I'm going to prison

Well it's finally happened. On Monday I'll be going to prison. I guess it was inevidable really. No I'm not pulling your leg. I'm really going. I hope I'll be able to do the time. Maybe I'll get out early for good behavior.

The strange thing is, I didn't even commit a crime or stand trial. I'm actually going to prison to meet with the inmates there and take a tour. Don't worry. I think I'm only meeting with the female inmates (some of whom I'm sure I already know). No. I'm not kidding again. I can think of at least two former clients who are currently in prison.

Sometimes at my job I get to do some pretty fun and unique things. Like this coming Monday when I get to go to prison. I plan to take a tour and speak to some women about how to apply for housing. My supervisor is going with me. She'll be talking to them about coming to drug and alcohol treatment. I'm really excited. I love getting out of the office, and I love to do interesting things for work. Am I weird? I don't think so.

I've done another really cool and unique thing at work. A year ago I was able to help in a special police training on how to approach and work with the mentally ill, or other people with a diagnosis. We taught the police how to recognize if someone is high, mentally ill, has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or other diagnosable conditions.

Police trainers would act out a true senario and have the police in training attempt to respond to police calls of these senarios. Here were a few examples: A suicidal person who was thinking of jumping off a building; a suicidal person who had a machetti; a drunk veteran who has Post-Truamatic Stress Disorder and has a flashback while talking to police; A family dispute where one teen daughter is hyper-sexual and histrionic (which means she always wants to be the center of attention. . .she was constantly hitting on the police officers); and a delusional homeless man at a restaurant who believes aliens poisoned his food. It was interesting, and hillarious to watch how the policemen and women reacted to these situations. Some of them followed the police rules to the letter, which made it difficult for them to interact with the people. For instance, the man at the restaurant. One police officer told him he had to leave or he would be arrested. Another officer did better. He offered to taste-test the food himself to prove it wasn't poisoned.

It was really interesting to watch the "actors" because they absolutely stayed in character. It was fun to have to have the police ask us for advise. I was able to attend this police trainng twice. Unfortunately, my boss, that helps train the police about every three months, has gone back to working at Valley Mental Health. I'm sure he is still training the police, but I no longer get to go along for the ride.