Monday, April 7, 2014

My Crazy Idea

This is not a typical blog post for me.  I’ve been debating lately if I should post this here, and I’m really nervous about it, but I figured I’d finally take a leap of faith and see what happens.  If you haven’t been following what I’ve been up to in some way, I have recently started practicing family therapy as an intern to complete my Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy.  I was lucky to get placed at an agency where I could work with the population I requested – children.  I didn’t have any experience working with kids as an adult and basically figured it was now or never, and I could either sink or swim with the opportunity.  Thankfully I did swim, and I am loving it.  Obviously I’m still working on my therapy techniques and learning tons of new stuff every day, but I feel absolutely blessed to get to be a positive influence in these kids lives every day I go to work. 

One of the best things is that a HUGE part of my work is based in play.  If you have kids or are involved with them, you’ll know they communicate best through play and it makes something like therapy much easier to get through.  Ironically, although I work at a family agency, we really have a limited supply of toys, books, colors, rewards, etc., and what we do have must be shared and ends up in less-than-perfect condition.  In class we keep being told to start stocking up on our own personal “bag-of-tricks” so to speak, and I would love nothing more than to start building my own collection that I can bring to the agency and then take with me after I graduate and find a full-time therapy job. 

The tricky part is that I really don’t have any extra money to spend on these things at this moment in time.  I took a lower stress job this year to offset the new stresses of school and the internship, but it’s also a lower paying job.  I only have nine more months before my program ends and I can take a full time job, and until then it’s pretty tight financially around here. 

So to finally get to the point, I have made an Amazon Wish List of some things I would love to have in my bag of tricks.  I’m posting the link here NOT as an obligation, but as an option.   If you have enjoyed Psychosocial Disney Culture in the past, consider contributing to this tiny little cause of mine.  Nothing on my list is expensive and just the addition of any of these items would totally make my day. 

I want to reiterate that I do feel hesitant posting this and purposefully don’t add advertisements or donate buttons to this site to avoid any kind of obligatory feeling.  This was just an idea of mine to give my awesome readers the opportunity to have a hand in helping these kiddos out.  You all mean very much to me and I thank you for your support over the past few years!

~C.