Things I Learned Working in a Residential Treatment Facility

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > Things I Learned Working in a Residential Treatment Facility

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

So in short, I used to work in a residential treatment facility not too long ago. I eventually parted ways there and was so upset over my experience that I practically wrote an essay about it.

Now while I encourage people to read it, I realize that not everyone will. So i'll just take a few excerpts from it.

quote:

However, even when staff are present you will wish at times that they weren't. Some staff even make things worse. There is one particularly staff who stands out to me of being insufferable to work with. I�ll call him �Captain� because there was a period of time where he would come into work wearing a captain�s sailor hat just like Chris in Resident Evil. I can�t accurately describe just how dumb he is without someone actually being in the field. In short he riles the kids up constantly. He will argue with nine year old children who are mentally impaired over the most idiotic things. This usually revolves around �you said, I said� types of ordeals that the children commonly argue over. This will result in the kid getting pissed off and him having to call someone from the other house, usually me, to deal with situation. The reason being is that he can�t restrain many of the kids anymore because he did so too much that the higher ups have taken notice.
Now what is the other staff member working at the same house doing at this time? Well she just sits on the computer all day. She�s in such poor shape that she weighs over 300 lbs and can barely walk. As a result she is always sitting on a chair where she puts blankets on the seat, because her rear end is so loving massive it hurts to sit on non-cushioned surfaces. During times of crisis she almost never gets up out of her seat and all she does is constantly complain about everything. What�s worse is that she too riles up the kids for no reason. But the worst thing about her is that she will always go behind staffs back trying to get them in trouble. An example of this is that when there are only three overnights present, one of us has to be the float. It is often me so I bounce between both houses, one containing teenagers and the other containing small children. I began to notice that the house for teenagers is usually chaotic at night while the house for small children is calm and quiet as the latter are fast asleep by the time I come in. During the morning things are reverse as the small children wake up much earlier than the teenagers. So I asked this �woman� if she would be okay if I stayed the night half of the shift at the teenager home and came back to the small child home when the morning began. She said that was all fine and dandy. I then told her to call me if she needed anything what so ever. It turned out that she told the supervisor that I was flat out refusing to work the house with her during the night shift, and thus I wasn't abiding by my responsibilities of being a float. She has done this multiple times with multiple people. Both of these staff are still hired by the company.

quote:

I recall a year ago I talked with some people about three kids from the facility who were going on a rampage in the community. Multiple times they left campus to do such things as steal gift cards and other products from various stores. They even went to Walmart and stole BB guns. Although not confirmed, I recall them talking about how they attempted to rob someone, though luckily it didn't turn out as planned. Despite all of this not a single thing happened to them. The closest thing they got to a �punishment� was that they couldn't go out for activities or clothing shopping, even though due to being so low staffed they were almost never taken out for these things begin with. Oh, they also had a thirty minute early bed time. That was it, that was their punishment. Everything else remained virtually unchanged.
All three of these boys are still at the house. So, this means that they must have changed their habits right? Not really. After that event the boys continued to do what they had been doing. They actually left the house to steal at least two more times or so. The took the BB guns they stole and hid them in their rooms. I also recall walking around outside and finding two metal baseball bats hidden under some debris. Could be coincidence�or not. But to really have one understand just how little accountability there is for the boys in the home I�ll begin to describe a few cases.

quote:

I�ll call this kid �Roy�. Roy never met his real parents as he was adopted at three weeks old. The only thing Roy knew about his original parents is that they were white. His family was all black and lived in an all black neighborhood. It was complete with a mother and siblings. Throughout most of Roy�s life his mother was very caring and his family treated him well, just like he was part of the family. Unfortunately for him the mother got sick and died. He was placed into care with his oldest sister. Suddenly he stopped being treated like one of the family, and instead like a leper. His family that he once knew and loved began abusing him as they ridiculed him, took food away from him, and out right physically abused him. Keep in mind despite Roy being a teenage boy he is very small and light. He tried to fight back but his much bigger female care taker overpowered him. The people who he thought was his family, for the first thirteen years or so of his life, really hated him all along and thought he was an outsider. Today you can see just how these experiences effect him. Whenever he eats he eats very quickly and has his hand over his bowl so no one can take his food. He always tries to befriend his bullies, because from his experience he is more safe when he is always by the side of the victimizer rather than being a lone victim. As a result he is constantly a goon, a partner in crime.

