More on Site Management

 I'm making an effort to get my thoughts in order for my employer.

If they actually implement some of my ideas it will improve programming. From what I've seen over the last five years, fixing programs is actually low on their list of priorities, but I can't be quiet about the stuff I'm seeing anymore.

Last week when my current afternoon gig was closed due to covid, they sent me to a school up the road a bit. Closer than my other two sites, but again, no one asked me what I wanted when school started up again.

So the site I went to has program located in a portable classroom on the edge of the parking lot. There are two portables in that area, which is important to the story. And even if it weren't, you just read it so you'd know it even if you didn't need to know it.

Funny how words are like that... before you learned to read you wouldn't have known there are two portable classrooms at the end of the parking lot, now you can't NOT read it. Ain't literacy grand?

Now where was I?

Oh yeah. I was approaching the site they sent me to last week.

The girl running the site isn't technically qualified to do so, (not enough supervised contact hours with children) but state regulations have been temporarily changed due to covid and its effects on staffing. She is a nice person, and the site didn't look too bad, but she doesn't understand all the rules and regulations that a person needs to know. A lot of those important things are learned by osmosis, really. The more time you spend with someone competent, the more you learn. Sunshine was utterly amazing at A, knowing all that stuff and B, making sure I understood the reasons behind the rules. I am forever grateful for her tutelage.

When I arrived, there were five children on site, all girls. One was sitting in the corner with the site phone watching a video on YouTube.

"Oh it's from Encanto," Anna (acting site director) told me. I didn't say anything to her regarding the phone use, and probably should have. But I'm not her (or anyone's) supervisor. Remember, I turned down the 'promotion'.

What's wrong with a kid watching videos on a phone?

1. We can't regulate internet content. There is more than one reason we don't have computers on site. We don't want inappropriate content being shown to kids. We don't want the responsibility of kids seeing something they should not see while under our care.

2. It was the site phone. So if a parent called, the child may or may not know to hand the phone off to the adult in time to have it answered. I have been to sites where they actually allowed children to answer the phone, something they're ABSOLUTELY not allowed to do.

3. Since it was the site phone and the kids are allowed to use it, it's not being kept clean, either. I've seen where some of their hands go... I wouldn't let any of 'my' kids handle my personal phone. Why would I want  their hands on a phone I have to use?
Short answer, I wouldn't. Geez.

4. What if the kids are using it so much they run down the battery, there is a power outage and emergency and no phone?

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So as I mentioned, the adult on site had five kids when I showed up.

Three of them were K age.

One of them asked Anna if she could go to the bathroom. Anna said yes, and walked to the exit door with the child. Anna stood in the door and watched the child walk down the ramp, across a small path, and up another ramp to the door of the bathroom portable. The child went into the bathroom. I said, "Excuse me," and went outside and up the ramp to the other unit. I opened the door a crack and said, "Is everything fine in here?"

The little girl answered yes in a teeny little voice (I'm sure she isn't used to people opening the door while she pees, but I did not look inside,) and I waited next to the door until she came out.

When I got back, I told Anna that, "You can't send her into a bathroom like that."

She was confused. "But I'm standing here at the door watching the door of the restroom!"

"You are. That's a good thing. But how did you know there wasn't anyone in there when you sent her over?"

She looked mystified. "What?"

"In the restroom. We're right next to a wooded area, the general public uses the field and there's a way to get into the restroom from the other side over there," and I pointed. "You have to go into the restroom and make sure it's safe and empty before a child goes in there."

"But... how do I do that? I have kids here!"

"You take them with you. Bring them outside and go check the bathroom. Then you can wait in the door here and watch after you've made sure it's safe. The other kids can go back into the room and play and you can keep an eye on the door and on the kids."

"I didn't know!" she told me.
She didn't. She hasn't spent years and years learning all this stuff.
I fervently hope she is now checking that restroom before sending kids.

I did pass that one on, that's a huge safety issue. We are experiencing a very large homeless population, and there are several camps near that school. I know, 'cause I drove past 'em.

No, I don't think homeless people are all criminals or would hurt kids, either. But there are people who are without homes due to mental illness. There are also horrible humans who would molest a child and then go home to their nice warm house. Neither one is okay, obviously, and a warm, dry place where one has access to children would be very attractive to some.
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There are seriously a million little things.

At my current placement, kids have been allowed to go into the back room to get things at will. They seemed confused when I stopped allowing them to just go in there unsupervised.

I will allow them to get certain supplies, as they know where things are and I really don't. But I stand at the door of the room where everyone can see me, I keep my eyes on the child (ONE child at a time in there, they were aggravated with me when I told them only one at a time, because, say it with me, "Axel lets us do it.") and when s/he has found what they were looking for, they're right back out.

Our site aide, Mike, was actually IN THAT ROOM with a child. I have no reason to believe there was any danger to the kid, as I was observing the room at the time, but there's a definite danger to MIKE.

As an adult, and sorry to say, particularly an adult male, you just can't do anything that might look suspicious with a child. It was for Mike's protection that I told him he could not be in that room with a kid.

I've also had to tell Maureen that we can't both be in that room at the same time. If  we're having a conversation (my goodness that woman loves to talk) she just follows me. I had to tell her why it wasn't okay, that she needed to be outside the room to observe our kids.

I also had to explain to both Maureen and Mike that they needed to be seated where they were facing the children rather than choosing seats with their backs to the action.

It's fine to sit and color a picture  with a kid, or do a puzzle or play a game, but you have to see the other kids while that is happening. Neither one of them seemed aware of that.

Something that would help immensely with these issues (and a ton of other ones) would be an at least bi-monthly visit from a manager person.

That person would have a checklist with a basic site inventory and inspect the site to make sure those items were there. The person would also sit and observe how the adult(s) on site interact with the children. I think part of the reason people end up being so overbearing and disrespectful to children is that they get away with it for so long they just think it's fine.

Sadly, kids are accustomed to being talked to rudely, power tripping adults who do demoralizing things like gathering them all on a rug and then standing over them to tell them what to do.

They go where they're told, they do what they're told and even when the adult is really awful to them like Candice and her minions, nothing is done.

I mentioned the whole carrot/stick thing the other day. That is a reference to something done with donkeys waaaay back when, to get them to walk where you want  them to.

Rewards (stickers, tickets etc) are based on that same principal.

Why are we making jackasses of our kids? Anyone?

We can do so much better, and we should.