On The Road
1
When I went to work at the Devereux Foundation, a huge mental health facility that had campuses all over the Philadelphia area, I was offered a full time job, working with troubled children and their families. These were tough cases and lots of times I felt overwhelmed by the sadness and chaos present. I had a few successes, though.
Devereux also had many group homes on their campuses where mentally challenged men and women lived. There had to be several “direct care” people around the clock to watch over these lost souls. It was impossible for Devereux to find enough people who wanted to do this work. On the surface the tasks were “yucky,” and difficult. Certainly on the weekends there were always shifts to be covered. Five days a week the people went to “day programs” so that there was nobody needed in the houses. Day programs, I eventually learned, were places like United Cerebral Palsy that provided shelter, and efforts were made to amuse the clients. Some of these places were just awful and I could hardly stand to be there. The high functioning clients went to “sheltered workshops” where they would get paid for doing what we would consider the most boring jobs in the world.
I learned that if I wanted to make extra money I could sign up for weekend shifts or evening shifts as well. The money was time and a half. At first, when I went into these places, I was frightened and felt as if I couldn’t do what was needed. Almost all the employees had black or brown skin, mostly from Africa and the island groups; few white people worked there. In the beginning I felt horribly awkward. I could tell that most black and brown skinned employees didn’t trust me. Also, it was obvious that white people had treated them badly. Finally, they were all sure that I wouldn’t be able to handle the work–to put it delicately, some clients were “incontinent” and messes had to be cleaned up; meals had to be cooked that would feed eight people and some of these people were sloppy in their eating habits. On top of all of this was the fear I had of driving the huge, super-sized vans Devereux had for transporting the clients.
Why go on when it was so sad and disgusting (at times?) I was making decent money in my day job and I didn’t need to do this. But–I did, in fact, love the work.
It did not take me long to find out that I had the “heart for it.” That’s what people told me. It happened naturally. I had to admit to myself that I was gifted with patience and a strong stomach–BOTH were needed!!
lgmwriting 