David Moreau
Toby won’t go in the auditorium
for the noonday concert
so Ellie takes Donnie and Melinda
while Toby and I wait in the hallway.
When you’re ready, I tell him,
as calmly as I can because I
really want to hear the Schubert concerto.
Toby sits cross-legged on the floor,
rocking contentedly
and we hear the piano softly
on the other side of the wall. Continue reading »
David Moreau
She knows how to turn your mother’s body to slide the wet Attends from under her, to clean her peri area, so the skin does not turn red and every day your mother tells her the same story - she saw Yul Brynner in the King and I on her honeymoon and every day the direct care worker imagines this frail packet of bones a young woman amazed by the bright lights and her new life. Later she finds herself singing, getting to know you, getting to know all about you… and its comforting enough to make it through her shift.
Joan Leah
The following poem was contributed by Joan Leah
Nights and days blend together as I wait for your care
Without you I would simply sit and stare
My hands are wrinkled and riddled with pain
Once I could care for myself, I still try but in vain
I try to sleep so the time goes by
I stare at pictures and begin to cry
David Moreau
The following poem was contributed by David Moreau
Toby and Donnie go to the library
with me on Friday.
Toby asks for a book on NASCAR
and looks for pictures of crashes
while Donnie talks to everyone.
I’m trying to get him to Say hi and move on
and usually he’s okay with that
but sometimes I have to peel him off
strangers who he’s asking to marry.
David Moreau
Ellie and I take Donnie, Leo, Noelle and Roland
to the college for the noon day concert.
We get there early and walk around the pond
and the ducks swim toward us looking for bread.
All we give them is a song, The one little duck
with the feather on his back, he led the others
with a quack, quack, quack.
There’s a group coming from the other direction
and they’re like a mirror image of us -
a friendly young man with downs syndrome
high fives Donnie, two staff push people
in wheelchairs, an elderly man shuffles and repeats,
Warm, warm, and a tiny woman holding up a yellow purse
beams, I got it at the Christmas Tree Shop.
The staff don’t shout, remember circles,
but greet us with where you from?
And beautiful day, eh? Everyone gets to talk
and I don’t hear anyone telling anyone else
what’s appropriate and what’s not.
After a couple of minutes we negotiate four people
in wheelchairs passing on the sidewalk, wave
and say, see ya. Continue reading »
David Moreau
EL-LIE, EL-LIE.
Say it, Melinda, Marge says. She is a staff person and Melinda is one of the participants assigned to her. Marge is sitting at the front table doing her tracking after lunch while Melinda strings beads like she did all morning, and repeats,
EL-LIE, EL-LIE, EL-LIE.
Oh, that’s pretty funny, Ellie, another staff person, says. What happens when she says that at home tonight? They have this conversation right in front of Melinda, who likes to say Ellie’s name. She says it a lot. It must sound good to her. Ellie usually puts up with it. But today she said it was driving her crazy, which caused Marge to start rousting Melinda. Continue reading »
Tina Tilley
A few years ago, I was offered a position at another company. I had to make a decision whether to stay with my current job or to take the leap and accept the new position I was being offered. From the outside, it was pretty much a no-brainer. The new position was offering much better pay, better hours, and better benefits. As much as I loved my job, I felt like I had to take the new position.
So I made that horrible drive to my work to put in my two weeks notice. I told my manager, who in turn called her boss, who then asked to speak to me on the phone. This was one of those moments I can point to in my life where I can honestly say, “That moment changed everything.”
Her words were few, but they had lasting impact. She told me that she believed in me. She told me that she knew what a hard worker I was, she saw the love and care I had for our residents, and she believed I could go anywhere I wanted to in the company if I just hung in there for a while. I thanked her, and we hung up.
I put my two weeks notice in writing and handed it to my manager. On the drive home, I called her and asked her to hold onto it for a while before she turned it into HR. The next morning, I called and asked her to rip it up.
The truth is, I was looking for a reason to stay. I had grown to love my residents like family and my job meant more to me than just the money. But I needed to know that I was a valued asset to the company.
In the less than two years since those events transpired, I was made Assistant Manager of that particular home, and then this past September I was asked to manage a brand new home my company was opening. None of which would’ve happened without the positive reinforcement instilled in me by a well-respected supervisor.
Making the transition from regular staff to management has been both eye-opening and exciting. I now have the opportunity to instill the principles of positive reinforcement into my own staff and to listen to them as they tell me of their past experiences. Between this and also the many responses I have received from my letter to the editor (which can be found here: http://blog.directcarealliance.org/2010/10/3099/ ) the general consensus amongst Direct Care Workers is that most feel unappreciated, under-valued, and easily replaceable by their superiors. Could this be a contributing factor to the outrageous statistic that 11% of those employed in caretaking roles are diagnosed with major depression? (source: http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10005838-2.html?tag=page;next ) That is the highest amongst any other career choice!
How sad that in a profession that is all about caring for those who cannot care for themselves, the caretakers feel uncared for. Whether it be by the State, by the company we work for, by the people we serve and their families, or by our co-workers, it is imperative that we appreciate and understand one another.
As we head into this new year, why don’t we make a New Year’s resolution to stay positive about the extremely important work that we do?
Here are a few things to try to help lighten your load in the coming year:
1) Laugh - Laugh a LOT. In our profession, seeing humor in the strangest of situations is essential to the well-being of our mental health Continue reading »
On the surface, this poem has nothing to do with work. But my mother would have been a good direct care worker. She would have known that any system of care needs to include everyone.
My Aunt’s Repeat Story About My Mother
Ruth Tiernan once took thirteen kids
in one car swimming at Cobbet’s Pond.
It was a hot day in Nashua, New Hampshire,
July, nineteen-fifty. She was sixteen
and had just gotten her driver’s license.
Grandpa Tiernan had just bought the family’s first car,
a 1939 Plymouth with the stick on the floor,
and he let her take it, which surprises me,
for I remember him an old man, always mad
at us kids for tromping up the stairs.
But they remember him giving them all he could.
My mother hollered, anyone want to go swimming
get your bathing suit!
and whoosh there were eleven kids at the car
in less than a minute. Let me tell you it’s tough
when you’re sitting three deep in the back seat,
my Aunt Clara says.
Continue reading »
After the dreaming, scheduling and registering; all the e-mails and phone calls; the finding a place to meet and people to teach and share; the keeping fingers crossed that enough direct care workers could actually take a day off and attend a conference that we all badly need; the baking of cupcakes for the welcoming reception and the braving of the Philadelphia traffic to pick up speakers at the airport…after all this work and more, the Pennsylvania Direct Care Workers Association’s 6th annual conference took place on September 16th at the National Christian Conference Center outside of Valley Forge.
It was worth it.
It was worth it to listen to each other…the CNAs, the home health aides, the hospice workers, the group home and the day program staff…the people supporting people with dementia, developmental disabilities and mental illness. That is who we are. It’s a good group to be a part of.
I was the keynote speaker and read poems about Leo, Lorna and Louise. I’ve been a direct care worker since Jimmy Carter was president and have learned a lot from the people I support.
David Moreau
The staff from Practical Life Skills keeps
a pretty tight lid on Thursday’s music group
in the big cafeteria. No one’s allowed past the tape
three feet in front of the sound system.
The guys from our room don’t get to use
the microphone and because of fire regulations
they insist we have to have a staff person
for every participant who’s in a wheelchair.
Freddie always sings YMCA and Tony
Who Let the Dogs Out? Then Gracie belts
Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy, in that order. Continue reading »
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