Job with the highest stress and lowest pay!

WOW! I am darn proud to be holding a job that has the highest stress and lowest pay!!

Check this out: Jobs With The Highest Stress For The Lowest Pay

WHEEEE!!!!

Crying

I'm learning to be comfortable with my clients crying.

Maybe I need to be comfortable with myself crying.

Pink Housefly

It's been a while since I last updated my blog - I was enjoying myself too much doing nothing constructive for one month, which I consider a luxury in this time and age. I almost felt guilty indulging in it for so long, while my peers and friends around me were all doing their part to contribute to the gloomy economy. Almost, hiahiahia!

So yes, if you have not heard about it, I have resigned, gone for more than enough interviews to pick a job I really like and eventually started work on 1 Sept. It's been one week since I rejoined the ranks of being a social worker and I must say I am enjoying every single bit of it! It is just about the closest I have gotten to becoming a social worker. No more an operations supervisor, no more a houseparent and no more taking of temperature and most importantly, no more working under a stupid boss!! I now have proper supervision, physical and emotional boundaries from my clients, professional casefiles and templates, pilot G1 pens to use, staff pass (no keys!) and counseling rooms with nice cosy sofa and orange lighting! Life rocks to the core man! 

My senior social worker allocated a BPC case on my first day of work. It came as a surprise really, I was expecting to nua my time away making new friends and surveying the neighbourhood for good eats. Turns out, they do actually have a SOP file for the social work department! I know its a no brainer but my previous workplace did not really have that you see. To date, I have 3 cases under my belt and more to come I reckon. Along the way I have already conducted sessions with them and had my supervision and training. I currently feel I am under good hands, and deservingly so.

Today, while researching for one of my sessions, I chanced upon an art therapy material and it says something about art being a symbolic communication avenue, an expression of people's feelings and emotions and in no way it should be judged. It made me recall one incident in kindergarten when I coloured a housefly pink, thinking it was creative and nice and pretty and cute. In retrospect, maybe I was too impatient to wait for my classmate to finish using the brown/black crayons. To make up for it, I took great pains to colour it and made sure it was coloured within the lines. When I handed in the masterpiece, my teacher scolded me for it!! He said "Have you ever seen a PINK HOUSEFLY?!?!" He made me feel so embarrassed in front of the whole class that I ran into the toilet to cry. 

And maybe that one off 'traumatic' incident sparked the onset of my defence mechanism whenever people judge or criticise me. It probably also triggered me to do things swee swee and not be subjected to criticisms as far as possible, which is a good thing to come out of it=)

E18hteen Chefs!

For the uninitiated, Eighteen Chefs is a cafe sort of cosy little restaurant set up by Benny Se Teo, the restaurant's head chef, who is the only Singaporean to have trained at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen London kitchen.  Now, those who are familiar with Fifteen will know that JO takes on delinquents off the streets and train them to become chefs managing his restaurant. I am an avid fan of JO and his 15 TV series, so imagine my excitement when I chanced upon 18Chefs! My  boyfriend and I went to the newly opened Yishun10 outlet (just beside Northpoint), thinking it was just another middle range sort of western restaurant - one level below the likes of Swensens and Billy Bombers. 

We strongly recommend that you give it a try!!

Here are some pictures we took!

Nice pictures of the chef when he was training in London.

Artistic picture of one of the chefs.

I loved the cement kind of industrial look! Gives it a strong and hardy kind of character, just like youths!

Crispy garlic bread with my half consumed pumpkin soup ( it was too good to hold back any longer!) I love it when they serve garlic bread with soup! They are best buds don't you think so? =)

Root beer battered fish and chips! OMG! This was wayyyyy better than I imagined it to be! The fish was so fresh and moist on the inside, it literally breaks and falls apart once you cut it open. The batter was superrrrr crispy with a tinge of sweetness to it (due to the root beer?). The chips are very potatoey.. so I dun think they are those frozen kind? Not too sure though but I just hate processed food. And the home made tar tar sauce is to die for laaaa! Oh and comes in a generous serving as well! Finished every bit of it! Yummmyyy! 

All for only $13.90 - comes with soup, garlic bread and ice cream!!

Spicy tomato minced beef baked cheese rice was my bf's choice as it was their signature dish. The cheese, omg the CHEEEEEESSEEEE!!! It stretches like 15cm longgg? Gosh! I swear its even better than Swensens' baked rice! I'm serious!! My bf was drooling over it even on his way back!

=) $7.50 ONLY! Its wayyyyy too cheap for such a good dish!

Simple classic dessert to top it off! Sweet.

