How much change can you deal with?

Time for my roughly bi-annual update. A great deal has transpired.

Since my last entry here I have had three months off from the Outreach job with stress and decided not to return to it for the sake of my prolonged health and sanity. Tellingly, after the first month of resting at home, the problem with my shoulder pretty much sorted itself (although a lot of thanks should go to the ladies providing sports injury massage and physiotherapy). I do feel that stress levels and constantly tight shoulder and back muscles played a big part in my prolonged problem though.

A bit of background about what led to such insanely high stress levels:
In the middle of last year my (now ex-) organisation were on the verge of bankruptcy so they 'merged' with a much larger organisation. In this process there was a re-think in terms of job structures and it was found that we had too many people for too few posts. The solution to this was to jettison everyone on a temporary contract. The Outreach team work on a yearly rolling contract for Bristol City Council, renewable depending on targets being met. My contract had just been renewed so I was spared by two days. The rest of the team, however, didn't have a full year's service and were ditched. The manager decided that enough was enough and found another job too. Two team members left immediately, finding other jobs or training, which left me and one colleague who stayed to the end of his contract. We were joined by two fill-in staff who were very dedicated and professional, and we had a fill-in manager who was quite hands-off, filling two roles at the time.

I already considered my organisation to be piss poor in terms of providing support for staff in an obviously difficult and stressful role, and the way my colleagues were discarded made my mind up about having to eventually move. The team (apart from me) had all initially received letters stating that their positions were safe and they shouldn't worry. Two days later they received letters saying "Ah. There's been a rethink..."
The other problem I had was that I knew who the new manager was going to be. A very different prospect from the old boss, whose consideration and support for her staff team were what kept me there for so long. The new boss was not, to quote The Who, "Same as the old Boss". The words 'arse' and 'broom handle' are involved here.

There were other elements involved in my decision to leave. The job was only superficially about providing support for Bristol's homeless population. The Government handed lists of statistical targets to the Council who passed them on to us. Unrealistic expectations created by a complete lack of knowledge of what is going on at ground level. That old chestnut. Our brief from the Council was "to keep the number of visible rough sleepers below double figures". This is a cosmetic exercise, designed to stop the City looking shabby and the tramps scaring away potential shoppers bringing revenue into the city. Many of the clients, in my opinion, constitute an entire lifetime of work and support, not ten minutes to fill in a form with them and then shovel them into a hostel they're not ready for.
A rehab clinic was proposed in Clifton Village (posh bit of Bristol) and several of the residents polled said "why don't they put it in the city center where those kinds of people and problems are?" I could have shown them where all of Clifton's rough sleepers are, and a couple of dealer's flats too. Needless to say, the clinic is not being built.

When we moved office last year we had to ditch a load of old client files, and some of the names went back over a ten year period. The same people stuck in the same cycles over and over, with staff setting up the same support with the same deficiencies, failing to target the real problems due to a lack of effective communication between the organisations involved, or just a dodgy approach to the problem in the first place. It takes a MASSIVE amount of patience and an equally MAHOOSIVE amount of optimism to keep doing the same work with the same person over and over, hoping that it will one day stick and the client will be able to move forward with their life. It also takes excellent support for the staff to stay sane.

I had a revelation while chilling the fuck out. Picture a Buddhist Priest in old Japan/China, wandering down a country lane in his orange robes and carrying his staff with little jingly bells on the end. He comes across a village in which several of the young men are being unruly and creating nuisances for the villagers. The priest walks up to the young men, jingles his bells, mutters a prayer and then beats the shit out of them with the non-jingly end of his stick. "Get in there and clean that floor you ungrateful bastards! You will work for your food!" Etc.
Now I'm not saying that I'm advocating beating homeless people with sticks, but in my experience you can lavish all of the attention, patience and care on a person that you can manage and it will do absolutely nothing, in some cases making the problem worse. It takes a lot of insight into each client to get a good understanding of what will work on an individual basis. Different things work for different people and some people need a good metaphorical (and in one or two specific cases physical) slap to get them to see things from a different perspective. There are programmes in the US that use shock tactics, cathartic experiences, to get the clients to start the process of change. The UK is reluctant to adopt these methods. I think it's because the people who are caring generally don't have that nasty streak in them required to put someone through a cathartic experience. They might spill their coffee down their cardigan.

An idea that I have chucked around since I first got into the business is to do a counselling course. Now is the time. I'm hoping that the qualification will allow me to continue to work in a support role but in a much more controlled and productive environment. The key difference to the Outreach job is that people involved in counselling have to actively engage in the process for it to work. They have to want to be there.
I'm ninth on the waiting list for the course at the University of the West of England. Not very promising. However, I'm also applying for a place on the new counselling Foundation Degree course run by Bristol Uni, so fingers crossed.
So, how to support myself for the three years either course would run for? I'm applying for another hostel job... This one, however, is run by a different organisation, has only 20 beds with plenty of staff, and they tend to 'cherry pick' their clients to ensure that they're getting people who are motivated to move forwards and get on with life. The manager may well be willing to work out the rota to give the day off per week that I'll need. It does mean weird shifts again, but if I get my counselling qualification I can move on to better things. I may do a Stress management diploma and a massage course too. Isn't it all wonderful and fluffy?

My fuck-nut stress-out happened just after my birthday in march, and I had received 'In Praise of Slow' which I proceed to read. Slowly. My aim is to adopt as slow and stress-free a lifestyle as I can manage without winning the lottery. This slow living thing is very Italian, and given my genetics it's no wonder it appeals so much.

My brother emigrates to New Zealand today. I miss him enormously already. However, I'm glad he's getting out of here. He's going to be teaching over there and I think the prospect is much happier than the thought of continuing to struggle against yet another bullshit nonsupporting system here. He's quite an old-fashioned chap and I think the 1960s time warp that is NZ will suit him well. I've impressed upon him the importance of maintaining a slow-living mindset. Damn I miss him. I hope I can get the cash together to visit soon. If I get enough holiday I might try to fit in a side trip to see dataphage in Oz too.

Bob and I jointly own mum and dad's old house here and so we're splitting the rent 50/50. This gives me a small financial buffer with which to pursue a slower lifestyle (although, for Bob's sake if he reads this, I will be saving as much of it as I can, due to things like leaky roofs and exploding boilers).

The life plan is there, it's just putting all the pieces together and making it work. That's the next bit. Maybe I should have a talk to a counsellor? To be continued...

Did I mention? I really miss my Bro.