This is the conference room at the Mary Davis Home where I was Program Coordinator. The Counseling staff and I are about to have a meeting to determine the progress of kids in the rehab program. We did this weekly and depending on the behavior we would progress them higher or lower on the 6 levels.
The Counselors aways did a great job of adding up all the good and bad to properly place in a phased program a kid where they needed to be. Every once in a while I'd have to put on the brakes if I thought a kid was getting out too soon, but more often than not, they were spot-on with their votes.
The joviality of the group is probably because this is one of the last, if not the last, staffing I would conduct. I had to keep these things moving along or I'd get a call from a lonely supervisor asking to speed it up so they could get their staff back so they themselves could wander back to the kitchen to sample the lunch fare.
I don't much miss the management side, but I do miss the connectedness, the staff and the kids. Good solid folks doing their part to make a young persons life mean something more than handcuffs and fingerprints. I told the Counselors as often as I could, that our work was lasting work, that these kids may not always remember our individual sessions but they'll remember our names, just like we remember our teachers. And what better calling can people have than to meaningfully effect, in a lasting way, the lives of young people.
There is easier work, better schedules, and certainly jobs that pay more. But day in and day out, if you can say you have helped people grow and think and live better lives, then you have the best job possible. And we did. And I did.
From Left to Right: Shelby, David, Me, Troy, Holly, and Jerome.
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