RubyRedEJ's Diary

Developmentally Disabled Population

When I graduated all I ever said was that I wanted to work with teenagers, but was never sure with what type of teenager or in what field I would enjoy working with them.  I have been with a company in Oconomowoc for about 2 months working with developmentally disabled teenage girls and have come to realize that I do not want to work with teenagers with a developmental diability.  About a week ago one of the 13 year old girls went beserk and was slapping, scratching, biting, punching, and screaming at staff and herself.  Our job is to restrain them using an approved method in order to keep them safe.  We had 2 staff trying to restrain her and she was still able to get lose and continue to beat on us.  She was running around everywhere and we called for backup to come to the group home, and she calmed down when they got here, but after they left she went crazy again.  Definitely did not feel safe with her, and it has been like this all week.  If she wasn't going off another girl who is very sensitive to loud noises was going off, and just last night a different girl was yelling and banging on the walls, and ended up running away so the police had to be called in order to bring her back. 

So I'm not sure if I really want to work with a population that could go off any second and where I don't feel safe.  I'm not really sure where I am suppose to be working or with what population but I do know that I no longer want to work with the developmentally disabled population.  I guess that is definitely one positive I have learned from this experience.  One of my old roommates was asking me what I had learned from my experience there and right now that is all I can think of.  The real questions is where am I suppose to be now?