For me, this was more than just a dinner as I always have a soft spot for youths and delinquents. Contrary to popular belief, I feel this bunch of people in the middle of the developmental spectrum are very vulnerable in their own way - on one hand, they are not protected by the ignorance of a child to make mistakes, on the other hand, they lack the maturity of an adult to be making sound and right decisions! They are pretty much in a state of liminality and without proper guidance (often lousy parenting, sad to say), they can really get into all sorts of trouble! Seeing the youths at the restaurant serving us and cooking up a storm really sent a warm fuzzy feeling deep down within me. They remind me that people do make mistakes and people do come good, if the support is there and if they want to. It further reinforced my belief and conviction in what I do in my line of work. Yes, they may be wearing skinnys half revealing their butt, yes, they have interesting hairstyles covering half their faces, yes they may take more smoking breaks than others and yes, they may be covered in tattoos but really, who are we to judge them? At least their service was good and the food great! Will definitely return and even bring more friends there to create awareness about the good cause!

CHEERS to E18HTEEN CHEFS!!!

Find out more about E18hteen Chefs right here:

http://www.eighteenchefs.com

HUH? Social Workers got study University one ah!?!?

Children and youths I work with often express surprise when I tell them that one has to be a degree holder to be a social worker! Well, I guess there are two ways of seeing this. One, we social workers don't look tooooo smart, at least to them. Or two, social workers are so darn good in building rapport and communicating at their level, that, well, they think we ARE at their level. I would prefer to believe in the latter! haha! 

Which brings me to the next point, how are social workers portrayed to the public (at least in Singapore)?

We grew up reading in books and learning in school what teachers, doctors, nurses, and even astronauts do; we often see on TV lawyers, politicians, fire fighters and businessmen doing their thing; I mean, heck, even police officers and the rag and bone man have more 'airtime' than us along the streets and neighbourhood! Question is, how many people actually have actually met, must less worked with a social worker? For the record, last I heard, there are 600+ social workers in Singapore and that's for a 4 million population! Add to the fact clients whom social workers work with are usually of the lower income and education profile, who is gonna help us publicise the work we do to attract more people into the profession and if I may be more ambitious, as least correctly describe the work we do? I even see in newspaper articles the term 'social workers' being used interchangeably with 'volunteers'! 

So, to all my dear non-social work friends who are reading this blog, what is your impression of a social worker prior to what I have told you?

My Firsts..

OK, so I'd been a social worker for almost 2 years already. As I reflect upon my career thus far, I thought it would be quite meaningful to recall my many many firsts... so here goes!

My first ...

>Namecard! 

Finally! I'm a social worker! no more social work student/intern/attachment student/observer etc. The day I have been looking forward to since I chose social work as my major=)

>Client, I mean TWO!

After spending one month around the home getting to know the residents (you'll never know which cases you'll be allocated so it pays to be nice to everyone), staff, operations matters, and basically doing nothing, I was allocated 2 cases at one go! I remember reading through the case files scrutinizing every bit of the social report attached to it, drawing genograms and ecomaps diligently and of course planned for my first session with the child! And I am actually quite proud to say that up to this day, although I have been tasked 30-40 over cases, I still feel quite excited when a new case is being allocated to me. I choose to see that as my passion for my cases are still there, which is really good because I've seen too many social workers who just simply lost it. Yeah to me! 

>Home Visit

Home visits are a must to assess the family's physical living environment before we are able to release the residents on home leave. This one was not exactly a home visit but it was actually the workplace of one of my clients whom the whole family spends almost the entire day at. I remember I was quite affected after this visit, because I saw for the first time a heart wrecking medical condition of the younger sister of my client. Nothing I have seen before and as I am typing this, the images are still fresh and vivid in my mind. Thankfully things are getting better for the family now. A very very resilient family that I have learnt alot from, really.

>Family Session

I have only facilitated one family session on my own so far and that was a supervision session when I was doing my second placement. I remember that as a nerve wrecking, emotionally draining experience although I spent alot of time speaking to my field placement supervisor and even role played the session. I was glad this one went very well, and my objective was achieved at the end of the session. Parents and child were very cooperative and it made me happy! 

>Court report and presentation

This was 10 times more nerve wrecking than a family session! I have never ever spoken to a Magistrate/Judge before and I totally did not know what to expect! I did up my report that was half heartedly vetted by my then senior social worker (who was crap really) and she did not even change a single word! -_- It happened that I had to attend the court hearing because one of my clients reoffended and the police had pressed charges against him so he had to be breached. It was the last case of the day as Ministry's Officers usually present their cases first. By the time I went in, my heart was in my mouth and my hands were numb (partially because of the air con as well). I briefly gave a background of the case and before I could delve deeper, the judge took to our recommendation and we eventually took the child back on a fresh order. I had hardly spoken a few sentences though! But I survived! PHEW! Subsequent cases were much easier, as I know what the judge and the panelists look out for so I'll just go straight to the point!

>Paycheck! 

$$$$$ I treated my parents to some restaurant but I cant really recall which one. Its good to have $$$ though.

