Before and after end of / new year clean up fun
December 30, 2007
As a therapist, I accept that there are multiple truths and always two sides to a story. As a person moving house, I am a great procrastinator and constipator of throwing stuff out because I just may need it….one day. While packing (and now procrastinating), I came upon some old cards I had sent home from Dublin during Christmas 2003. Whereas my assessment and therapeutic skills remain solid and are rarely up for negotiation once my practice based assessment is made, I clearly, am not so easy to assess at first glance! My how some things need more than an initial psychosocial assessment because there is always more than one visual truth.
Article by Megan Bayliss
Before (sent to people who didn’t know the multiple and dark sides of Megan the freezing therapist who just wanted to come home for a swim):
The post card reads - Merry Christmas. Having a ball. Photo was taken in Dublin. Spending Christmas in Canterbury - open fire, wine and a 16thC cottage. Stay tuned for my Canterbury Tales!! Off to Scotland before Christmas and Morocco and Amsterdam in January before coming home. Gee, wish I was with you. My life is soooooo boring. Mxxxxx
After (and this is the one closest to the real Megan who is not so sweet and accommodating of either the cold, Christmas or being away from Paul and the kids):
The inner card reads - Bah Humbug. Deck the halls with poison ivy. Now lets see who wants to kiss you! Be good this Christmas and don’t be too hot!
The January after these pics were taken in Dublin, I finally return to my beloved steaming Cairns after 12 months based in cold and miserable London. All I wanted was to live the tropics to the fullest, to swim and eat mangoes and instead, I got a shiner from the ones I returned to:
Based upon everything you know about me, my job, my lifestyle and using your powers of assessment, who would like to hazard a guess as to why I’m sporting a black eye and why Paul is looking so concerned? Did he do domestic violence on me??????
And now Paul’s arrived to check on the progress of my office clean up - darn, I’ve procrastinated for too long, again! lol…I LOVE holidays.
PS: Paulie Boy just found another card I had sent him from the UK. Lucky Paul has a sense of humour and is pro feminist. My cards could easily have been taken the wrong way (perhaps finding these cards is a reminder to continue working on my ascorbic sense of humour this coming 2008! In my defence, sexual assault therapists are known for our black sense of humour.)
Obviously I spent money that year on personalised REAL cards for every occasion from Moonpig.com.au that have never been thrown away. It was great fun adding pics and words to my cards and I thoroughly recommend using Moonpig for those who want some personality or keepsake ability in their cards. I had all of Jade’s surprise 21st birthday party cards made by Moonpig too and they will NEVER be thrown away.
That’s it from me now until The New Year, where I have two very special announcements to make. One relating to this site and one relating to a personal circumstance. Stay safe everyone and remember to always keep your sense of humour handy.
Free up the stress - let’s NOT SHOP!
December 29, 2007
The Christmas season is still strong in our minds, with the wrappings barely undone, the bills mounting up, the worries of making ends meet are starting to build.
Article by Keran Thomas - Birdwing Therapies
Parents are mindful of the school uniforms and books that need to be purchased, the pressures of what the kids say “the other kids have” and how this all mounts up on the mounds of parental guilt and self doubt. What can we do, to stop ourselves falling into the trap of commercial mindlessness that zaps our energy and our hard earned money?
How do parents in today’s society manage the stressors of financial pressures from those who have so much? (and want more?) The pressures of the media seem to impact greatly on how we our parent children, and the choices we make in purchases.
It appears that these pressures also impact on our stress levels and how we care for our kids when the stress gets too high. How about we protest by having a day at home, NOT SHOPPING! and playing with our children instead. (I know, the teenagers will freak out, totally! so beware of looming bad vibes!)
Imagine- the kids might even enjoy being with us?! What are your thoughts on having holidays rather than shopperdays? Let’s bring on family fun days and parental self care!!! Reality or fantasy??
Sheila’s Twin Peaks for social understanding in the sisterhood of the travelling bra
December 29, 2007
Sheila (from Sisterhood of the travelling bra), spent Christmas day spread between Cairns, Mareeba, Atherton and Kuranda, Far North Queensland. In all her pink glory (pink’s the new red so the young ones tell me), Sheila peaked the Christmas presents, Christmas tables (we had a Christmas lunch crawl) and got to meet dozens of international tourists in the area for a hotted up Christmas. Sheila had such a pink experience in the tropical climes of Cairns that she’s also staying for the New Year revelries (aka we can’t leave Sheila alone in a closed Post Office over the holiday season).
The sisterhood of the travelling bra is a promotional exercise, aimed at raising social understanding and friendship between women. Peaked up by the amazing young Leigh over at All for Women, Sheila has so far travelled from Melbourne to Mareeba (the entry place to the most northern Cape York Peninsula). Where will she go to next?
Do you want to join The Sisterhood of the travelling Bra? Help Sheila travel all over Australia and the world. If you want to put Sheila up for a little bed and breakfast contact Leigh at All for Women and you will be put on the waiting list. Then you patiently wait till your name reaches the twin peaks and it is your turn for Sheila to visit you. Once she arrives, sign her cup then take a picture of the two of you together..have some fun and be creative (we attracted bus loads of tourist to Sheila in the places we took her off to visit - a perfect opportunity for encouraging social understanding and women’s safety issues - Sheila’s photo has gone to at least four different countries: France, Japan, Korea and Germany)! A little BRAvery may be needed to wear Sheila in public but do not overlook the opportunity to extend social understanding between we sisters of the world
BRAvo for Sheila and her travelling ways.
Sheila’s Christmas Day in Cairns began by helping Megan to deliver presents to Megan’s Mum,
Sue Bayliss
(a survivor of breast cancer and a woman who has to wear a prosthetic bra due to a
double mascetomy)
Into the car and on to Mareeba for a family Christmas lunch at Megan’s sister’s house.
