bright spots

TGIF. I spent my night in the basement, aka Woman Cave, watching the last two parts of the BBC miniseries Emma. Needless to say I felt quite feminine.

The last two days at my field placement were very exciting. Thursday was my first day in the Wellness and Arts Center. My supervisor is super busy, and they’re in the process of renovating the space, so that adds to the chaos. We had a group and in our group of 5 men, two men had intellectual disabilities, two men had hearing loss, and the one remaining man had some mobility issues, but was very talkative and friendly. A couple of the men had some memory loss. It was challenging to run a group with so many different levels of ability, but all of the participants were willing to share. One of the men is 100 and was born in Russia under a czar and his whole family immigrated to the United States when they heard that Henry Ford was paying his workers $5 a day. Two of the men fought in WWII. I couldn’t believe it. I can’t wait to get to know more of the participants.

Today I was back in the offices and my supervisor and I refined some of my roles and duties. One idea we came up with was that I act as a “benefits system advocate,” helping individual clients with their applications for benefits like Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP. Later in the afternoon I was given my first assignment in this role-completing SNAP recertification paperwork for a client who can’t travel to complete the paperwork herself. I had to walk to her apartment to get her to sign the papers, and when I got there she made me tea and chatted with me about all kinds of things. She can speak 4 different languages and gave me tips on how to learn Spanish. She was friendly and delightful, and only kept me 45 minutes ;)

So far, working with older adults has been a treat for me. It has also been a great learning experience and has presented me with many questions already, like how can I better involve individuals with hearing loss in a group? I’m sure many challenges lie ahead (like going to the benefits office on Monday to turn in paperwork since I’m told they have a habit of losing applications, even those sent via certified mail) but even so, I can’t wait to meet more clients and get deeper into my internship. 

In other news, I’m a little ill. It could be the constantly changing weather, my exposure to new germs (Metro, dorm, work), or the fact that I’m living in a musty dust chamber that needs new air filters and some open windows. Either way, I’m going to make myself some herbal tea, watch some Breaking Bad, and try to sleep it off.

Ah, DC! I’ve been here for 10 days and I’ve experienced snow, rain, sun, wind, and temperatures ranging from the 20s to the 60s. It’s not so different from my other cities in that way only the average temperature here is much cooler than Tuscaloosa. I guess I should just be thankful that it has been a relatively mild winter and there haven’t been any Snowpocalypses/Snowmageddons yet. 

I’m settling into my internship and I am so diggin’ it! I’m still doing a lot of orientation, but everyone who works there is very friendly and the work environment is just awesome. The building has a gallery where they display art from artists who are 60 and older, as well as art created by the seniors in the Wellness and Arts Center, and after every exhibit ends the artists donate a piece of art to Iona. The walls are covered with collages, paintings, drawings, and more. It’s a nice change of pace from the generic art found in most office buildings.

I’m very excited because tomorrow, provided that I don’t test positive for TB, I get to spend my first day in the Wellness and Arts Center! The Wellness and Arts Center is the day center for frail older adults, most with dementia. They have an AMAZING art therapy program and lots of other activities like exercise classes and writing classes. I’m the first intern that they’ve had in the center, so I’m not sure what I’ll be doing exactly, but I know I should be busy. Even if there’s no structured work for me to do, I can just spend time with our clients, listening to them or taking a walk with them. I hope I have what it takes to work with older adults, because the more I learn about working with this population the more I want to stay. I loved working at the Public Defender’s Office with people in and out of jail, especially the women, but I could see myself working with older adults as well. I guess I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself since I’ve barely begun, but we’ll see how it works out!

Something else really cool? My supervisor was on the Diane Rehm Show this morning (for all of you who aren’t public radio nerds, she’s kind of a big deal on NPR). The topic was the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, the goal of which is to effectively treat Alzheimer’s by 2025. Here’s a copy of the framework. I thought my supervisor did a great job and it’s very exciting to work at a leading agency. Here’s a link to the show, so you can listen or read the transcript.

Okay, going to finish laundry :P