peepeegirl5
Posts: 214
Joined: 3/12/2007 Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Lockit Sometimes people will not go to a professional counsler for too many reasons to go into here. It is up to those who are trained in some way without a degree, to seek them out, work with them and try to get them to a professional that can work on the long term end that needs to take place. Until all that work is done, it is those with the heart and position in the shelters, hotlines etc. to work the situation, help with the present needs and step in to intervine. I do not have a degree...{smile} which was topic city wide when it was reported in the news paper when I took over the shelter. The professionals came at me like... well... I don't know what to call it... but they wanted me out! lol My first speech was in front of many medical professionals and social workers. They tried to take me out... but they could never find one thing I did out of line, harmful or anything else. I shut more than one up for good because they actually made fools of themselves in some cases. They fought me hard... but in the end... in many things we agreed to disagree and actually worked together in many ways. Throughout the years, I worked with professionals and they found my assistance worth coming back for. Please do not give more credit or take credit from situations that you don't know first hand. If someone is working in the field and their clients are doing well, they are refering people on when needed and all is good... then that person knows what they are doing. Their job isn't the long haul of emotional healing... it can maybe be called a bandaid and a bandaid is fine to use to get you to what you might really need. I have known lay counslers that were far more effective than professionals. I have worked cases in a layman's role before and after professionals. In fifteen minutes I figured out what a professional didn't in two years of two sessions a week. I have also known of layman that were totally off their rocker and needed to be held accountable. When a lay person is recommended by other professionals... when they have the respect of the community in which they work and when they are providing a true public and personal service, we cannot discount what they do! When they speak of what they do, knowing they can honestly and ethically sleep at night, maybe we should give them some time to prove themselves before we discredit them and their heartfelt desire to be of true assistance. I have yet to hear anyone state that they replace professsional assitance or do not refere people on. I have heard that these people are in a place to serve as a steping stone in a life and a situation. I may mention what I do because it is such a big part of myself, but I do not use it to make more of myself or gain anything in return except maybe someone knowing what my life is about. Please don't make it a challenge unless something improper is going on or someone is actually being harmed by the services the non professionals provide. They have their place in our communities and the good one's are needed! With all due respect, I hope I haven't offended anyone and I am sure that I may get flamed, but with mental health systems the way they are at least in the United States, professional services can be hard to get and even when getting them, the services can be questionable. There isn't enough funding, there isn't enough of anything and mental health workers often get paid far too little and some become hardened to it all and because of this and so many other things, mistakes are made professionally and within the non professional services offered. When anyone can get good quality professional services and I mean... anyone... and I mean, good quality... then there may be no need for the non professional or degreed mental health or life crisis workers... but until then, lets give a little credit for the heart it takes, because many of these workers do so without pay. Lockit O Lockit I think YOU are wonderful. It is in that spirit that I work. It's community service. I'm not paid, and every woman I've led back to sanity and control had found that the "professionals" were ineffective. Even if the money is there for their new subaru's and botox injections, they are effectively incompetent to fix damage that comes from sources outside the scope of their credentials. O yes, if it's a problem that was identified at least 20 years ago and a solution already found, they are great at fixing things up in a year or two at $85/hr. I have real answers to real problems that aren't even on the "professionals" who wave their "credentials" about radars. And yet, i'll grant them their true value in solving early 20th century issues over extended time periods.
_____________________________
"If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death? No death may be called futile." - Yukio Mishima
|