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Originally Posted by rambler2014
If there are mental health professionals on this board, I would appreciate some advice!
I recently accepted a job working in a crisis center. I'm a counseling and development student. My position is to, more or less, tide over a mixed group of adults (with various issues severely affecting their lives) from Friday to Monday when they can reconnect with counselors and social workers. I do some group; mostly affirmations and light coping skills with a general focus. I also check in with each person and just overall enforce the rules of the facility.
I'm particularly having problems expressing any kind of authority. I'm new and the consumers are not. I had four days of observation and now I work 12 hour shifts alone whereas before there was no one to do this job and there's resistance to having structured weekends. There seems a delicate balance of applying enough pressure to enforce the rules while not going so far as to exacerbate anxiety or authority issues in the consumers and having to call a more experienced person in on their days off.
A new job takes some time to get accustomed to, but I don't feel I'm being incredibly effective and I don't have experience to fall back on. Any tips for a mental health worker seeking to get more comfortable and develop the necessary skills to do this kind of work for life???
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here in the city we deal with all kinds of issues, from drugs and alcohol to crimes like rape and domestic violence, and all types of mental disorders.
when we have groups we treat our clients like the adults they are, not like children that must constantly be reminded, or punished. we all go in to the groups with a definite plan, how that plan is going to be discussed and we leave very little spare time where someone who may be high, drunk or impaired by their mental problem to derail the group or cause problems.
the first session is always handout of the rules...basic common courtesy stuff..no drugs, alcohol or weapons, keep profanity to a minimum (hey we live in a major city where even a child is not free from seeing profanity style graffiti, songs.... or hearing or on occasion using profanity so we dont bother with saying none at all, who hasnt at one time or another said oh....
anyway my point is we make the rules fit the type of people we have while at the same time keeping everyone safe.
we dont even spend a lot of time reviewing the rules. we just open the class with ok lets get the formal BS out of the way first thing, here are the rules they are pretty self explainitory, if theres something on there that you dont understand see me after group. this group is ....today we will be talking about.... (this is with the educational groups)
with the support groups we go in welcome everyone with the rules hand out and again state what the group is for so that everyone in the room is in the right place at the right time. them we let things flow naturally. our support type groups are where anyone can talk about anything on the subject that we are there to meet about, everyone is free to come and go as they please, no one is forced to attend the groups. we assume everyone there is there because they want to be and should a problem arise where it seems like someone doesnt want to be there or is there to pick a fight with other members we check in with them right then an there about why they are there and whether they really want to be there or not, you know kind of like here on psych central the rule is if theres a post that is triggering you, you have the options to protect yourself by not taking part in the discussion or even reading that post. we treat our clients like that, if they dont like something someone has said they have the choice of leaving or staying and trying to understand that everyone has their own points of view and not everyone is going to like everything that goes on in the group.
even though we are a major city (NY) we dont get trouble with adults trying to go against authority, because we dont treat them like ok everyone Im the boss and you will do things my way or else....we treat them like adults..introduce a topic, give room for discussion but bring the discussion back on topic where needed...
example today was the support group on domestic violence. everyone came in.we introduced ourselves. I handed out copies of the rules to the new people then the discussion started. at one point the discussion went in the wrong direction, one victims abuser was black and another member in the group got offended by the victim using a different word...I calmly stated I understood that member did not like that word due to her race but in this room everyone has the right to name their abuser even if its the abusers race. that the member who objected would not want others in the room to dictate what she stated about her own situation. she can leave if the conversation was too much for her to handle due to the language being used if she wanted to. then I asked the first person to please continue. the woman who objected left then came back.
when you are the one running a group you cant lord over adults. the minute someone turns 18 here in america that gives an adult automatic rights....one of those rights by the ADA is that people with mental problems have the right to be treated just like other non mentally ill people....I wouldnt constantly tell my neighbor they were doing something wrong and punish them if they did something wrong. I may tell them , hey I dont like what you said or did. but I would respect that they control their self and all I control is me.