Today and yesterday was spent attending child protection training. Day 1 involved policy, procedure and legislation. Day 2 involved assessing a disturbing case study. It didn't feature really horrific material but depressing nonetheless.
What was good was the opportunity to meet with professionals from other agencies; health, police, housing, social work and the voluntary sector. We all shared a common concern for the care and welfare of children but our approaches and systems were often different. It was really helpful to share experiences. The most useful information I learned came from the informal discussion sessions.
Most of us were really tired by the end of each day.
Thankfully there were moments of levity in the training. The trainer duo were approachable but a little disorganised. The female presenter knew her stuff but suffered from bossy ex teacher syndrome. She had a tendency to overtalk when we had got the gist of the task long ago. I was somewhat distracted by her attire. On both days she wore little tops which didn't quite cover her midriff. I couldn't decide if this was a deliberate 'I'm proud of my stretch marks' statement or simply a wardrobe malfunction. She kept tugging at the hems but both tops were adamant that they weren't heading south. Oh no, they were avoiding the grey stripey flesh and heading north to consort with her earrings [which seemed, by contrast, to be hellbent on seeing the stretchmarks for themselves]
The male trainer was a former police officer and had a Dixon of Dock Green warmth about him that was very appealing. He seemed immune to the anti gravity hem situation but I suppose in his line of work he's had to deal with far worse. He did however indicate in his non verbal communication [SEE... I WAS paying attention to the course content!]that his partner's 'death by explanation' delivery might be a tad irksome. Generally though they were effective in their roles.
It did make me wonder, in all the training I've delivered, what my audience were making of my input. I have wads of positive evaluations but I bet there were times somebody was focused on something other than the course materials.
I'm SO glad we haven't yet developed the ability to read minds.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Three cheers for The Weekend!
This has been an incredibly busy week with multiple appointments clashing like gladiators. I've emerged weary but triumphant, with the bloodied remains of the diary limp at my feet.
Yesterday I went to the hairdressers to glam up for an interview.
Hairdressing salons are fascinating places. Nowhere else will you find women voluntarily and publicly revealing themselves in all their dishevelled glory. Hair will be left bedraggled or fixed to the head by means known only to stylists and Spanish Inquisitors.
Intelligent women will allow complete strangers to interfere with the most visible element of the body. Failure to deliver a good style can leave the most confident woman distraught and housebound for a couple of months. Either that or forced to wear burka type headscarves or bandanas until regrowth has occured.
Most women will, at some point in their lives, suffer a hair trauma. Mine was the Frizzy Perm from Hell but it is closely followed by the Half Inch Hairline Fringe.
Luckily, on this occasion my hairdo was successful and painfree [unless you count the price which sends His Nibs into a frenzy of wallet clutching terror]. I went to my interview coiffed, perfumed and with enough lacquer to immobilize a truck. This turned out to be fortuitous because once at the interview the entire building had to be evacuated when the fire alarm went off. Whilst everyone else was Worzel Gummidgey I was a vision of hair perfection. His Nibs calls this degree of spray hold: Helmet Head. Small rocks could bounce off it and I would feel nothing.
Anyway, once past the excitement of 15 mins assembly in the carpark we trooped back in and I was ushered into a little ante room to read my presentation question. I then had 20 mins to prepare my response using flipcharts, pens, acetates etc but no laptop or the likes. My pens dried up and so did my brain [for a bit] but once I got past the "OMG what'll I write???" moment I got on with things.
Entering the interview room was like entering Dragon's den. Six people sat at the far end of the room while I stood at the other trying to persuade them I was best for the job. Air Con clearly had not yet been invented. Nor was opening a window an option so we all quietly steamed together until the interview was done.
Friday the 13th - unlucky for some.
Yesterday I went to the hairdressers to glam up for an interview.
Hairdressing salons are fascinating places. Nowhere else will you find women voluntarily and publicly revealing themselves in all their dishevelled glory. Hair will be left bedraggled or fixed to the head by means known only to stylists and Spanish Inquisitors.
Intelligent women will allow complete strangers to interfere with the most visible element of the body. Failure to deliver a good style can leave the most confident woman distraught and housebound for a couple of months. Either that or forced to wear burka type headscarves or bandanas until regrowth has occured.
Most women will, at some point in their lives, suffer a hair trauma. Mine was the Frizzy Perm from Hell but it is closely followed by the Half Inch Hairline Fringe.
Luckily, on this occasion my hairdo was successful and painfree [unless you count the price which sends His Nibs into a frenzy of wallet clutching terror]. I went to my interview coiffed, perfumed and with enough lacquer to immobilize a truck. This turned out to be fortuitous because once at the interview the entire building had to be evacuated when the fire alarm went off. Whilst everyone else was Worzel Gummidgey I was a vision of hair perfection. His Nibs calls this degree of spray hold: Helmet Head. Small rocks could bounce off it and I would feel nothing.
