Breaking Out Into Song

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.  I still don't feel fully back into the swing of things yet!

I know that I often blog about my plans for group.  Today, however, I want to talk about the importance of letting the group evolve into what it needs to be.  I always come to group with a plan, but I am also okay with the group going in a totally different direction than I anticipated.  These are often my most productive, insightful, and memorable experiences with my clients.

This week I was trying to get my kids to complete an activity to work on active listening skills.  It was just not going.  We have many play therapy items in the group room we are currently working in which can often be a distraction.  Just as I put my forehead into my hands to regroup and figure out a new plan, one of my kids started playing maracas.  Another one started on a drum, and the rest joined in clapping, slapping their legs, and rhythmically banging on things around them.  My coworker came into the room and started belting out a soulful version of "Brick house."  

**I obviously had to YouTube this while writing.  Gotta love the Commodores for a little pick me up!!**

Everyone let loose and really got into the music.  We were singing, dancing, and drumming our hearts out until we were rolling on the floor laughing.  It was definitely one of the highlights of my week!  I could have never planned that in a million years...  it was the synergy of the group.  Magical!

I hope that you have a chance to break out in song this week... no matter what you had originally planned  :) 

"Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp." 

Psalm 149,3

Apps I Cannot Live Without

I use my iPad as my laptop.  It is extremely convenient, user friendly, and has internet everywhere.  It makes my life so much easier as I travel from location to location for work.  I can complete my documentation anywhere.  I sure used it on the long car trips this holiday season!

I love the app store.  I love it almost as much as I like Pinterest!  Here are my top apps for 2012. Enjoy :)

Professional
Numbers (Like Excel for Mac)
Decibel 10th (Reads decibles.  So I can reward my group if they keep the noise "below the red")
30/30 (Time tracker... can set alarms at different intervals for different activites.  Perfect for groups, classrooms, or cleaning the house)
Haiku Deck (Free slide creator for presentations.  Beautiful and easy)
Evernote (Allows your to add photos, voiceover, and text to notes as well as store them in journals)
Skitch (Allows you to add arrows, text, and draw on pictures.  Syncs with Evernote)
Docusign (Attach your actual signiture to any document)
You Tube

Personal
Holy Bible
iHeart Radio
iBooks
Kindle
UnStuck (Enter some information about a problem you are facing and it will help you to become "UnStuck"
Treat Cards (Create and mail actual custom cards with from your device.  Birthday reminders)
Find iPhone
Score Center
Facebook
Pinterest
eBay
Zillow (Real estate tracker)
Big Oven (Enter the ingredients in your pantry and it will give you recipes with those items)

Calming
Art Circles (Browse art by collection.  Fun interface)
Fluidity (Relaxing lava lamp like background)
Fluid (Water movement background)

Games
The Room (1 person puzzle game)
Blokus HD (2-4 person puzzle game)
Stack the States (State trivia)
Wheel HD (Wheel of Fortune)
Trivial Persuit
Pictureka
Train Conduct (1 person very fun and complicated, time-sensitive, train conductor game)
Train Conduct 2, USA (Version 2)
Towers hd (1 person puzzle game)
Magic Piano (Become a concert pianist by the time it takes to download this app)

Art
Paper

For my 2 year old
LunchBox (Puzzles, colors, big/small)
Playtales (Interactive books)
eflash English (#1 app for growing vocabulary.  We started this at 12 months)
eflash Spanish Cards (Same for spanish vocab)
eflash2 Spanish (Dito)
Mickey Mouse Road Ralley (Not really educational.  My son just loves Mickey)
Potty Time (Very fun and efficient potty training app.  Reward system.  Can call "Rachel" when he goes in the potty.  Also potty songs and books)
Letter School (Practice learning letters, sounds, and what words start with what letters)

I know this post is a little off the beaten path for me, but it is inspired by two of my friends that received an iPad for Christmas.  They wanted a list of my favorite apps, so here ya go girls!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Y'all!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
Isaiah 9:6

"When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy."
Matthew 2:10

"I Need to Initiate a Crisis"

I knew this was coming.  I felt the calm before the storm.  In the past few weeks, two clients have come to me that are going to be extremely challenging and will need all of the resources that our team can offer.  I have spent the past week completing trainings, reading everything relevant I can find, consulting, studying, putting together material for my team, purchasing tools, and preparing myself for how these next couple of months are going to unfold.

