Seven Work Days Until Thanksgiving Break...

Whoo, boy!

I think this year, more than any, has been overly full of stress and issues. Last year, at this time, we were three days away from going into no contact with clients at all as COVID-19 finally developed in my residential clientele. We went into going into work two days per week (without seeing clients) and three days from home. I had two interns and had to scramble to find things for us to do at home to earn their hours and my salary. We ended up making tons of visual aids, writing lots of Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs), and starting our YouTube Channel at that time. This year, the stresses are not as COVID related, but the virus is still wreaking havoc on my small facility and what we can do for our clients and on the staff members who are having to continue to pivot how things are done over and over again.

The biggest problem with this situation is that everyone is feeling the same things. You go down the road to the local fast food place, and you will find the same sort of staffing issues, lack of ability to give clients what they need, and continuous changes in how they have to do things to accommodate this reality. It doesn't really matter if you are in human services or a trade or in an office - we are all in the same sort of boat - one that is barely sea worthy.

This break is not going to be enough to make things better at work. That is obvious. We are short-staffed across all shifts in all service areas. Since we fund our services through client acceptances, we are losing money because we do not have enough staff members to supervise our clients so we have to accept fewer and fewer clients to the facility. We have an admissions freeze for the next two months until we try really hard to get people to stay in a job where they are hit and bit and yelled at almost the entire shift. Everyday. This job is not for the faint of heart, that is for sure!

I am trying to keep myself together enough to do music therapy for the next several days. I'm struggling with being overwhelmed and stressed and time crunched and very fragile emotionally due to all this stuff happening, and I am exhausted. Every session ends up being a challenge - not because of clients, but because of very young, very inexperienced staff members. I don't have time to tell my co-workers what to do, but it is getting to the point where I have to in order to get any of my things finished. I may just have to stop client treatment to do staff training - just to have to do it all over again when those staff quit and new ones come in (probably next week).

Wow. My positivity thing is REALLY not working at the moment. I am being sucked into negativity, and I hate this feeling. Let me see if I can figure out something positive about this current situation.

Okay.

We are still having staff issues with COVID, but none of my clients are actively showing symptoms, so we believe we are COVID-free in our client populations. Staff members are getting their booster shots today. That means people will be out tomorrow, but not me. (I have to go in regardless of how I feel. I am taking Friday off to move into my new house, so I have to be around the rest of this week.) We do not have the hassles of getting to know new students at the moment, so we have some opportunities to find our pecking orders in previously struggling peer interactions. Our students can find their ways into relationships with each other without the challenge of throwing new people in to the mix. We are still discharging students, which means that we will have a bit more space for the currently overly challenged staff members to breathe a bit. 

What are some other positive thoughts?

We are going to play Orff instruments this week. Some of my clients will engage in assembling the instruments. Others will just play. It will be a week of pentatonic improvisation and mystery songs. We will use the bass bars, the bass xyls and metallophones, the altos, and the sopranos. I will try to reinforce the concept that all music is part of the same system - if you play a C on a bass bar, it will go well with a C on the soprano glockenspiel. We will see if it all works together in a way that makes sense to my students. (Wow, side note - Word does NOT like most of the words for instruments that I have used in this paragraph. What's up, Word??) We are going to create some music - I may even come up with some thankful chants to incorporate into our improvisations.

More positive thoughts to chase the overwhelm away...

My students seem to be mostly happy about what we are sharing in the music therapy room. The ones that are not are the ones that are not happy in other places as well, so I am not getting too upset about them opting out of engagement. Music is working as a mood vectoring tool for many of my clients during the sessions. We are becoming more of a unit (from my perspective, anyway) than we have been in a very long time. This is something that I really love - getting to know my clients better during every session.

This is helping. There are seven work days until Thanksgiving break. I will try my best to make these days consistent, creative, and supportive for my clients and fellow co-workers. I will forgive my mistakes and accept them as a part of the human being that I am. I will listen to the sounds and comments and music that surrounds me with an ear towards bringing clients what they need in the moments that we spend together.

Seven days. Sigh...I can't stop to think now, it will become overwhelming again if I do. Happy Monday, all.