First Week at Work

Hi Everybody,

Well I started my new job yesterday. So far, so good. My two office-mates, Bronagh (pronounced "Brona") and Michelle are both new as well, so the three of us will all be figuring things out together, which is nice. They both just finished their social work degrees at Trinity College in Dublin, one a bachelors and one a masters, and are both really nice. I'll have nine families to start out, but I haven't gotten my case files yet so I don't know what kinds of issues I'll be dealing with. We spent a lot of the day trying to get our office organized and setting up appointments to meet with some of the service providers in our area (housing/homelessness agencies, drug rehabs, family centers, etc...) because these are the kinds of services we will need to be getting for our clients. Sooo...we're gonna be going around this week and next to get to know what kinds of resources are available. I had computer training all day today to learn the system we use to do casenotes, referrals, child abuse notifications and how we put new families into the database when they enter the system. All pretty basic but mandatory training. Unfortunately it was kinda designed for people with very little computer experience so I was sorta bored a lot of the time. I have to go back for another day of training on Friday and then I'll be an expert at the "Social Work Information System". Haha...

Tomorrow we're visiting a community development organization and a family resource center and Thursday we're going to women's shelter, I think. It's nice that we get a few weeks to get oriented with the area and the services before we're meant to start working with our families.

No real news besides that. Just excited to start working. Thanks for singing Happy Birthday to me on Sunday! It was actually hot and sunny here that day so I got to lay out in the back yard and read a book all afternoon! (Although here, they call it the back "garden"). I'm trying to spread American-isms here though. I've got Steve's 2-yr-old nephew saying "yikes!" and I'm working on "later dude". And Steve and his sister Ruthie have started saying American words like "sweatshirt" (they say jumper here) and "stuff" and Ruthie swears she's starting to talk with an American accent. She's even using the Chicagoan method of ending a sentance in a preposition...she asked me yesterday..."do you wanna come with?" haha...I'm contagious!

Right, well, I'm tired so I'll leave it at that for now. My office is ugly and miserable at the moment because its a gov't building with no character, but Bronagh and Michelle and I are determined to fix it up so I'll post pics once we get it looking a bit more presentable.

Love you all and miss you, especiallly Linny, although I talk to you nearly every day...Good luck to all the kids going back to school soon and congrats to Auntie Laurie for getting some of your life back during the days! Ha!

xox
ame