It's week three in lovely NY and I'm starting to earn more and more responsibilities such as writing the progress notes, co-plan groups, complete client interviews/assesments, and as of recent plan groups! Well today I got to plan the Friday afternoon group! I decided on planning Minute to Win it Games and I came up with 8 challenges. I spent basically my entire lunch hour planning and setting up for this. So its time to set up the group. I had visions of the kids jumping and cheering and working hard on these challenging activities and excitement in the room! I was hope for laughter and fun through out the group and wonderful discussion at the end.
I had the room all set-up, I was a little late getting everything ready but the kids were flexible with me. we had three kids not attend. One was in the comfort room playing guitar (allowed to calm nerves, distract from thoughts, prevent harming actions for he had schizophrenia), one was asleep because he was on a med.holiday (completely stop all medications for 4+ days), and the other was talking about safety plans with her counselor (shes important so we will name her Ashley). So my group was 5 not including the activity assistant, the nurse and my supervisor. Well the first 2 challenges were funny, entertaining, and really hard but they stuck with them even when we had to stop because of time. Ashley arrived after the second game and I thought she would love to jump right in to the activity. So i told her what we are doing and asked her to draw a number. Well as I asked her if she wanted to draw a number she growled at me. I told her "you dont have to play if you dont want to" but she said she will continue. So the teams challenge was for one person to try to keep three balloons in the air for one min. No more than 10 seconds after I said start, Ashley dropped the balloon, said "I give up" and stormed out of the room yelling "I hate these F____ H____!" and other loud profanities. The other kids and I did not hear this because another team mate decided to try and they started to go again. I could not leave the room and check on her. That is the job of the activity assistants. Sadly I had to discover the the distress tolerance level of Ashley first. Oh and apparently, during my explanation of the challenge, Ashley was resting her head on her hand with her middle finger up like Simon did from American Idol! i would have ignored it anywho and honestly it makes me laugh!
From the beginning of group before Ashley arrived and after she left, the challenges were frustrating to the group and those trying to complete the tasks. So I was able to connect my processing questions to what are some ways to handle frustrating situations. Questions which required considering what happened and how could have it been handled differently. The kids in the end, though all stated they were angry and frustrated at one point loved the activities and asked we could leave them up for them to continue to practice/try.
So from this group I learned a lot about myself, the group im working with, and also planning considerations. I although my intentions of including her were good, I should have let her watch the craziness of the challenges and how ppl handled their frustrations. I also learned that games that produce heart racing, time-beating, skill needing actions need to be proceeded with caution... My supervisor told me not to take anything Ashley said personally, she unknowing to us was already mad because of her meeting with her counselor, but that can be hard. When sitting through her initial client assessment, Ashley seemed like she could be a sweet girl and not so violent. I was slightly mad in myself for being the one to push her over the edge and I do long for her not to hate me and to have a good rapport with her, but I can not bog myself down with personal thoughts like that. The purpose of the group was to learn how to handle emotions/stressful situations. I haven't seen Ashley since because it was a Friday afternoon. I hope for the best when she sees me Tues. morning....
I had the room all set-up, I was a little late getting everything ready but the kids were flexible with me. we had three kids not attend. One was in the comfort room playing guitar (allowed to calm nerves, distract from thoughts, prevent harming actions for he had schizophrenia), one was asleep because he was on a med.holiday (completely stop all medications for 4+ days), and the other was talking about safety plans with her counselor (shes important so we will name her Ashley). So my group was 5 not including the activity assistant, the nurse and my supervisor. Well the first 2 challenges were funny, entertaining, and really hard but they stuck with them even when we had to stop because of time. Ashley arrived after the second game and I thought she would love to jump right in to the activity. So i told her what we are doing and asked her to draw a number. Well as I asked her if she wanted to draw a number she growled at me. I told her "you dont have to play if you dont want to" but she said she will continue. So the teams challenge was for one person to try to keep three balloons in the air for one min. No more than 10 seconds after I said start, Ashley dropped the balloon, said "I give up" and stormed out of the room yelling "I hate these F____ H____!" and other loud profanities. The other kids and I did not hear this because another team mate decided to try and they started to go again. I could not leave the room and check on her. That is the job of the activity assistants. Sadly I had to discover the the distress tolerance level of Ashley first. Oh and apparently, during my explanation of the challenge, Ashley was resting her head on her hand with her middle finger up like Simon did from American Idol! i would have ignored it anywho and honestly it makes me laugh!
From the beginning of group before Ashley arrived and after she left, the challenges were frustrating to the group and those trying to complete the tasks. So I was able to connect my processing questions to what are some ways to handle frustrating situations. Questions which required considering what happened and how could have it been handled differently. The kids in the end, though all stated they were angry and frustrated at one point loved the activities and asked we could leave them up for them to continue to practice/try.
So from this group I learned a lot about myself, the group im working with, and also planning considerations. I although my intentions of including her were good, I should have let her watch the craziness of the challenges and how ppl handled their frustrations. I also learned that games that produce heart racing, time-beating, skill needing actions need to be proceeded with caution... My supervisor told me not to take anything Ashley said personally, she unknowing to us was already mad because of her meeting with her counselor, but that can be hard. When sitting through her initial client assessment, Ashley seemed like she could be a sweet girl and not so violent. I was slightly mad in myself for being the one to push her over the edge and I do long for her not to hate me and to have a good rapport with her, but I can not bog myself down with personal thoughts like that. The purpose of the group was to learn how to handle emotions/stressful situations. I haven't seen Ashley since because it was a Friday afternoon. I hope for the best when she sees me Tues. morning....
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