Anyway, once past the excitement of 15 mins assembly in the carpark we trooped back in and I was ushered into a little ante room to read my presentation question. I then had 20 mins to prepare my response using flipcharts, pens, acetates etc but no laptop or the likes. My pens dried up and so did my brain [for a bit] but once I got past the "OMG what'll I write???" moment I got on with things.
Entering the interview room was like entering Dragon's den. Six people sat at the far end of the room while I stood at the other trying to persuade them I was best for the job. Air Con clearly had not yet been invented. Nor was opening a window an option so we all quietly steamed together until the interview was done.
Friday the 13th - unlucky for some.
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Who are we - really?
Yesterday I rose with the larks and enjoyed a scenic rail trip to attend a leadership course. It was all very interesting, for all sorts of reasons. I met a really nice bunch of people keen to explore their leadership potential.
Prior to the course all participants were asked to complete an online evaluator to provide some pyschometric assessment. I apparently am the type who puts the PSYCHO in psychometric testing. According to the documentation my areas for development leave me one step away from Hitler. The scary thing is that much of the analysis I found spookily accurate.
So, do I embrace these flaws/failings/areas for development and aim to rectify them or toss the results in the bin with nary a backward glance? Ooh, the dilemma!
Giving the session the benefit of the doubt I explored my 'fiery red' dominance.
I found myself sitting between a 'sunshine yellow' and an 'earth green'. In essence, my type is a bit of an egomaniac who likes to show off [ I suspect my Witters support this claim], the sunshine yellows are airy fairy types who like to party, the earth greens spend all day hugging people and the cool blues are detail obsessed geeks. Well, this isn't EXACTLY how the trainer described our types but my type like to be right so just accept what I say. OKAY????
The day somewhat deteriorated into each group of like labelled individuals opting to exaggerate their perceived stereotype so that ultimately we were all laughing at the obligatory group generated Post It identity statements.
Secretly though I suspect we all loved the good parts but feared the bad parts might actually have more than a grain of truth to them. While we were all publicly flicking halfheartedly through the analysis we may have been privately devouring the results like locusts.
Or again, that might have been just me.
Prior to the course all participants were asked to complete an online evaluator to provide some pyschometric assessment. I apparently am the type who puts the PSYCHO in psychometric testing. According to the documentation my areas for development leave me one step away from Hitler. The scary thing is that much of the analysis I found spookily accurate.
So, do I embrace these flaws/failings/areas for development and aim to rectify them or toss the results in the bin with nary a backward glance? Ooh, the dilemma!
Giving the session the benefit of the doubt I explored my 'fiery red' dominance.
I found myself sitting between a 'sunshine yellow' and an 'earth green'. In essence, my type is a bit of an egomaniac who likes to show off [ I suspect my Witters support this claim], the sunshine yellows are airy fairy types who like to party, the earth greens spend all day hugging people and the cool blues are detail obsessed geeks. Well, this isn't EXACTLY how the trainer described our types but my type like to be right so just accept what I say. OKAY????
The day somewhat deteriorated into each group of like labelled individuals opting to exaggerate their perceived stereotype so that ultimately we were all laughing at the obligatory group generated Post It identity statements.
Secretly though I suspect we all loved the good parts but feared the bad parts might actually have more than a grain of truth to them. While we were all publicly flicking halfheartedly through the analysis we may have been privately devouring the results like locusts.
Or again, that might have been just me.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
A walk in the park
Today His Nibs and I went for a walk in the Spring sunshine[it is officially Spring now, isn't it??]. It was lovely, really lovely. The sea was quite choppy and the day was bright and clear.
Other people were taking advantage of the sun too. Most of them had a dog with them. Mostly big dogs today. One man shared his face with his dog. I'd heard that about dog owners but had never believed it until now.
We should get a dog but not until we've retired. I like middle sized dogs. Big ones eat a lot and tend to drool like Niagara. Little dogs yap and look stupid.[Or is that just their owners?]Middle sized dogs tend to be average in all respects - consumption, intelligence, temperament and poop output.[Our future dog will officially belong to His Nibs so he will be dealing with that side of things. I'll handle the patting and ear stroking]
But I digress...back to our walk.
We coped well with the inclines although halfway up one slope I had to test out a couthy A frame oak seat. It looked a bit like an artist's easel. His Nibs thought this was quite cute mainly because this seat, as with most I've encountered, is designed for those over 5 feet tall. Apparently all I needed was a little fishing rod and a pond.
Once on our way again we spotted a couple of little robins boldly battling the gales. I'm fairly sure they weren't meaning to fly sideways but you never know with robins. They are the Hells Angels of the bird world. Given half a chance they'd be on motorbikes picking fights with hawks.
We also spotted two of the fattest pigeons this side of a roasting tin. One had given up flight and was sauntering through the woodland like Christopher Biggins waiting for a photo shoot. The other was hauling its belly across a field pretending it was as slim as the crows in their LBDs. We watched, taking bets on whether it actually had any legs. I still say it was being pulled along by some unseen magnet under the soil.
We should go walking more often.
Other people were taking advantage of the sun too. Most of them had a dog with them. Mostly big dogs today. One man shared his face with his dog. I'd heard that about dog owners but had never believed it until now.
