So it's absolutely official!
On Friday I had my very first real shift with the Department for Child Protection. And it was quite the experience! I had just finished three orientation shifts, and a friend (Pat) had called me, asking if I would be willing to cover a shift for her because her dog Winston had been feeling poorly (hehe- you can tell that I hang with a bunch of pommies!), and she had been unwell herself.
I agreed to take the shift (any shift offered to me, I'm gonna take!) and so I left my home around 11:00 and took the train to Midland (an hour and half away from my house) where Pat met me, and then took me to the house in Swanview, she was also going to pick me up from work because she knows that I still don't have a car (heaven bless Pat!).
I rocked up to (arrived at) the house finally at 1:30pm and as I walked towards the front door I saw a familiar face ... it was Josh. We had gone through training together ... and it was then that I realized that Josh must be doing an orientation shift. That was a bizarre realization for me ... especially when I realized that I was meant to be the person (full fledged staff at this point) whom Josh was meant to "shadow". Only one day of training separated us, and I was meant to train him?
As I entered the house, a sweet 16 year-old boy came bounding out and said very happily sang, "Hi, Molly!!" And then quickly gave me a hug. This I appreciated all the more because I've gotten very used to the common, "Who the f*** are you?" when I rock up to the houses ... haha, so hugs are AWESOME! And I was surprised that he knew my name.
This boy, whose name I learned is Isaac* led me to the office so that I could meet the other staff members, and complimented me on my accent the entire way. By the way, Isaac is the first person to have ever said that he liked my accent, so I really enjoyed that! I met staff, and filled out some of the requisite paperwork, before going out to the lounge and joining two of the boys in a game of Uno (pronounced 'you-no' here).
Then it was time for the official hand over, where I learned that two of the boys were to be taken to the Youth Centre and be supervised (the older one was fine to go on his own, but the younger one was new - and has a bit of an arson history and so needs some supervision), and that I was meant to drive them, and that Josh was meant to shadow
me.
My heart immediately leaped to my throat. I hadn't driven in Australia yet. I've been using public transportation ... and while I'm very comfortable driving on the left, I hadn't ever driven in a car that had the steering wheel on the right hand side ... and now my first go of it was going to be in a completely unfamiliar environment (I live an hour and half away), and with two teenage boys in the back ...
and someone who was technically meant to take notes from my book ... to say I was stressed would be an understatement.
I wasn't used to the car and ended up honking the horn by accident twice as I slowly pulled us out of the drive way, having to back out. I was a little horrified ... the kids on the other hand, LOVED IT. They thought it was the funniest thing, and the twelve year old aboriginal boy (named Oscar*) in the back was giving me detailed advice ... how a 12 year old knows so much about driving ... I'd rather not know.
When I went to turn on the turn signal another roar of laughter came from the backseat ... I had used the same hand that I would use to turn on the turning signal in the States ... which here in Australia, didn't turn on the turn signal ... but turned on the windshield wipers (let's just say I definitely did that more than once). A couple of other bloopers like that and we finally made it to the Youth Centre, where one kid hung out with his girlfriend and played pool, while the 12 year old played ping pong, and an Xbox game that involved him needing to stab people in the throat and other equally violent things. I'm usually pretty lax when it comes to violence in games, but after hanging out with these kids the last little while, I've come to realize that they don't need any encouragement in the violence department, and now look at these games and television with a wearier eye.
Josh and I had just walked into the youth center and had a seat, before a woman walked over to us, and said that we were
very rude not to introduce ourselves, and gave us both the third degree because we might be pedophiles or something. Josh turned and immediately said, "Oh sorry, I'm shadowing Molly today" and pointed to me. Great. So I apologized for our rudeness and explained that I was new and that I wouldn't make the same mistake again. This woman's name happened to be Molly as well ... and when she learned of our shared name became softer with us (well, marginally - haha). She described the program a little to us, and when she told us the age of kids that they allow to come to the Youth Center, I chimed up that
actually both Josh and I, without being there to supervise kids were technically young enough to still hang out at the youth center (without being harassed). Come December I would be considered too old, but as of right now, the services of the Youth Center are opened to me as well.
At one point in our few hours at the youth center, Oscar (the 12 year old) decided to take a smoke break - yep, you read that right. Most of the kids I've been looking after smoke, and none of them are allowed to smoke in the house, so they all congregate together in the backyard to smoke. Who sells cigarettes to kids? And where do they get the money to buy the expensive packs?
Well, the kids don't buy them. They go around and collect "bumpers" which are the little ends that adult smokers have thrown on the ground after a smoke break, and the kids collect the little cigarette buts, disassemble them, and then roll their own cigarettes from all the tobacco that they collect from the ground, trash cans, you name it.
We ended up leaving but the older kid who had been hanging out with his girlfriend was going to see if he could sleep over at a pal's house (which he's allowed to do, if it's alright with his pal's mom). So we followed him to the house in case the kid's mom said that tonight was not a good night for a sleepover, and that way he'd still have a way to get home. On our way there, another one this kid's buddies did a wipe out on his bike and cut his leg up pretty badly ... and his entire calf was saturated red with blood.
My kid jumped to get the first aid kit from the car (while it was still moving - slowly - but moving) because the window was rolled down. I grabbed the pack from him, and got out of the car to check the kid out. I put on a glove and started cleaning him up using the small little alcohol swabs in the kit but decided it was a much bigger job than my little alcohol swabs could handle and sent him home to his mom who he said was home so that she could wash it out with water, and sent him home with a gauze bandage.
It had been a pretty full few hours at work.
Once we finally were back at the house and the kids had had dinner, I was doing some dishes when all of a sudden I heard a familiar voice on the television. And I ran towards it ... one of my very best friend's cousins was the one getting arrested on the show COPS, and I said as much. The boys already held a level of respect for me because they assume the scar on my arm is the result of being stabbed (and not from my dermatologist), but now that I know someone who's related to someone who was arrested on COPS ... I approached almost idol status ... at least for a few minutes. (But still, before I left, I was conned over giving the kids extra ice cream - haha ... oops)
All in all - it was a slightly terrifying ... but also exciting ... first official shift as a full fledged staff member :)
