impacted the clinical team. A downfall of this chaos has been the stretching of the already limited resources available to the ECA. With the kids in such emotional distress, it has been difficult to pool resources enough to get them de-escalated and stabilized. Direct care staff has taken the hardest hit in this area due to the increase in client incidents left to be handled largely by this group of people. Unfortunately, these are typically the least trained individuals and the ones most likely to get impatient with the clients when they let the behavior of the client affect them on a personal level.
It has been such an interesting experience at the ECA due to the many opportunities they have given me to learn and grow as a professional. It is strange to think that now that I am completely comfortable and settled that I will have to soon begin transitioning out. It will be a good thing to move on to bigger and better things in a new country full of another large learning curve to get over. I have certainly learned a lot about working in this profession already and look forward to the transitioning process so that I can feel I have come full circle in the course of a year at my site.
