Behavioral Intervention

Yesterday, Mom and I attended Behavioral Intervention 3 and 4 (she wants to be my respite provider and also needs hours for her job as a preschool teacher). The material is all new as of October 1st, and I think they mixed Discipline 101 in with BI3, which means I've had it twice this year. *shrugs*

Differences between CPS and Bair--Bair actually taught us techniques to protect ourselves from things like hair pulls and choking. We are permitted to use two types of restraints--the Bear Hug and the Escort--if all attempts to deescalate the child has failed and they pose a danger to themselves or others. This, of course, must be documented (there's a Physical Restraint form) and will probably trigger a review of the child's individual service plan to see if there are other interventions that could be put in place to prevent future rages.

With CPS, the only restraint they would tolerate was a brief restraint (less than 1 minute) of a child under 5, which is basically grabbing a toddler to keep them from running into traffic.

I understand CPS is trying to phase out restraints all together because when done improperly, they can kill kids, but at the same time, I am inviting unknown and potentially volatile children into my home and would like to have methods to protect myself and anyone else in the household.

And I don't appreciate being lied to.

The other thing I like about Bair is the support they are promising (and really, I expect them to follow through with) for the foster families. We are encouraged to take respite (when my FAD worker asked how I would have dealt with my car accident had I had children in my home and I mentioned probably using respite days, she was clearly not happy with that) and to call our Social Services Worker for assistance. They have a foster mom who did have a child who did need restrained (and was eventually classified as Intensive and moved to a different agency to get the care he needed), and she would call her SSW after incidents to hash out what happened and brainstorm ways to improve her response next time. I always got voicemails and never a return call when I had a question with CPS. 

It's not that I think that CPS is bad, but they are viciously overworked and underfunded (Governor Perry, I'm looking at you). As anyone who knew me during my years at my old job, you can only stay passionate about something for so long under those conditions before you burn out. 

The fact that both Bair (about the half the Texas offices are on a placement hold until December, including Houston) and I have been getting calls from CPS asking if we have beds open probably means that their (and the judges') post-budget cut plan of sticking as many children as humanly possible into kinship care (care by relatives) is not working out as well as they had hoped. In some cases, it's appropriate, but kids were being placed with relatives who had felony records, who had histories of their own with CPS, etc.--people CPS would never in a million years approve as foster parents. Hebe and Thor were taken from my house screaming and sobbing because the father who had been granted custody was a "drug junkie".

Ana and Tim

Two older children who I'd seen listed on Reece's Rainbow are being adopted by the same American family.  To fall in love with the two of them (unrelated but living in the same orphanage) and then to find out that they're going to be brother and sister made my night.  I've already left a note to their soon-to-be-parents on the parents' blog.  I wish I had someone with me right now--I would seize their hands and spin them jumping in a circle.

Psalm 34: 4-7

I prayed to the Lord, and he
answered me;
he freed me from all my fears.
The oppressed look to him and
are glad;
they will never be
disappointed.
The helpless call to him, and he
answers;
he saves them from all their
troubles.
His angel guards those who
honor the Lord
and rescues them from danger.


In other news, Hope and Hannah have both been profiled on SCH's 105 in 105 sponsorship drive, which means new pictures of my beautiful Indian girls.

Hannah (age 13) at the beach

Hope (age 14)

According to the Indian government, I'm too young to adopt and they are too old to be adopted, but that can't stop me from loving them from afar, can it?

Fire inspection tomorrow--one step closer to be paper-ready!

I come alive as summer dies

It is currently 82F outside, and I just came in from gardening with sweat rolling down my back.  Can we be done with summer please?  I much prefer the fall and winter.  I grew up in the Midwest where the snow piled up from the end of the October into April.  We had blizzards on my brother's May birthday some years.

This is the bush growing on the side of the garage.  I'm not sure when it showed up...last time I paid attention, there were just some dead twigs there.  A convenient place to dump bags of yard trash until I could fit them in the can.  The morning glory vines have climbed into the backyard, making a rather ugly corner into something beautiful.  I spent twenty minutes ripping them and the vines with the white flowers that creeping across the ground out.  My poor garden globe wasn't working because they grew completely over its solar panel.  I freed it and jabbed it in the ground where it will get to warm itself in direct sunlight for the entire afternoon.

Showers, when you are filthy and stink so bad you can smell yourself, are glorious things.  Living alone means I can wander around the house in a giant t-shirt and underpants.  Though I long for the days when I have people living with me again so I have to at least add shorts to the ensemble before leaving the bedroom/bathroom.

Joined a new church--Cypress Trails UMC.  It's tiny and old and their attendance goal for the two Sunday services combined is only 150 people.  It's usually me and 25-30 elderly people at the 08:30 service.  It's good to sing the hymns I learned as a child again.

Working on my autobiography for The Bair Foundation.  It's supposed to be 4-10 pages.  I'm at 6, but that's with pictures added.  There's so much I need to do--get my fire inspection done (by an actual inspector this time, not just a social worker), get fingerprinted, finish this mountain of paperwork.  I've been running a little ragged these past two weeks, so there hasn't been much forward momentum.

I hate writing about myself.  It's my least favorite subject, lol.

Currently, the dogs are curled up asleep in their bed, Leia snoring away (she had distemper as a puppy and the fallout was that she now snores like a bandsaw despite only being 20 lbs).  You'd think they'd been the ones yanking out vines.

Turns out that I do get time off this year--two floating holidays and a week's vacation--it just isn't being reflected on my paychecks, which means another fight with payroll.  (The company I work for is so large that payroll is contracted out.)  I wish I had known sooner so I could have gone to work at Pine Ridge before Re-member shut down for the winter.  Maybe next fall.  Depending on when my KAM can squeeze in my week off, I'm thinking about flying up to Ohio.  See Grandmom, visit Bowling Green, spend some time in a place where the backs of my knees won't sweat.