So the following started out as an email. Then, I decided I'll let people choose whether or not they wanted to read this and have thought about blogging for awhile. I love writing. I write for myself all the time to my journal. I use it for release and to reconnect with that kinda love inside that Whitney Houston sings about.
Hi to all of you, Mom, Dad, Karen, all my friends, family, beautiful people from my past and present,
This email has been a long time coming since my last email informing you all of my safe arrival and job acquisition in London--thought I should maybe fill in the gaps. I realize i don't twitter. I don't adjust my facebook status, so these intermittent emails serve the same, in some ways self-indulgent and cathartic, purposes--sharing info, seeking connection, and engaging in reflection. In all honesty, I'm in a weird nowomansland space right now, so this counts as your fair warning, it's not entirely upbeat.
I worked from early January to mid-April for the UK equivalent of CPS, had some fabulous co-workers, including 2 South Africans, 1 Ghanaian, 1 Canadian, 1 Kenyan, 1 Ugandan, 1 Slovak, 2 Carribean-Brits, 1 Sri-Lankan-Brit, and me, the USofAmerican. The Canadian, Michael, and I became instant friends, he said because we were united in our sense of entitlement as North Americans, which I didn't entirely agree with, but I appreciated and miss our mid-afternoon heartfelt convos on life, over biriyani or fried noodles. My boss was kooky, arrived one week after I did, and was left with no training and was basically winging it everyday. We grew to really like each other. She complimented my overly detailed case assessments and used them, somewhat embarrassingly, as case examples of the "good work" from our team, the Kingsbury Locality. People refer to Brent as the most diverse borough in London, and a majority of our cases were with eastern Europeans, African, Jamaican, and Middle Eastern clients, with issues of housing, immigration, and inter-generational struggles over discipline or wearing a head scarf. From my observation, the child protection screening process means that people in schools, nurses, etc. regularly get worked up and called our office without doing any questioning of the child family. This meant that A) we were taking the cautious path, investigating everything, which led to mean B) that we were also doing lots and lots of home visits/report-writing on cases that probably could have been handled other ways at the school or with the doctor's minor intervention or even encouraging a conversation at home between a father and daughter. This also led to C) we had no clear job description and helped families with everything from investigating initial suspected abuse, to helping clients find housing, to providing mental health referrals and attending appointments, to placing children in foster care, to determining what relationship the caring family member was to the client (if you weren't blood related you were followed), to going to court (which i never did), to calling for doctor appointments, to handing out cold cash--which was totally new to me. I really liked that though, because it meant you could just make it up with every client, bend the rules. There was no formula and little oversight--if you were meeting your timescales, meaning producing some kind of report, regardless of its content on time, you were commended and offered permanency. It will be interesting to follow how things change there.There is a great deal of media hype around two high-profile child deaths in the past year and the government is providing more and more money to improve social services and hold people accountable. As a result people are fleeing from these types of jobs, and there continue to be rampant vacancies. For any social workers looking for a job out there--you can get one in the UK tomorrow.
Parting on good terms I quit in mid-April to travel with my parents who came over to visit. We found some cheap flights to Europe to embark on a whirlwind tour starting in Amsterdam, then to Paris and Vienna and Prague, and back to London. Reese and I got to travel around a bit to Bath, Stonehenge, Kew Gardens, Windsor Castle, and lots of Saturdays of aimlessly wandering around Southbank, Leicester Square, museums, etc. We even got to sit in on the Houses of Parliament which I really enjoyed, white wigs, caddy banter and all. I also went to Spain twice which was great!! A weekend trip with my kiwi flatmate who's great!! to Madrid and to Barcelona for a few days with Sino. Unfortunately, I lost all my pics of everything when my hard drive crashed a couple weeks ago, new mantra, back up back up back up. So, while my external hard drive was waiting for me in my berkeley storage unit, i didn't make any copies. I have my memories and really am glad I went to London, lived in London. I met some great people who became great friends and have reinvigorated my interest in learning more about how immigration affects our work domestically and how I might also take what I've learned and apply it to work possibly in developing countries.
So that brings me to now. I arrived back in the U.S. in mid-May, traveled to Florida for my sister's graduation, spent time in Bton, IN with my parents, and now I'm in NYC. In hopes of pursuing/exploring my current romantic relationship, I arrived in early June and plan to stay through July. I'm now engaged in two unpaid internships, adding up to full-time work. I'm working 3 days/week with DV clients on Staten Island through Staten Island Legal Services, doing informal survey research on mental health/health services, insurance coverage for DV clients, helping out with trainings for emotional support for attorneys/interns and accompanying clients to court and to see new apartments. The second, 2 days/week, is with a nonprofit that holds writing/poetry workshops for incarcerated youth and teens in residential foster care. I'm helping out with one of the workshops, looking at their survey data and evaluation process, and helping them apply for an AmeriCorpsVISTA member. I am making time to explore New York and have enjoyed some good food and sunny days in the parks. I still conflicted and tender about my relationship, but feel grateful for our time together. In many ways, I'm excited to explore job opps in the Bay Area, maybe SFUSD will have something open up, fingers crossed! I'm on the look out for jobs starting in August and yet simultaneously still toying with dreams of finding ways to learn more about international development/aid work. I've been encouraged by one of my favorite people in the world to try to specialize, get really good and dig into something, but it's been a challenge when I feel like I have 8 zillion interests. I am deeply grateful for my experiences, my mom and dad, my sister, my health (especially since I still don't have insurance), and most of all that I have been able to truly love and be loved. Thank you to all of you.
p.s. So, I think I need to get out, start dancing a bit more (and for anyone who has witnessed that, you know I don't mess around and I don't look cool) and do things like jumping down into the subway more. It was scary, but fear not I read lots of things online that many of people have done it safely many times. I'm pretty sure my cheap-o phone battery wasn't worth it, but it was a thrill. I need to continue to find ways to express and embrace joy. Any suggestions? Any cross-country trips planned? I might be driving back from NYC, so if anyone has some time in August and some stamina for seeing the country for long hours in the car with me, let's chat.
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