Huh. Guess Alvin doesn't like our cake.

I mentioned Alvin a couple posts back.
He's a little guy with special needs.

He's a difficult little person. It's really hard to redirect his energy.

No, that's not true. It's actually not possible to do so.

No matter how  many times I say something like, "Alvin, let's build over here and let John have his space," or, "Hey Alvin, since Jeremiah had that building plate first, let's get something different for you to build on," he isn't able to listen and act on what I've suggested.

It's not his fault, of course. He's not being willful, he's just not able to process things the same way I would. It's frustrating for the other kids, and very unfair to them that nothing they make is sacred... he likes to break things and then laugh at the person who's upset over it.

Some of the afternoons I've spent with him have been fairly calm, although he's always kind of in other people's space. Mostly we just hope he will go home early.

Today was fun.
He wound up more and more. A dervish. Pissed off as many people as he could. Laughed at them when they got upset.

I went to him while he was standing over the remains of a block tower he'd just kicked over while the builder wailed, "ALVINNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!"

I placed a hand on his chest and one on his back to attempt to hold him/his attention for a moment to calm him.

He hit me.

He didn't hit me hard, and it wasn't him being malicious, he was simply reacting to my hands on him. But of course we can't have kids hitting anyone, other kids or adults.

So I called our manager to tell her I was going to be sending him home.

She agreed that it was time for him to go.

So I  looked up his mom's number on our phone, Axel had shown me that the phone numbers for Alvin's family were programmed in during the too-short-and-not-all-that-informative visit to his program before I just got tossed in.

I tried to call Mom's number, but it was answered by an automated voice telling me that the facility was closed until next week due to exposure to covid. So I called his dad's number and it went directly to voice mail.

One of the kids needed my attention for a minute after that, and I dealt with that situation. While I was doing so, Alvin decided to run out into the hallway. I went into the hall and told him he needed to come back in.

"NEVER!" he shouted, and ran down the hall, away from our program area.

My assistant went after him, but he ran out of the doors of the building onto the grounds. She came back, telling me, "He's right out there." She pointed to a little speck of a kid, clear across a football field's length. NO way one of us could catch him, even if we were allowed to go out and get him, which we are not.

I called to him, "Alvin, you need  to come back!"
Instead, he went out the gates and ran away.

We do have a procedure for that eventuality. We are to call 911 and report a missing child. When that has been done, we are to notify parents immediately. We can't leave the other kids in our care to go chase a young human, even if he's running into a busy street.

It was a very hectic 15 minutes or so.

First, I had to wait ON HOLD with the emergency services. It seemed like about 20 minutes, but it really wasn't. It was about three minutes.

I gave the dispatcher a description of the child, race, what he was wearing, which direction he ran when he left the grounds. Parent names and phone numbers. Alvin's older brother is in the program, too, and when the dispatcher asked me what Alvin's likely reaction to a police officer might be, his brother was helpful with some possibilities.

Now of course the rest of the world doesn't stop when something like that is going on. Parents were arriving to pick up their children, I was mediating an argument and separating a good-natured dogpile on the carpet. The kids weren't mad, they just took advantage of the distracted adults to start wrestling a bit.

So I was still on the line with 911 when Alvin's mom showed up to collect her kids. I told her what was going on.
"Why wasn't I called?"

I told her that I was actually still on the phone with 911 and had not had time to notify her.

So kids left, one parent stayed for a few minutes in case there was anything she could do to help. Very kind.

Then Alvin's older sister called his mom's phone to say that Alvin had come home. They live about 8 blocks from the school.

My assistant was upset, she felt that she had done something wrong or had failed to do her job somehow. Alvin's mother, who works with some profoundly disabled special needs kids, could not have been kinder. She was not angry at all, and reassured Maureen that she was not at fault, that Alvin just sometimes runs away. We also found that the number that is programmed into our site phone is not the one I should be using if I need to get in touch quickly. Nice to know that now. Jesus.

There was some discussion of his behavior plan and information that would certainly have been helpful to me had it been presented when I toured the program the same day I started working there.

:::sigh:::

So I'm glad Alvin made it home safely.
But you know, he's five.
It was dark out.
Rainy.
He had to cross three very busy streets to make it to his house.
He wasn't wearing a coat.
There are cars.
There are crazy people who do awful things to children.

As much as I'd like to see the little guy succeed (and be a contributor to that) I am thinking he really doesn't belong in a program unless he has a one on one aide to take care of him.

Not that anyone has asked me.