BLOG: Jesse’s House

I was reminded to blog as yesterday we had a parent from Kings Ridge Christian School came in to deliver some gifts that her daughter’s class had prepared for the girls. I was working on project in my office when a beautiful little girl came bouncing past my office door. Julie was leading her and her mother around to deliver gifts to each girls’ bedroom. When I introduced myself, the mother asked if I was the one who did the blog. I felt a little guilty in answering, so I made a note to myself to be sure that I wrote an update for those of you who check in every once in a while.

Happy belated Valentine’s Day. Not exactly my favorite holiday, but I’m almost amused at how important it is to the girls around here. Even those girls who don’t have boys at school giving them flowers are excited about the day. Perhaps is the promise of chocolate, or just a positive feel in the air.

I gave out my weekly grade reports yesterday, and all of the girls took them in good moods. I know when I was a teenager, I never would have met my mother with a smile on my face when she was telling me that she checked up on my grades that day. Some of the girls really do have a difficult time in school, but right now many of them are able to put it into perspective, and slowly work towards academic goals that they may have.

This should not come as a surprise to me, but I’ve found that the girls respond to even the simplest of positive reinforcements. I made the girls paper certificates for their doors that noted their various academic accomplishments. They are always soo excited when they receive these, and really disappointed if I don’t happen to post the signs one week. I think one girl still has a couple signs on her door dating back to October. It’s neat to know that just recognizing their accomplishments means so much to them.

To back track a bit, I’d like to give a little update on the latter half of last year.

The school situation has worked out well for all of us. For the most part, we have been able to keep our girls in the three schools to which we feed. The only exception we are making to this is when girls from Forsyth County are coming to Jesse’s House, we choose to keep them in their home schools to provide as much normalcy as possible.
Not having to figure out what High School each resident should attend has provided a great deal of ease and swiftness to the enrollment process. [Prior to this school year, Forsyth County High Schools offered two different types of academic schedules. Forsyth Central was on an 8-block system where students took four classes a day, but classes alternated each day and they would take a total of 8 classes at a time. North Forsyth offered a 4-block where students simply took four classes at a time, and each class was only 1/2 a semester long so they could complete 8 units in a semester. When residents would come from other counties that offered a 4-block, they needed to continue the 4-block classes to keep their credits in order. In this case, we would have to make special arrangements to have students bussed to NFHS. This year, all Forsyth County High Schools have moved to a more traditional 7-block system where they take 7 classes for the duration of the year]

The most significant change to my job and to Jesse’s House in general has been the addition of our Assistant Director, Lindsay Rust. Lindsay has been a great asset to us all over the past few months. She constantly offers new perspective on processes that we have in the house. She has the education and experience that really gives way to new ideas and new methods of communication around the house. At times, it’s been a struggle for me as I’ve had to let my anal retentive ways go out the window as we all make slight adjustments to discover our most effective roles. She has done a wonderful job of monitoring the therapeutic aspects of the girls’ treatment. She provides supervision for our on-site clinical intern Kristin Snyder. Lindsay has also made a great connection with the girls. Daily, she helps the girls with conflict resolution with one another. As her title indicates, Lindsay is also serving in a supervisory role for all staff. I believe she has provided a great deal of stability as we have yet another person to go to when we have concerns or need some advice.

Carly Cross has moved into a role as the Direct Care Staff Supervisor. As with Lindsay, it is nice to have this extra person for staff to turn to when they need an extra bit of direction. Each day the girls present new scenarios that require a great deal of imagination and improvisation to work with. It’s great to have that person to turn to when a questionable situation arises. From a organizational perspective, it’s great to have someone to monitor to be sure that the best choices are consistently being made by staff when unusual situations arise.

That’s what I have for updates for today. Hopefully you’ll hear from me soon. Please let me know if you ever have any questions or topics you would like for me to address.

Thanks for checking in!

Mary Catherine

PS – Happy Birthday, Mr. Kloos.

Last day of August, Labor Day Weekend, school in session. I guess I have to concede that summer is offically passing. It’s for the better, as traditionally summer is not my favorite season. I don’t suppose this summer was helped by the fact that the air conditioning in my car isn’t working to it’s greatest potential!

