October is when it all starts. We’ve identified which students will be in
each group and selected students that will best benefit from individual
counseling. I’m so excited that Ryan will be joining our Newspaper Group this
year! He has been working with PwC on an
individual basis for the past three years, and I’m excited he “graduated” to a
small group setting.
While Ryan seems like a sweet smiling kid now, it took three
years to even get close to this point.
When I first met Ryan he was angry and disruptive in class. He always sat on the outskirts of his
classroom. Even if his seat was already
in the corner, he would make the effort to pull it further away from his other
classmates. He also had trouble
socializing and was often accused of bullying other students.
It was difficult to engage him in counseling at first. I tried a number of therapy techniques to get
him to open up and finally was able to connect through “play therapy”. Rather than speaking to me directly, Ryan
used puppets to express his emotions.
Slowly his feelings came out—that he and his siblings are being raised
by his grandmother, how his mother is absent in his life and his father floats
in and out of the family and about his sister being abused by their father. I could tell that Ryan wanted to be strong
and protect his family but was scared.
All the anger and fear he had
bottled up caused him to isolate himself in school and lash out when he felt
threatened.
Ryan made TREMENDOUS strides over the past three years,
especially at the end of last year. I
was a little worried when his teacher started calling me at the beginning of
the school year to say he was acting up again.
As a social worker, I need to remember it’s always an up and down
struggle. We only work with the students
a few hours a week and we can’t control what happens outside school. Three months is a long time. I’m afraid some
of his bad behaviors might have resurfaced, but hopefully I can get him back on
track soon. I just need to remember to take one day at a time.
