What a tracker is....

Well since this blog is supposed to be about my life as an LV, and since by far the biggest thing in my life is work, I thought I should explain what it is I actually do.... The following is an abridged version of a letter I wrote to my grandparents to explain my job.

I am on a team of 3 trackers and with a caseload of 25 kids between 12 and 18 years old. My schedule (on paper) is 9–5, but every third day (rotating between caseworkers) is 1–9 pm. I also work every third weekend, working till 9:00 pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but I will have the preceeding Monday and the following Friday off. There is also a 24 hour "on call" cell phone which is with one of the trackers at all times, it follows the tracker working the night or weekend. I realize that’s probably incredibly confusing, and truthfully, its not that accurate. Since I’m a volunteer, I’m not as locked into the hours as a paid employee would be, also my team is currently down one caseworker. So it is not uncommon for me to come in early on the days I work late, come in on a day off, or take the phone more often, and I rarely get off at the hour I’m supposed to! For instance, between Oct 16th and the 26th I worked 102 hours.

As for my "normal" day to day tasks….
Every morning we visit our kids’ schools and check their attendance. If they are absent we go to their house and see if we can get them to school. This is how it’s supposed to work anyway. Being understaffed it takes a long time to get to all the schools, much less get to the houses of the absentees especially on the days when only one of us is working the am and often we have other things to be at, like school meetings or court.
Every afternoon we split the cases and visit each kid's house. Then we have "run-down." Essentially, we go every case and whoever saw that kid (or didn’t see them) talks about what happened, what is currently going on with them, treatment goals and so on.
Finally, whoever is working that night goes out and visits all 25 houses.

In addition, each weekend we do "rec" with kids. This ranges from taking them out to eat, going to the movies, arcade, bowling, or something bigger like a trip to Six Flags. Rec is my favorite part of the job. I get to hang out with the kids. I see many of the kids with so many problems, who act so tough, and who have been through so much, get to be just kids. Its also one of the best ways to establish a relationship with them. It's also a way to get them out of the house doing something positive (many of our families simply need a break from each other).

Of course, like any job, but particularly with this population, things never run this smoothly. I frequently get up to take kids to school. We also go to many appointments with our clients such as court, probation, school meetings, truancy court, etc. We also help with other things in life, like finding a job, giving rides to the library or YMCA, helping with medical issues and so forth.

Essentiallly, we are there for our kids no matter what they need. We helped one client form a "morning routine" to follow in order to get to school on time, including 2 wake-up calls from the trackers. So far, the plan is working for him. I also go to kids' football games, driving them to or from practices and so forth. We also have 2 clients who are teenage moms so we’ve driven them to the store to get diapers, helped them get into daycare and so forth.

As for some of the challenges I face (outside of the kids themselves) are families who do not speak English. Many of the parents I deal with speak either Creole or Spanish. Other parents or families can be uncooperative with us and don’t do much to try to help their kids, or don't realize how much their actions harm their kids. In addition, many of my clients have special education status due to behavioral disorders, Attention Deficit Disorder, etc. This status awards them certain legal protections, including not being kept out of school for any reason, and, well... sometimes schools need to be reminded of this. These are not easy students to deal with and sometimes school officials would rather find a way to force them out of school than work with them. We fight an uphill battle on either side, we’re trying to convince our kids to go to a school where they aren’t wanted, when they don’t want to go to school in the first place. It is particularly frustrating when a kid is finally trying to make the effort and they receive a not-so-warm welcome. I quickly worked my way onto the "least favorite people" list of the special ed director at one high school since I reminded him a few times of his legal duties to my clients.

All of this may beg the question, what’s the point? What do we hope to accomplish? The first, and most general, is to provide a positive influence in the lives of these kids. Also, each kid has personalized goals and individualized treatment plans. The first goal is to establish a therapeutic relationship. In addition, many have goals about attending school, on time, a certain number of days a week (working up to all five days), many have goals relating to family functioning, some also have goals about how often they attend rec, goals about anger management and so forth.

The biggest agency goals is "home preservation." When kids are in trouble with the juvenile justice system, they’re often ordered to our program before being locked up. When one does go to court, we advocate for home placement instead of a group home or the training school (the juvenile lock-up facility). Unfortunately, family court has a HUGE tendency to use lock up as its best threat, or solution, to kids' problems. But the view of our agency, and one that I have come to whole-heartedly agree with, is that lock-up, rarely, if ever, provides a solution. These kids do not "learn their lesson" by being locked up. Even if they do improve in placement, upon release they return to the same family, same community, same problems, and face huge risk for falling into the same patterns. They need to learn to deal with their day-to-day issues as they face them, or they will never change their patterns. That's what we're here for.

As for the population I deal with, I mentioned that they are teenagers. Most of whom come from very poor families (usually less than $20,000 a year). As for some of the problems: drug use (among families and clients), court involvement for misdemeanors, major medical issues in families, TRUANCY, disobediance to parents and other authority figures, violence toward siblings, other teenagers and occasionally toward parents, teenage parents, kids with ADD, ADHD, depression, etc., evictions, unemployment by parents, inability to pay bills, and so on.

I am quite passionate about this work. It is tiring, stressful, heartbreaking, frustrating, infuriating, and I love every moment of it. Mostly because I love these kids. I have learned that just because a kid is "bad" by society's standards, they are often a really good kid inside.