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Welcome to our Blog! We post weekly articles written on a variety of topics from a variety of people, including our staff, volunteers, community members, and our parents and youth. The Voices of our Blog are opinion pieces, reflecting the diverse experiences and viewpoints of our community. These articles are not meant to represent the views of everyone at FCNI, our Board of Directors and staff, or present a definitive policy statement, but are designed to be informative and thought-provoking.
Nobody really likes change, instability, flux or uncertainty, at least that is not the norm. We are most comfortable with consistency, stability and a high degree of Permanence. For instance, how many of you would be more comfortable “couch surfing” compared to having your own home? Isn’t it nice to know you have a steady job with a steady income, compared to scraping by every day to survive? And what about tumultuous relationships? Well, their impact is obvious!
Okay, I hope you are already musing over this title. I once wrote a blog entitled, “Baking Cakes,” so this is not too far afield. This is a 50 year flashback to a time in my life where I was going to college full-time and working full-time to pay for it. My employer was Driftwood Dairy which operated several large bottling facilities and numerous “drive-in” locations where you could literally drive into a big building, get your milk, eggs and other dairy products, plus a diverse assortment of groceries, delivered right to your car.
I was catching up with a friend one day, and as we talked he explained how things were pretty rough for him at the moment. At some point, he made the observation that he didn’t know how to approach some of his internal struggles because he didn’t know how to define what were mental health issues and what was related to mental illness. Basically, he was confused about how to talk about mental health because he didn’t know where mental illness fit in.
Working in FCNI’s administrative services, I don’t get to experience much direct interaction with our kids or families, at least not as much as I’d like. So I depend on our direct service staff to share their stories and experiences with me--their ups, downs, good days and even their hard days, and the countless examples they get to see of our staff’s and families’ resiliency and unwavering hope.
Ever since 9/11, the term “First-Responder” has become embedded within our culture. It was not that long ago that they were simply referred to as police, firefighters, EMTs, et cetera. But First-Responder is really a great term–a class of emergency personnel ready and available anytime, anyplace; whatever the emergency might be.
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