All of our girls are in school. It was a very trying few weeks. I see the last week or so as the rainbow after the rain… or something less cliche.

Recently, one of our long-term residents moved to a foster home with a family who are hoping to continue the process to adoption. This has been a very bittersweet time for us. The case of this child is the definition of a success story for us. We served her for a long time and brought her a great deal of services.

One of the things Jesse’s House is so fortunate to have is the great band of volunteers. One of our volunteers came and worked with our girls for years. Over the course of that time, she built a strong relationship with all of our girls. She was able to build a relationship with one resident in particular as that girl has been with us for a good deal of time. This general comfort turned into a greater desire to serve this resident. The volunteer went through Foster Parenting classes, and eventually was able to start the transition to moving this resident to her home.

It’s going to be a tough change for our staff, as this resident has been at Jesse’s House longer than most of us! She has done so well, and been so willing to accept the help that Jesse’s House has to offer. We are so excited to see where she goes. We wish all of the best to her and her new family!

It’s definitely a time of renewal… new school year, new staff (I’ll get to that next week), and new girls. It’s been very intersting, but it’s always fun.

Thanks for checkin in!

Hooray! I’ve been trying to login for several days. I swear I’m not a complete technical idiot, but I am going to have to do away with the “case sensitive” world. If you have ever been among the unfortunate folks to see my handwriting in action, you know that I write in all caps. Oh, silly website security. Thanks to Neal Berry for all the help!

I lost my cohort, Christy Moore, this week. I will be taking over her cases. I just want to make a note of thanks to her for being such a great teacher, and I wish her luck in her new endeavors.

School is gearing up once again. There is always a lot of excitement surrounding this time of year. Today the girls got to go back-to-school shopping for some new clothes. As I’m sitting in my office typing this, they’re in the kitchen litterally putting of a fashion show. It’s pretty cute to hear them applauding and ooooing and awing each other.

I think this is a pretty scary time for many of the girls. It’s certainly a time of the unknown. Not one of our current residents will be attending a school they attended last year (that is if all my paperwork goes through this week — fingers crossed!) We have a couple of new residents. We have some middle-schoolers moving to high school, and a couple of our high-schoolers will be moving schools.

I must make note that I am greatly going to miss Beda Roberts who has returned to working in the schools. However, I’ve had the pleasure this week of meeting the new Homeless Education Liaison, Ms. Gladys Sasso-Alverez. I called Gladys on Monday, and as she answered the phone, I said in a panic, “I know it’s your first day of work, but I’m going to ask you a million questions, and you can get back to me whenever possible.” Two days into her new position, Gladys had everything worked out for me. I’m very encouraged and excited about working with her. I think she will be a great asset to Jesse’s House’s extended family just as Beda has been for the past couple of years!

I really have to say that while I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off this week, all of the craziness has been a wonderful display of controlled chaos. Elaine Caine, the head counselor at Forsyth Central has demonstrated a great deal of patience with me as I have been asking her a ton of last-minute questions. As always, Jane and Rita at the registration center got my new girls taken care of with perfect ease. I’ve enjoyed recently meeting two new additions to the counseling office at FCHS, Ms. Tammy Bagwell, the counseling secretary, and Ms. Elizabeth Chilson, a new counselor. I hope to get to meet Mr. Carnaroli at West tomorrow as he’s been incredibly helpful in what I can only imagine has been an insane time as he is the head counselor at a brand new school.

I hope to keep you more up to date than in recent history! I really do enjoy writing the blog, and I hope you all enjoy reading it. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions or topic you would like for me to write about!

Have a great weekend. SCHOOL STARTS MONDAY!!!! As always, thanks for checking in.

On a personal note: Happy Birthday to Krista Stewart!

Ok, I already have another blog written, and it’s several months later, but I would be remiss to not to write about the Gala! So I’m deleting that blog and I’ll enter it after this one is posted.

