Week 3 and 4 at Harbor Family Services

I seem to have missed a week so I guess I will just talk about 2 weeks in 1 post.  Week 3 was my first week working with some of the female residents who live at another one of the locations the company operates.  This one was in Winterport, and was a very different experience.  Within an hour of arriving there I had to deal with an assault between two residents.  It was hard to deal with since there was only two of us there.  The procedure when dealing with this type of situation is separate the two and than talk to them one at a time, to get both versions of what happened.  This time what happened was one resident was being picked on because her family abandoned her, and she lashed out.  After than when more staff arrived the full time staff do what is called a Life Space Interview to talk about what happened and what would be a better way to handle the situation.  After that the day was pretty quiet, took a few residents to the bangor waterfront and skipped some rocks in the river, and than just played some basketball.  The rest of the week wasn't anymore eventful, it all seemed condensed into that one day.
   Each week seems to bring something unique to the table.  This week there was a trip to funtown/splashtown in saco.  I was a little worried about going to such a crowded place with the boys, but they surprised me with a really fun and uneventful day, trying some new slides, and making some great memories.  It was really nice to see them have a really good day, as opposed to some of the behaviors they had before, such as running away when they got stressed, this time they just worried about having a good time.  There is now one less resident at the Rockport I location, since one has now been released and is back at home.  This does not mean the job of the staff is over yet. When a resident is discharged, there are still required regular visits, to make sure they they stick to the good behaviors they exhibited while they were living at the house.  This is also true for any visit that is longer than one day.  I believe this is a great idea, because the kids need to learn that the same good behavior is expected of them after they leave the care of harbor family services.