a very long week..

I think the title of this blog pretty much sums it up; this past week of work just seemed really long. Thanks to Labor Day the previous week, this was actually my first 40-hour week at Common Ground so it really was longer than what I was used to. At the same time, however, this week's feeling of endlessness had nothing to do with the number of hours I worked and everything to do with the fact that I actually started doing all of the things I'll be doing this year.

Coming into the program, I knew that my work would be intense. I'm working in an HIV center so many of our clients are HIV positive and/or have Hepatitis C and/or are injection drug users, etc. For me, in particular, I work with mostly homeless youth and young adults. Many of my clients are into hard drugs, some have kids, and a lot of them are kind of on the run from the police due to some minor infraction that turned into something much greater.

My week started off busily but still pretty low key. Because we receive a lot of government funding, we have to put records of every test we do into a state database (HIRS). Each test record includes basic client info (name, DOB, zip code, race/ethnicity, etc), the info from the lab slip (when the test was done, time it was done, temperature in the room, lot number, expiration date, etc), and then one or two forms that detail a client's sexual behavior, substance use, and STD history. Unfortunately, HIRS has been down since the beginning of July for some system changes and so no one in the office has been able to enter records for two and a half months. This week, however, we were once again able to put in records so we were trained on how to do that and given stacks of files to enter. It's not a bad job, though since I'm still new to it, it can be time consuming. Depending on how much information is in a particular record, it can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes to as much as 20 minutes. Sometimes clients don't fill things out completely correctly or HIRS still has some glitches, so I've had a couple of files take as much as 30 minutes to enter. Imagine doing that for two and a half months worth of files... Luckily, with a few of us working on it, we were able to get all the way through the July files this week and started on the August files.

Learning HIRS was actually really good because it gave me something to do (I probably spent 10+ hours this week on HIRS records), but it was the easy part of the week. One of the cool things about Common Ground is that we have several remote testing sites which include a high school and a drug/alcohol treatment center; this, in turn, allows us to reach a much larger population. Since I am the youth specialist in our prevention department, I will be in charge of the remote testing at Santa Monica High School (Samohi). So, on Thursday mornings for the next nine months or so, I will be doing HIV tests for Samohi students. I did not, however, know I would be doing this. Until this part Thursday, I hadn't even done an actual test but had just observed one of our more experienced counselors. So, I was taken over to Samohi on Thursday morning and given a room in which to test and then I was on my own. I was told it would probably be slow because it was the beginning of the year and that I probably should have brought a book. Well, that was completely incorrect. I actually ended up doing three tests! My first three tests. Ever.

I think the idea of testing at Samohi is GREAT. It makes the service so accessible to students who otherwise might not have the courage to go to a different, more public, testing center. In practice, however, it was a REALLY tough way to start my career in testing. The hardest part of testing at Samohi, at least for me, was that the kids are so young! I try to stay away from calling people kids because a lot of people find it kind of demeaning (plus, I'm only 22 and barely an adult myself), but that's really all these people were. Just kids. They were in kindergarten when 9/11 happened. They were toddlers when NSYNC and BSB broke onto the music scene.

It was so hard to sit in a room talking about sex, STDs, and HIV with these kids. The first test I did was for a girl who was so obviously scared and, although we talked for a while about her situation, there was little I could do to assuage her fears. I think that is when it really hit me how intense this year is going to be. It was a frustrating day and, to be perfectly honest, I'm still working on processing that experience.

Friday was another tough day; my co-worker who is in charge of our evening drop-in times was out sick so I had to lead drop-in by myself! I was so stressed about it all day. It ended up going fairly well, but it was still really hard because I haven't been there long enough to feel like a strong authority figure and so, had there been any big problems, I wouldn't have had a clue how to handle it.

Despite it being a really rough week, I do like my job. Even though testing at Samohi was really tough, it was also a really good experience because I felt like I could really help the kids over there because they're young and uninformed. They seemed more receptive to information than some older clients. And even though drop-in was tough, I know I can do it.

Sorry this is kind of ending abruptly, but I need to get some stuff done and get some sleep before the new weeks starts!


Peace,

Jordan