On April 21st Jesse’s House held our bi-annual fundraiser. While we obviously take donations of every kind throughout the year, the funds that we recieve from our large fundraisers is a huge contribution in keeping us up and running. Thank you to everyone who came out. I hope you had fun (and had some cheesecake!)

We started off the evening at the Polo Field’s clubhouse with a great silent auction. I personally walked away with an autographed Willie Nelson poster that I had to keep hidden in my apartment until I could give it to my dad for Father’s day. It was perfect.

Next we had an excellent dinner (including the aforementioned cheesecake.) Dinner was followed up by a lively Wine Auction. Unfortuantely, the Wine Auction quickly flew way out of my price range. It’s probably for the best as I litterally buy wine for decoration or to serve to my guests as I personally don’t drink it. I did have my eye on the wine with the personalized Jesse’s House logo on the bottles. It seems one of our board members was just as interested!

It was fun to see everyone dressed to the nines. I’d like to personally thank my brother and sister-in-law Trey and Angie Tompkins and my friend Jon Herrell for coming and supporting Jesse’s House and me.

We had a great time! I hope to see you all next time around.

February? Seriously? I’m still trying to stop writing ‘06 on everything that I sign. Well, Happy Groundhog’s day. I believe the Georgia rodent,. Beauregard Lee, called for an early spring. It doesn’t really feel like it right about now.

First and foremost: Hooray for new residents! We have two new residents this week. We are excited to welcome back a resident who was with us early last year. We’re glad to have the opportunity to continue to make a difference with her.

As we’re getting into the swing of the new year, the full-time staff here at the house are looking forward to our big fundraiser of the year. We are having a Wine Auction and Gala in April.

On Monday night, I got to go and talk with the board of the Atlanta Chapter of Soroptimist. This is an internation women’s organization. The Atlanta Chapter has chosen Jesse’s House as a recipient of their volunteer work. I enjoyed meeting with these ladies, and we’re hoping they will be able to help in our needs for the Gala.

Just to add some excitement to the week, we had a nice day off of school yesterday. It was one of those days that was icy enough in the morning to justify the day off, but it wasn’t a fun, snowy day. The girls enjoyed their day off. We just had a lazy day, which is always nice in the midst of the tightly scheduled weeks that they usually have.

Today we had the intake of our 6th resident. The house is starting to feel more energetic. We’re excited about the mix of some new personalities! Hopefully they will mix well!

 Thanks for checking in!

We are going through an intersting period here at Jesse’s House. After a busy holiday season, things have calmed WAY down. We are currently serving four (4) residents. This is actually nice because it allows to give each girl an unprecendented amount of individual attention. (They may not agree on how positive thing this is!)

In the past few months, there has been a movement in the state to reduce the number of placements in emergency shelters and group homes. This has obviously lead to a reduction of the number of referrals that we recieve from the Department of Family and Children’s Services. It has always been a priority of DFCS to keep families together. We are simply seeing an extra push to be certain that every possible step is being taken to help families recuperate and work together once again.

At Jesse’s House, it is our responsibility to be sure that the residents who are looking forward to being reunited with their parents are given the lessons they need to learn how to be a positive member of their family. The residents learn life skills and emotions management to insure their success once they move back home. We also give recommendations to the court as to whether we believe a resident is prepared to be reunited with their families. We base this on conversations with counselor and observations of individual behavior and interactions with their families.

Despite the reduction in referrals from DFCS, in recent months we have had an influx of residents from the Department of Juvenile Justice and through the Juvenile Court System. This is caused by an increased desire for alternative settings to detention centers. Most judges prefer to keep a child in alternate placements if they must be detained. This allows for continued schooling and a generally more tolerant atmosphere than detention centers. Jesse’s House would be used in this situation as a more realistic home-like setting.

Imagine a child who is brought to court on repeated truancy and runaway charges. If this child were sent to a Juvenile Detention Center, they would have extremely structured days and little choices to be made. While at Jesse’s House, these children have the opportunity to attend school. They are given many freedoms to make positive choices. Some times, the girls make poor decisions, and then they learn how to accept consequences for these decisions. Basically, being in a less restrictive setting such as a group home, teaches decision-making skills. Once the girls return to their homes, they will be able to use the skills learned at Jesse’s House to better apply them to their every day lives.

