A quiet week in placement

This week was quite a difficult one.

THe community was so quiet on Monday and Tuesday that i started to be concerned about whether there was enough going on for me to be able to write all the reports needed for my portfolio. All the clients were in bed all day or out for the day, so i spent most of the day waiting around in the office. GRoups were getting cancelled as clients weren't coming and the client who i was told i would start key working with in a few weeks went out all day both days and so i didn't get a chance to even introduce myself. The other two students told me that the community seemed to be in a dip and they had never seen it this quiet. We believe part of it is due to two staff members and one client leaving, but as i have now found out two more staff are to leave shortly, i'm not sure what effect this will have.


Thursday picked up as i attended my first community meeting which 4 clients came to and although the level of engagement was fairly low, it gave me more opportunity to get to know some of them, including the one i would be key working with. I was supposed to shadow someone keyworking with him this week but that wasn't able to happen so i look forward to doing so next week. All clients present their challenges, but the main one here will be making him believe there is a role for us in the community to support and help him, and that perhaps he does need this help. But it's a challenge i really want to engage with.

Although i'm slightly worried and frustrated by the pace, i do think i could learn a huge amount from this placement if there were more clients around in the day. I also really enjoy the reflective environment, where staff meet before and after every group that takes place to discuss how they feel about how it went, issues that occured, behaviours of clients etc I learn a huge amount from this. Equally i enjoy watching the therapists engage with the clients. I feel i can learn quite a bit about style of communication, putting boundaries in place, dealing with more aggressive clients, or those wishing to avoid the topics at hand.

For now, it's fingers crossed that it picks up a bit.