Psycho-Social Rehabilitation Worker

Wow, that's a mouth full, but that is my new job title! Crazy, huh? :) I have been at my new job for a week now and I just wanted to let you know what exactly I do and what my new place is like. I work at a place called, "Pettingill Counseling Services" which is a counseling office for Individual, Marriage, and Family therapy. The clients there can request to have a PSR (Psycho-Social Rehabilitation) workere if they would like, and that's where I come in (or one of the 13 other PSR's). I have been given about 6 clients so far and I am there to help them learn skills, meet goals, have someone to listen to them, help them with different things according to their treatment plans, and become more independent in the community so they don't have to resort to more restrictive living arrangements. My clients are all female and are ages 37, 14, 11, two 10 year olds, and a 9 year old! They are so fun! So you can understand what I do better here is an example of what I did this week:

I meet with my 37 year old 5 days a week for two hours each day. This week we drove all around Idaho Falls and turned in all her bills that she had for the month. She is learning how to use a budget and manage her money so that she can be financially independent so someone else doesn't have to do it for her. Her home is not a very clean place to live in so we also went to Wal-Mart and got her a bunch of cleaning supplies so she can clean her house and live on her own better. Yesterday we also walked around the mall for a couple hours because she wanted to find a book for someone. By doing this she learned how to use the different sources available in the community to help her solve her problems and get good exercise by walking around! It was probably a bad thing I was there cause I spent money I shouldn't have. :) Then last night we went to this place called "Leo's" which is like Chuckie Cheese's where there was a party that my work was throwing for two PSR workers who were leaving. By going to this party it helped her to be more social and be able to make and strengthen relationships. It's kind of cool how you can pretty much do any kind of activity and relate it to any of their goals in their treatment plan (psychiatric/health, financial, family, social, community, living skills). Next week we have planned to go to water aerobics, teach her how to cook something so she can learn how to use measuring cups and take care of herself, I am going to also teach her how to do some stuff on Myspace ( I know what you are thinking....Myspace?! But she doesn't know how to do a lot of things on the computer so I am going to teach her how to do those things so she can do them herself and not have to always have somebody else do them for her. INDEPENDENCE PEOPLE!). :)

Anyway, with my younger clients we pretty much do homework, play games, color, go to the library, go get haircuts, ice cream cones, go to the park. FUN STUFF! Wow, I can't believe I am getting paid to go have fun everyday! A bachelor's degree was definitely worth it! :)