I appologize for not creating a new post in such a long time. I’d like to say that its just been so crazy around here, but I certainly can’t blame it all on the craze. There were just weeks that it would slip my mind entirely. Some weeks, I thought “Oh, I need to write a new blog entry” or “This would be an interesting topic for the blog” For whatever reason, it just didn’t get done. I appologize! Let’s start 2007 fresh. I won’t say its a resolution, because no one keeps a New Year’s Resolution. Stay tuned.

 

We had a wonderful holiday season. Each year, the community support increases and this year we can genuinely say we had the best Christmas ever!

As you can imagine, we recieve the greatest amount of gifts and supplies for the year due to the generosity that the holiday spirit brings out of people. The items we recieve throughout the holiday season allow us to keep the shelter running the whole year. Many of the gifts we recieve are placed in our “Jesse Bucks” closet to be used as prizes and birthday presents for our residents throughout the year.

We have many volunteers that chose to “adopt” residents for the holidays. This can often be a complicated proceedure, and Keyanna does a wonderful job of keeping track of the gifts. Because we are an emergency shelter, we have a high turnover of residents. It is not uncommon that we may have a resident leave a week before Christmas. Its equally as common that a new resident could come to the house only days before the holiday. We always want to make each resident have an equally great holiday and feel welcome. As Keyana generally assigns wish lists to volunteers in October and November, it is difficult to be sure that each resident will still be with us come time for the holidays. When gifts are recieved, but the resident has already moved, we try our best to have their workers give them their gifts. Sometimes this is not possible. We use the gifts we have to help suppliment some of the girls who may not have recieved as much throughout the season. Additionally, we use excess gifts to be placed in our “Jesse Bucks” closet so that we can insure that come September, residents have quality birthday presents and rewards for good behavior.

Thank you to all of the organizations and individuals that helped make Jesse’s House a wonderful place to be over the holidays. I appologize that I can not recognize each of you individually, but please know that we couldn’t do it without you!

This past weekend, many of our girls attended an ILP weekend. ILP is the Independent Living Program that is put together through DFCS. John Dawson is the ILP coordinator for our region. Any child in DFCS over the age of 14 is elligible for the Independent Living Program. What’s better, is once children are out of DFCS care, and back in their homes, if they had ever participated in ILP, they are still elligible to recieve the benefits.

 This week, the girls participated in an Independent Living Weekend in Blairsville. The girls participated in one of two programs: cullinary or cosmetology. They spent the weekend learning skills in these areas. ILP often provides the participants with tools that may be helpful in their future endevors. This time around, those who participated in the culinary skills program recieved knives (They are safely locked away!!!!). The cosomotology girls recieved manequin heads with wigs they can practice on. (This can be kind of scary when you’re walking into a dark room!)

 In previous ILP events that our residents have attended, John has certainly treated them well. He has a good treat for those who fully participate in the programs. The girls have come home with sets of luggage, Palm Pilots (with full software), and most recently he took 40 kids to Office Depot and let them loose on a $100 shopping spree!

Thanks for checking in! Until next time…

The school year is officially in full swing. We have had very little turnover in girls since the beginning of the school year. This has been a very nice change because it allows us to start to consentrate on the on-going needs of the girls. Many of our residents have started to put a lot of interest into thier schools and the school community.

One of our residents stays after her middle school classes once a week to watch football games at the school. The school organizes and supervises the games so that even these younger children can begin to invest in their schools. She really seems to enjoy this extra time spent at school.

Several of our high-schoolers are picking up on clubs and afterschool activities in which they want to participate. They have gotten involved by enthusiastically bringing home fund-raising opportunities for these activities.

One of our girls has spoken with one of her teachers about beginning to train for the track season that takes place in the spring semester. She wants to be sure to keep in shape! She is also planning on trying out for the cheerleading team. This is an excellent student, who really is in the fast lane for college!

We hope to be able to share more about the girls’ experiences as the school year progresses.