>Visit to to Singapore Boys' Home

This was such a longggg ride from my workplace! I had to visit one of my cases who was on remand there so that I could formulate the report based on my assessment. The security is much tighter than the institution I work at as it is a closed institution with Cisco Officers taking care of the residents. I had to go through a few security checkpoints and walk past the open area for the boys' physical exercises and drills before I reach the counselling room. And OMG I felt so visually raped! There were whistles and teasing from the boys but I guess the boys were just being friendly and cheeky. These days, some of the residents there were transferred from where I work so they usually take the initiative to say Hi, which is really nice. 

>Visit to Changi Prison

This was really an eye opener. In fact I feel privileged to be able to visit the prison and have inmates sharing their stories to our residents to deter them from reoffending. The part that left the greatest impact on me was how small the cells were and the video on the caning!! I swear I had recurring nightmares on the whip and butt that was split!! 10000000 x OUCH!

>Discharge case=)

I actually thought I will be overjoyed? But it wasn't as overwhelming as I thought it might be. Maybe because my first discharge case was co-managed by a ministry worker so technically speaking it was just half of my case. Nevertheless, a discharge is a discharge especially when there are so many residents who cannot curb their temptation for freedom and fun that they eventually end up being breached and transferred to a stricter institution. That said, nowadays, I value alot more on the process of my case management with my clients than whether they eventually discharge or not. I feel that when positive changes, no matter how small are evoked along the way, things will fall into place come discharge. I will have the faith that I have done my best and the residents reintegrated with their families are able to function better than before, and that is fulfilling enough for me=)

Fallen. 

Alone.

Unmotivated.

Damn.

Where to now?

Social Work Murder

For those who have not heard or read about it, Brenda Lee Yeager, a social worker, was tragically killed in the line of duty in August 2008. She was making a home visit to a family she was working with to check on the status of the child. I was struggling to hold back my tears as I read the articles and more so, the public's comments to them. I could so connect with the job she does, having made numerous late night home visits alone myself, and at times even unannounced, to spot check the children or family I work with. There is always chance you'd walk into potential danger like domestic violence, drunk clients or even verbally abusive clients in our context.

Singapore is a fairly safe place I must say, but I've learnt to take my own precautions nevertheless - the last thing I want is for my parents to lose a daughter with money in her bank account barely sufficient to last them for a year! Hah! Jokes aside, I'm thankful that a short stint in University whereby I had to interview ex-drug addicts and ex-prisoners taught me some valuable tactics in terms of protecting myself when conducting home visits. Now before I start a session in the home, I'd usually ask to leave the door unlocked especially in cases whereby its only me and a male client in the home, stating it's my company's policy. I will always talk in the living room and never in their private bedrooms. And I will always request to sit nearer to the door for obvious safety reasons. As I make my way to the home, usually a HDB flat, I will also remember the route back to the lift lobby/staircase (some HDB layout very terok! go in circles one! plus I have a horrible sense of direction!!), just in case things get ugly and I need to run for my life! Another one is that I will not even start the session if I sense the client to be under the influence of alcohol or seemed overly agitated/violent. Luckily most of the families I work with are rather nice and such extreme cases have not happened to me (and I hope they never will!).

Of hand, there are 2 situations I could recall that had me a bit concerned, but I still had them under my control. The first one was a family session in a counselling room at the Home with a set of parents and their child. The child was residing with us so the parents came after work and dinner. Initially I did not really take notice of the Father's bloodshot eyes as I led the parents to the room, until I turned on the lights. Still I thought nothing much of it, until Father's reaction to my questions seemed a bit delayed and uncharacteristically short. It was until the smell of alcohol surfaced that I suspected Father might have had some drinks before the session. However, I carried on with that session because I assessed Father was not in any particularly violent mode (he was probably the quiet, dazed drunkard, as opposed to the high, violent kind) and there were another 2 people in the session with me.

The other one wasnt exactly risky; let's just say it was a very uncomfortable situation. I had to do late night surprise home visits to this particular family after curfew hours to spot check on the status of the child. Think after 11pm. They stay in a messier environment so there was this coffeeshop just downstairs and the time I end the session usually coincides with the time when the uncles come out for their neverending rounds of drinks. And every single time I walk pass them I feel visually raped=( haha ok well, maybe that's just me but stilllllll.......... it's uncomfortable! I wouldnt even go near such places if given a choice can!

And so, I do not recall my workplace sending me for any safety related courses, neither have I been briefed about them. I do not carry with me any safety devices except on rainy days when I have my umbrella! I do not think my male colleagues would want to accompany me late into the night for home visits; as if they don't have theirs to do. And I don't suppose I can visit families in the day when they will most likely be working. I also don't suppose there are/will be any active steps taken by SASW or any of our governing bodies to protect us on that.

So yeah. I will still continue to make my late night home visits alone with my cell and brolly at hand, try to improve my sense of direction and maybe go running a bit more often. And of course rely on my bf and buddies to alert the police when they cant get me after a stipulated time. TIA!