The younger clients certainly aren't without their own histories as well. One child, that I will call �Piff�, is very young. He was born to a mother who smoked crack regularly. She did a lot of things to fund her addiction. During this time it was suspected that Piff was regularly physically abused. She eventually was put in jail and Piff went to her boyfriend�s or brother�s house, I can�t remember the specifics of this exactly. It turns out that Piff�s new caretaker was even worse than his mother. They regularly sat home and did drugs while Piff was left to fend for himself. Eventually the caretaker disappeared all together and for a full month Piff was a child only a couple years old roaming the streets all by himself. I�m still not sure just what he had to do to survive, but I�d imagine it involved regularly stealing and eating garbage. Eventually he was spotted by police and then put into social services.
Seeing Piff today, even after two years or so of �treatment�, it is obvious he has severe problems. The best way to describe him is that he is an infant in a child�s body. He can�t focus on anything for more than two seconds at a time. He will invoke tantrums over the simplest things, such as him not getting the right kind of cereal. He frequently wets the bed and sees no problem walking around the house and interacting with his peers while being soaked in pee. He�ll become hysterical when he is told �no� by the simplest things. To be fair he has improved since he got to the placement, but I can�t chalk that up whether that is due to him no longer being in a place where he gets beat up and having to fend for himself, or that he is simply getting older. Probably both.

Much more at the link. And really this isn't even any of the more interesting stuff.

# ? Sep 3, 2016 00:55

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 18:33

fuck the ROW: Aug 29, 2008; by zen death robot

Well, I'm not clicking on the link, so I'm just going to "take you at face value" that it was itneresting. Perhaps next thread you will consider turning your mointor on

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:11

dad gay. so what: Feb 18, 2003; by FactsAreUseless

i learned that you can get really heavy into drugs and go to rehab and then you just kind of figure it out later

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:12

dad gay. so what: Feb 18, 2003; by FactsAreUseless

i got in a fight with an orderly over getting a can of coke 2 minutes after he told me not to. i still have a journal i think

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:13

dad gay. so what: Feb 18, 2003; by FactsAreUseless

authority is for pussies

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:13

fuck the ROW: Aug 29, 2008; by zen death robot

I didnt make my millions working at a residential child touching facility, but lets just say i thieved a lot of cokes and sneakers from the little tards in there

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:15

Mumpy Puffinz: Aug 11, 2008; Nap Ghost

dad gay. so what posted:

i got in a fight with an orderly over getting a can of coke 2 minutes after he told me not to. i still have a journal i think

you did what you had to do to survive

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:16

glowstick party tonight: Oct 4, 2003; by zen death robot

Kids shouldn't do heroin or drink booze imo

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:22

dad gay. so what: Feb 18, 2003; by FactsAreUseless

Mumpy Puffinz posted:

you did what you had to do to survive

i have a problem with authoriity

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:35

Mumpy Puffinz: Aug 11, 2008; Nap Ghost

dad gay. so what posted:

i have a problem with authoriity

no poo poo

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:37

Kuato: Feb 25, 2005; "I CAN'T BELIEVE I ATE THE WHOLE THING"; Buglord

Do you have a tl;dr version for your tl;dr version? Asking for a friend.

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:46

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

Kuato posted:

Do you have a tl;dr version for your tl;dr version? Asking for a friend.

Sure.

quote:

poo poo's hosed.

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:49

Ches Neckbeard: Dec 3, 2005; You're all garbage, back up the truck BACK IT UP!

Worked overnights in a locked unit with teenagers at a understaffed facility. So many chairs got thrown it was basically WWE. Welcome to a very special hell.

# ? Sep 3, 2016 01:53

That Robot: Sep 16, 2004; ask me anything about robots; Buglord

there are a poo poo-ton of typos in that essay op

# ? Sep 3, 2016 19:34

GORILLA BASTARD: Jun 20, 2005; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

I spent the 1st 14 yrs of my work at a forensic psychiatric center for the criminally insane. We have everything from serial killers, pyromaniacs and a couple of cannibals.

So yeah i learned monsters are very real.

# ? Sep 4, 2016 02:40

SOME PIG: Aug 12, 2004; Hittin' Switches,
Twistin' wigs with
Phat Radical Mathematical type Scriptures

punk rebel ecks posted:

I'm [...] g [...] a [...] y

hmm yes I see

# ? Sep 4, 2016 03:35

Cymoril: Jul 1, 2005; Kittens Warm the World; Dinosaur Gum

GORILLA BASTARD posted:

I spent the 1st 14 yrs of my work at a forensic psychiatric center for the criminally insane. We have everything from serial killers, pyromaniacs and a couple of cannibals.