Sheila had to mind the presents - apart from Megan’s Mum, everyone else has to wait to open their presents at Aunty Elizabeth’s.
A forty five minute drive up through the rainforest, away from coastal Cairns and we get to Mareeba - a dry farming area and gateway to the Far North of Cape York Peninsula.
Like a pink rag to a bull, Sheila attracted her Mareeba cowboy. Yip yah Sheila (who at this stage wanted to change her name to Mareebra)!
After prawns, smoked salmon, ham and salad in Mareeba, we took Sheila over to Atherton to visit Paul’s family for Christmas afternoon tea.
Time to head home because we cannot possibly eat another thing, Sheila and Megan stop in at the Barron Falls, Kuranda. We got a few laughs and funny looks but good old Paul took up the marketing and told them all about the Sisterhood of the Travelling Bra.
Living on the edge: Sheila hangs it out to dry in the steamy rainforest’s of Kuranda.
Stopping on the Kuranda Range lookout, Sheila and Megan have eyes only for home, Cairns.
The bus load of Asian tourists on the other hand had eyes only for Sheila and found her quite titilating!
Residential and Specialised Care Models: Outcomes for Children in Out-of-Home Care
December 28, 2007
Osborn and Bromfield state that residential care may be the ideal option for some children in out-of-home care. This supports the conclusions of Bath (1998) and Barber and Gilbertson (2001) who found comparable health and well being outcomes across groups of foster/kinship and residential care.
The “continuum of care” requires a range of placement options to meet the diverse needs of children. It is suggested that for children with extreme behavioural-emotional responses a residential setting may provide the support, structure and therapeutic intervention that they need. There is a call in Australia for more research into innovative options for out-of-home care for children.
A meta-analysis of 9 Australian studies comparing foster/kinship and residential care between 1994 and 2006 concluded across the studies that for children with highly unstable placements, residential care might be more suitable. Their vulnerability to placement breakdown may exacerbate behavioural-emotional responses. A reasonable long-term option for sibling groups, high placement instability, and those moving on to independent living could well be some form of residential care.
Residential care needs to be recognised for the benefits that it can bring to some children with special needs. Child protection agencies need to explore a mix of out-of-home options. Evaluation of residential care options can bring significant change. The aim is to be better able to place a child in a matched environment early in the placement process. This protects secondary trauma; confusion, self-blame and aggression/dis-affective behaviours and cognitions.
The elements that characterise care (i.e., levels of discipline, routine, autonomy and free time) rather than the type of care (foster or residential) could be the determinate of how restrictive a placement will be. Instead of first placing a high needs child within a home setting, and risk multiple breakdowns and subsequent trauma, utilise residential care. Currently, many residential facilities in Australia do not actively implement and monitor intervention theories and models.
“A greater use of treatment foster care involving specially trained foster carers whose remuneration and training is commensurate with the difficulty of the task they are undertaking” is also called for by Osborne and Bromfeild.
Literature highlights the real need to address the limited number of care options available for children and young people with high support needs in Australia (Delfabbro & Osborn, 2005; Delfabbro et al., 2005; Flynn et al., 2005). However, at present, few conclusions can be drawn about what constitutes “appropriately designed residential and specialised models of care”.
What are your thoughts on residential care for children in out-of-home care?
For further information on Foster care and its many isues, please read:
We are Not Victims, We are Survivors
Praise for New South Wales for Creativity Regarding Foster Care
We are not victims; we are survivors
December 24, 2007
Care Leavers Australia Network is a support and advocacy group for adults who grew up in homes, orphanages, institutions and/or foster homes.
As a former foster child and active member in Foster Care Alumni of America, I was curious to know how foster care alumni in Australia are using their insights to help young people who are currently in the Australian foster care system.
When I contacted a staff member to ask how CLAN enlists the insight of their members to guide system change, this is the response that I received:
“Our group tends to focus on older people who left the system unsupported and have been left to deal alone with loss, grief and trauma all their lives.
“Our hands are full trying to deal with past hurts, abuse and neglect.”
The person went on to explain that, although their organization has been in existence in for seven years, they still have only two staff members for the entire continent of Australia.
Hmm… I understand feeling overworked and overwhelmed.
Yet, I also see the need for empowering survivors of the foster care system.
Former foster children don’t need tea and sympathy. We are more than victims of the past — we are survivors, with passion and first-hand insights that can influence the future.
The foundation for the Ohio chapter of Foster Care Alumni of America was put into place by two people. Both were survivors of foster care. One was in her fifties, the other in her thirties. One had aged out of foster care in 1973, the other in 1989. Neither woman received support while transitioning out of care.
Those two founding members were Gayle Loyola and Lisa Dickson (me). Neither one us were prepared for the adult world by the institutions in which we were placed. During our initial transition to the adult world, both of us experienced homelessness and hunger.
“Can we imagine spending Christmas alone?” From personal experiences, we don’t need to imagine — we vividy remember that experience. It is part of what fuels our passion to create change. Part of our healing has come through from being proactive by helping others.
Alumni voice is vitally important. Where would the civil rights movement have been without Martin Luther King Jr.? Where would the women’s rights movement have been without Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Where would the disability rights movement be without Ed Roberts?
Survivors of the Australian foster care system can rise above the abuse, neglect, pain and trauma of their past and find healing. That is the truth and foundation that CLAN was based on: the book Orphans of the Living was written by Joanna Penglase, co-founder of CLAN, based upon her personal experiences.
How can you help: I encourage the readers of this posting to consider volunteering for CLAN, in order to increase their staff. If you need a reminder about the urgency, please read the Forgotten Australians, a Senate inquiry report released on August 30, 2004.
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