McFly's PS. Metta World Peace.
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 2:51 am
any corrections, suggestions, or just complaints for wasting your time or general hate on my writing style are all welcome. Thank you based god, and all posts in advance.Spending the last six months of my senior year of college working as a counselor at a treatment center for male youth with emotional and behavioral issues shaped my life in ways I never could have expected. I spent my four years of undergrad facing new challenges, traveling to different countries, and trying to absorb as much from new professors, friends and classmates as possible. But, the most life altering experiences came during those six months working at XXXXX Youth Center.
My first month was a gradual introduction to the three separate halls at XXXXX, getting comfortable with the daily routines and schedule the clients followed, getting introduced to the other staff members and the clients themselves. It was peculiar to me at first that the boys aged ten to seventeen were described as "clients", but much of my exposure to XXXXX was difficult to comprehend at first, and a completely foreign experience altogether. Simply calling boys and children "clients", albeit a little strange, was the simplest and least shocking adjustment I was to get accustomed to. Understanding even a tiny bit of the torment and frustration that these boys went through on a daily basis because of a past with any or all of the following: sexual and physical abuse, alcohol and narcotic dependency; would be the most shocking and life changing part of my time at XXXXX.
I spent the majority of my time assisting them with everyday activities such as setting and cleaning a dinner table, doing laundry, and cleaning their rooms. Monitoring the children during trips to the gym or on hikes. The children are labeled "high risk" and "vulnerable" because at any given moment any one of these simple tasks can quickly evolve into a fight, a threat to hurt someone with a "weapon", or to hurt themselves. All youth counselors at XXXXX go through training on the best way to restrain a client who has put themselves or others in danger. One of my most vivid memories at XXXXX involved a situation where we needed to restrain the youngest client at the time, a ten year old boy named Taylor. Another counselors and myself restrained Taylor after an incident where he was threatening staff and his other contemporaries. As was protocol in these situations we brought Taylor to a "safe room" where he was to cool down, and to be monitored by a counselor. I spent two hours sitting outside of a stainless steel door monitoring Taylor, while the ten year old boy paced the 6x6 room literally jumping off the walls, using the zipper on his jacket to scratch profanity into the metal floors, and yelling some of most disturbing and inappropriate words and phrases I had ever heard in my entire life. After witnessing this and several similar situations, my understanding of the emotional difficulties these kids faced on a daily basis grew. I am a strong believer that you can only learn and experience so much from reading and lectures, but to truly get an understanding one must become more involved in something and witness it firsthand. My time at XXXXX did exactly that for me, with understanding the trouble and issues that high risk children face.
Since my time at XXXXX, I have always had a desire to get into a career field where I can help children who have been victims of physical or sexual abuse, and those raised in households that have a high risk to drug and alcohol abuse. I've always had an interest in the law, and felt my personal strengths in logic and analytical reasoning would serve me be better as an attorney than a counselor. I believe coupling my passion to serve and protect children, and my interest in the law would make me a great law student and eventually a wonderful family law or child advocate attorney.