So yeah i learned monsters are very real.

I would seriously read an A/T thread about this.

# ? Sep 4, 2016 03:46

Enfield: May 30, 2011; by Nyc_Tattoo

so you wrote a gigantic essay whining about your job
edit: im sorry for being rude. im so tired

Enfield fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Sep 4, 2016

# ? Sep 4, 2016 03:52

Blue Train: Jun 17, 2012

I only read you second excerpt op but from the way you write I suspect those kids were a shitton cooler and more interesting than you. you come off as whiny and holier than thou, like maybe trying to help people isn't for you

# ? Sep 4, 2016 04:02

Sophy Wackles: Dec 17, 2000; > access main security grid
access: PERMISSION DENIED.

The other day at work I had to fix some scripts written in vbscript. Pray you never know the horror....

# ? Sep 4, 2016 04:05

A Loud Fart: Sep 9, 2011

State orphanage --> State prison. The circle of life! :henget:

# ? Sep 4, 2016 04:23

let it mellow: Jun 1, 2000; Dinosaur Gum

op learned to capitalize every word in a thread title like its a book title or proper noun or some poo poo that's what I leaned itt

# ? Sep 4, 2016 04:24

SOME PIG: Aug 12, 2004; Hittin' Switches,
Twistin' wigs with
Phat Radical Mathematical type Scriptures

Hey I finally got around to reading the whole thing, and it was really interesting. Also extremely hosed up. I can't imagine having to deal with kids like that all day (and longer) for a job, thank god someone does it. I don't think I could deal with the older/bigger kids molesting and raping the younger ones. :stare:

# ? Sep 4, 2016 20:35

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

dethkon posted:

Hey I finally got around to reading the whole thing, and it was really interesting. Also extremely hosed up. I can't imagine having to deal with kids like that all day (and longer) for a job, thank god someone does it. I don't think I could deal with the older/bigger kids molesting and raping the younger ones.

Thank you for reading it!

I gotta admit that I was starting to regret making this thread as most people in it are just dunking on it. Which is understandable being that the article is hilariously long to the point that few would ever read it.

But knowing that it made some sort of an impact on you makes it worth it.

# ? Sep 5, 2016 16:33

unpacked robinhood: Feb 18, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Cymoril posted:

I would seriously read an A/T thread about this.

# ? Sep 5, 2016 16:47

SLICK GOKU BABY: Jun 12, 2001; Hey Hey Let's Go! 喧嘩する
大切な物を protect my balls

I might have read it if you knew how to effectively use the enter key so it's not just a big wall of text.

# ? Sep 5, 2016 16:48

unpacked robinhood: Feb 18, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

SLICK GOKU BABY posted:

I might have read it if you knew how to effectively use the enter key so it's not just a big wall of text.

The guy above says there is intra-pedo rape which sounds interesting

# ? Sep 5, 2016 17:42

Luvcow: Jul 1, 2007; One day nearer spring

I did this for 10 years and it is soul crushing and leaves you just below the poverty line as far as pay. I did meet some of my best friends working there though and learned that most people with degrees in the field sit behind closed doors and do little to nothing to impart their knowledge to the regular staff.

I went into management for the last few years and found out that its actually a lot worse than working in the trenches. It was one thing to work everyday with the clients and find creative and interesting ways to still work and have fun despite crippling deficits in funding, staffing and basic everyday supplies. It sucked a lot more to be the person telling the staff that the we couldn't give them the funding, staffing and necessities that we had legally promised to provide for our staff and clients.

Much respect to anybody doing this type of work. My only critique would be that you seemed to be a little hard on the kids in your essay. They are hosed from day one whereas the staff has a choice about being there. Good luck OP.

# ? Sep 5, 2016 18:49

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 18:33

That Robot: Sep 16, 2004; ask me anything about robots; Buglord

punk rebel ecks posted:

Thank you for reading it!

I gotta admit that I was starting to regret making this thread as most people in it are just dunking on it. Which is understandable being that the article is hilariously long to the point that few would ever read it.

But knowing that it made some sort of an impact on you makes it worth it.

do you even proofread your own articles for errors?

# ? Sep 5, 2016 20:41

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