In grad school I learned something very valuable from one of my instructors.  I had a client during my first semester of practicum that was rebellious, resistant, unmotivated, verbally disrespectful, aggressive, and not interested in applying any change to his life.  He was court-ordered to attend our sessions and unwilling to participate or interact with me.  I struggled through this for two sessions before bringing it to my supervisor and mentor.  I was hopeful that she would recommend that he be transferred to another student.

She told me that this would be the client that would transform me into the therapist that I needed to be.  She said that not every client will work with every clinician, but that every clinician should be able to work with every client.  She said that I needed to "get creative and adjust."  

She nick-named the client "Tony Hawk" and his treatment was indeed transformative for us both.  There are classrooms behind the two-way mirrors in our university clinic that allowed other students, supervisors, and professors to observe sessions.  As I moved from practicum student to intern, this client became a very popular client on the schedule.  By the time he graduated from the program, we had a packed house in the classroom and everyone was rooting for "Tony" and I.

I had found my rock star moment.  It is being able to adapt to serve the needs of my clients even when we are worlds apart.

In the past 12 months I have been feeling somewhat complacent and comfortable in my practice.  I have not had any crisis issues at work that were new or different.  My mind has become busy with paperwork, regulations, acquiring the right therapy tools, and planning my groups.  In the middle of September, I was noticing that I had not had a "Tony Hawk" in a while.  I had a moment of appreciating the calm, but I understood that this moment would be short-lived.

I was hungry for my next challenge.  In the next few months I will be frustrated by the lack of peace, but then I must remember that in the calm I desired adventure.

I was going to blog this week about some of my new tools and trainings.  I plan on doing that, but I felt like there needed to be a bridge to explain the shift in focus.  To my teammate and friend, Elaine, thank you for putting up with me.  I love and respect you so much.

"We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, you labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
1 Thessalonians 1:3

Appropriate Anger and Conflict Resolution Recap

Well my Appropriate Anger and Conflict Resolution curriculum actually took two weeks to complete instead of one...

We added in a comic strip to show use of a favorite conflict resolution skill.

The most popular part of this series by far was the PlayStation remote control activity.  It ended up taking three days to complete, and the kids have worked it into our regular group conversations every day since then.  In the moment, I added a line down the middle of the controller.  I asked clients to put negative ways to respond to anger on the lefthand buttons, and positive ways to respond to anger on the right.  We then did skits where clients "controlled" their anger with the giant controllers.  It was a riot. Almost all of the kids reported that they shared this activity with someone in their home!

We also implemented a new behavior plan this week (which I shamelessly copied from one of my favorite 2nd grade teachers)...

Everyone starts with a clothes pin on green and has a chance to "clip up" or "clip down."  This gives many chances to use positive reinforcement.  Parents will be contacted if they land on red or pink.  This week I did not have to call parents for a red day, but I did get to send home 5 fantastic notes for a pink day!  The orange says "no sticker." If they receive yellow or higher they will receive a daily sticker that can be redeemed at the end of the month for our special outing or to shop in our group store.

It is so exciting to see how much progress that some clients have made already this school year.  It has been a rough start adjusting to the school schedule for me.  I have been implementing a few new personal boundaries to help stay caught up and to avoid feeling so burnt out including scheduling the most taxing paperwork at the beginning of the week so that it does not carry over into the weekend, not scheduling clients after hours, and planning vacation days into my schedule this semester.

For the first time since school started I feel "caught up" with paperwork.  Just now.  This evening.

***Note to self for next year... It will take a good 4 weeks to feel adjusted to Back to School!***

"Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.  He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.  They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven.  Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men."
Psalm 107, 28-31