We should get a dog but not until we've retired. I like middle sized dogs. Big ones eat a lot and tend to drool like Niagara. Little dogs yap and look stupid.[Or is that just their owners?]Middle sized dogs tend to be average in all respects - consumption, intelligence, temperament and poop output.[Our future dog will officially belong to His Nibs so he will be dealing with that side of things. I'll handle the patting and ear stroking]
But I digress...back to our walk.
We coped well with the inclines although halfway up one slope I had to test out a couthy A frame oak seat. It looked a bit like an artist's easel. His Nibs thought this was quite cute mainly because this seat, as with most I've encountered, is designed for those over 5 feet tall. Apparently all I needed was a little fishing rod and a pond.
Once on our way again we spotted a couple of little robins boldly battling the gales. I'm fairly sure they weren't meaning to fly sideways but you never know with robins. They are the Hells Angels of the bird world. Given half a chance they'd be on motorbikes picking fights with hawks.
We also spotted two of the fattest pigeons this side of a roasting tin. One had given up flight and was sauntering through the woodland like Christopher Biggins waiting for a photo shoot. The other was hauling its belly across a field pretending it was as slim as the crows in their LBDs. We watched, taking bets on whether it actually had any legs. I still say it was being pulled along by some unseen magnet under the soil.
We should go walking more often.
Saturday, 7 March 2009
Collected works
As you may know I like words. A lot. I like poetry, in particular, a lot. So it was with a mix of delight and trepidation that I agreed to help judge entries to a local poetry competition. Turns out there were lots of entries. Hundreds of them.
At first I was full of enthusiasm but by the fifth reading I was going wordblind. Or rather I was wishing I was...
Some phrases will stay with me for some time.
Gems such as:
'crawled to the door like an injured maraca'
and
'the mud and vomit they call stew, really makes me want to spew'
Whittling the entries down to a shortlist would have been a pleasant task were it not for a series of unexpected and unavoidable demands on my time and energies in the shape of interviews and electrocution [see previous witter]. Given that I need in excess of 10 hours sleep per day, these demands left me the wrong side of wabbit.
Competition assessing has been an experience which I will, in all likelihood, repeat - but not for a while. A year at least. That or whenever my eyes stop bleeding.
Note to self: Bin the diary next Feb
At first I was full of enthusiasm but by the fifth reading I was going wordblind. Or rather I was wishing I was...
Some phrases will stay with me for some time.
Gems such as:
'crawled to the door like an injured maraca'
and
'the mud and vomit they call stew, really makes me want to spew'
Whittling the entries down to a shortlist would have been a pleasant task were it not for a series of unexpected and unavoidable demands on my time and energies in the shape of interviews and electrocution [see previous witter]. Given that I need in excess of 10 hours sleep per day, these demands left me the wrong side of wabbit.
Competition assessing has been an experience which I will, in all likelihood, repeat - but not for a while. A year at least. That or whenever my eyes stop bleeding.
Note to self: Bin the diary next Feb
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Mince
Well, it's been an eventful few days Chez Nous.
In the space of a week or so His Nibs has managed to electrocute himself, I've attended interviews for two different jobs, delivered presentations at night time church meetings, planned a Fairtrade carnival [don't ask!!]and gone to collect half a hundredweight of poetry. All this whilst holding down the day job and maintaining some semblance of family life.
Speaking of family life, I forgot to mention the progress of The Mad Mother. The Saga of The Insurance Claim From Hell is nearing an end. Finally. Pacifying the mater has been no easy feat in the midst of the incidents mentioned earlier...
My brother who was housing The Mad Mother during the repairs has marked her departure with bunting, some alcohol and liberal sprinklings of 'Yee Haaa!!'. He aims to celebrate his new found flatmate-free status by bedding the first non geriatric female who happens his way. Why he felt the need to share this plan is unclear. I'm concentrating on not having that mental image in my head for any length of time. [Puppies and kittens... Think puppies and kittens...]
So all in all... my head, as they say hereabouts, is mince. Hence, this, the briefest of Witters.
In the space of a week or so His Nibs has managed to electrocute himself, I've attended interviews for two different jobs, delivered presentations at night time church meetings, planned a Fairtrade carnival [don't ask!!]and gone to collect half a hundredweight of poetry. All this whilst holding down the day job and maintaining some semblance of family life.
Speaking of family life, I forgot to mention the progress of The Mad Mother. The Saga of The Insurance Claim From Hell is nearing an end. Finally. Pacifying the mater has been no easy feat in the midst of the incidents mentioned earlier...
My brother who was housing The Mad Mother during the repairs has marked her departure with bunting, some alcohol and liberal sprinklings of 'Yee Haaa!!'. He aims to celebrate his new found flatmate-free status by bedding the first non geriatric female who happens his way. Why he felt the need to share this plan is unclear. I'm concentrating on not having that mental image in my head for any length of time. [Puppies and kittens... Think puppies and kittens...]
So all in all... my head, as they say hereabouts, is mince. Hence, this, the briefest of Witters.
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