Friday

No one is happy at work right now.

There are so many emotions happening that are just hard to navigate. Kids are upset because they are not going home. Kids are happy because they are going home. Kids are jealous because their peers are going home and they are not. Behavioral Health Technicians (BHTs) are angry because teachers get a five-day weekend, and they have to work the holiday. Teachers are just trying to get to that holiday. There is no sense of team or working together right now.

I do not know, at any given moment, who will be coming into my sessions these days. The BHTs I am expecting are just not with the groups I expect them to be in. It is hard to navigate constant changes while still trying to come up with therapeutic enrichment for clients. Things work so much easier when the BHTs know the students really well rather than coming in and not knowing things like typical responses or communication styles...

Oof.

This is a rough time for everyone involved in education, but when you are also an educator in a psychiatric residential treatment facility, the behaviors of concern are significantly increased with the holiday season. I am just tired, but I don't think the exhaustion is entirely mine. Does that make sense?

On this Friday (just like every Friday), I have two groups. One is a typical music therapy group and the other is a leisure free-for-all. I do not have much client interaction which is helpful. I have my designated planning/preparation time on Fridays which allows me to be away from much of the angst that is going on. I can listen to music or clean something. I need to make my storage/office space a bit more HVAC friendly as the controls for the entire system appear to be in my ceiling. The maintenance folks have smooshed my desk space in significantly over the past couple of weeks, and I need a bit more space to move. So, I will move things around before loading up the folding table that I bought in 1999 for interns to use as their desks. Moving that table out of my storage area will make space for the things that I need to move away from my desk.

That's the plan for today. Not really a fun Friday, but a Friday nonetheless.

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