I often try to just focus on the funny, the positive, or the real learning-moments of my work for this blog. But to be honest, sometimes it is really overwhelming and tough. I will pour my heart and soul into trying to help a family and will get nowhere, things will fall through and forces beyond my control will foil plans. This week has been particularly tough. In the interest of honesty about my experience I would like to share these things with you. I also want to share a quote I have taped to my desk.
--I have spent dozens of hours trying to get this kid into basketball with the hope that participating in sports will help boost his performance in school (which has been dismal due to attitude problems). I got him in, convinced someone to pay for it, and gave him instructions to take the bus to practice. Then, inexplicably, his brothers and mother all signed up for an English class exactly when his practice would be so there is no available bus pass for him to use to get to practice. That same day I also got and email from a teacher saying that he is not paying attention in class and has been repeatedly late.
--I am having a serious disagreement with one of my coworkers about how to best approach a case. My coworker thinks one member of the family is being selfish and should be pressured to translate for/help the other; I think that this is not our place and that we need to back off. Meanwhile this family member burst into tears in front of me in our office, no one in the family is moving even close to self-sufficiency and their benefits end in two months.
--We just got informed that the state of Oregon is experiencing a budget shortfall and so is looking to cut DHS spending by 3.5%. To accomplish that, they want to cut the state refugee budget by 10%. But they counted all of the state refugee budget in that math (including, I think, federal money) even though the cuts would only come from the monthly benefits (TANF) pot. Much complicated math later (courtesy of yours truly) that means that refugee benefits could be cut by 48% (giving families only 4 months instead of 8 months to learn english and get a job--when only 17% of families are managing to do that on the current schedule). The alternative proposal is to cut overall DHS spending by 10% which, as proposed would equal a 97% cut in monthly benefits (i.e., 1 week of support to learn english and get a job). If this happened we would pretty much just have to end the current resettlement program.....
So, yeah, it has been rough. As promised, here is the quote:
(courtesy of Thomas Merton's "Letter to a young activist")
"Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the truth of the work itself. And there, too, a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually as you struggle less and less for an idea, and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything. "
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