When you do a job for years, you develop your own set of ideals and expectations.  These become your own over time.  They shift and take form like a bad science fiction movie—The Matrix or X-Men.  Taking on the adaptive nature of a professional work environment, this shifting microcosm represents the old way while it attempts to integrate the new expectations, creating a more developed, better adapted individual, equipped and ready for anything the job will send its way.  This, though gross in its attempt to satisfy the intricacies of internal as well as external adaptations, is an attempt to depict a professional adaptation. 

I would never reach so far as to say my professional development resembles something from a science fiction movie; I’m not that cool.  Too bad, it would make this blog easier to write.  I have only been a part of social work for going on two years, and only in a limited way to this point, additionally.  My experiences have been minimal and I still feel like I am learning new things all the time.  In some ways, I feel like an adapted professional only experiences these “new’s” occasionally—maybe someday soon. 

My professional interests have done more changing like the ones described than I have.  Early in high school, I wanted to be a physical therapist.  I never really made the choice that I did not want to do that anymore, the interest just sort of faded.  During high school I then wanted to be a speech pathologist.  I was following a medical trend at that point.  I did some shadowing for both of those potential fields of study before I graduated and really enjoyed both.  Again, I did not discount speech pathology before a new interest arose.  I had a really good psychology course that challenged me and opened my eyes to mental health.  I had ideas of being a professional counselor or psychologist.

As I was looking for schools and checking out the programs they offered, I was also interested in playing soccer.  I went on some college visits and played soccer with some different programs.  But, in the end, I decided to go to Manhattan Christian College to play soccer.  The degree that most resembled psychology at MCC was family ministry with an emphasis in counseling.  This seemed to fit both my interests pretty well, even though it was not exactly what I thought I wanted coming into it.  I trusted that God had a plan for my life that was bigger than me.  He is a lot smarter than me, too, so it wasn’t hard to trust Him. 

Taking a brief look back before moving on, throughout high school and through college, the only jobs I held were temporary summer jobs.  I did sports camps and kid’s camps at a local YMCA and tennis club.  In college, the trend continued.  I did an internship at a church in Wichita where I was an intern in the sports camp ministry and with the elementary aged kids.  I have coached a soccer team of 10-11 year old boys for the last three seasons.  And, I work at Family Service and Guidance Center where I spend my mornings at Capital City High School with high schoolers with psychosocial and behavioral disorders and my afternoons at the agency where I co-lead a group of 6-10 year olds in psychosocial group therapy.  In summary:  kids are all I know. 

I applied for my clinical practicum to be either at Stormont Vail, Valeo, or the VA.  Stormont Vail called and I was encouraged to talk to a lady at Stormont Vail West, the mental health side of Stormont Vail hospital.  In talking with her, I realized that my skills would best be utilized and challenged with a placement at Stormont West vs. Stormont Vail in general.  Again, God is smarter than me.  I had attempted to satisfy the life-long interest in working in a medical facility, but as it appears, my plans would not have led me down a very satisfying internship.  I will start my placement in August, so I do not know exactly how it will turn out, but I can count on God being with me, regardless of the challenges.

Through my time in the various camps and programs in which I have worked, I have learned lots of things along the way.  The main thing a broken child is looking for—love and attention.  It is unfortunate that attention is sought in ways which are counterproductive to the bigger goal of love for most of these kids.  They have know so little positive reinforcement and affection from those who should be caring that they have resorted to acting out in one way or another in order to gain my time and my greatest resource-attention.  It is such a basic goal to want met, but one that I know my colleagues and I and adults throughout the community frequently overlook.  The challenge for me as I head into my internship will be to take what I have learned and figure out how to apply it to working with adults.  I have never worked with an adult population and these are about as severe of cases as they come.  They are acute situations and the people for whom I will be caring are fragile people-usually physically as well as psychologically.  

I am somewhat fearful of what this placement is going to be like.  As I have repeated throughout this blog, I know that God has a purpose in putting me in this situation and I am guaranteed to learn a lot from working at Stormont Vail West.  However, I am human and realize there will be bumps along the way.  But, if the path I’ve taken to get here is any example, there is more than one way to reach your potential.  I know that if God has gotten me this far, He will continue to guide my steps and reach people through my work, not because of me, but in spite of me.