BluE ThuRsdAy

HellO, and Happy 'late' Valentine!

My agenda on Valentine's day:
- African American Culture training 9-12:15pm
- Work until 11 pm,spend my times w/ my thirteen-years-old client before he leaves for foster care this morning.
- Clean intake office, do other household tasks in shelter, and chat w/ my colleagues.
-Overall, I have 14 hrs of work on Valentine's day. :)

We only have 2 clients in shelter, and this number will reduce to one after 2 pm on Friday. This is the first time in our history that we only have 2 clients in shelter, and we assumme that it has to do w/ the Department of Human Services (DHS)' new policy. There is a rumor that DHS tries to avoid shelter and wants to put kids/adolescents to foster care system. As I told you earlier, our shelter is a temporary placement for kids and adolescents before they are sent to their residential treatment program. DHS eventually wants to save money by sending kids to foster care system instead of treatment services.

Our director and CEO are currently working on this issue w/ the legislation to save our shelter. They told staff during meeting on Wednesday that shelter won't be closed, and they've never thought about that. I am hoping that we can get at least parent placement kids over the weekend.Anyway, I will let them (YSS CEO+ RDS director) to work on that legal part, and I hope they will bring a good news for us.

My younger client insisted that I had to go shoveling w/ him yesterday afternoon. FYI, the weather was cold, windy, and snowing!! I decided to accompany him and use my time to play w/ the snow. My client saw me, and he told me that I cracked him up, funny. :P
I wanted to spend my times w/ him as much as I could since he will be going to foster care on Friday (2/15). I am going to miss him regardless of his bad outburst and swing mood, in which these behaviors will trigger him to tear the house apart.