Oh, My Aching Hand

My right hand is absolutely killing me, and that has only partly do with a snapped tendon at the end of the ring finger on my right hand back. No, I didn’t do it playing hockey. I did it watching hockey. Huh?

Last December I was watching one of my son’s games from the top of the stands at a local rink, and during a break in the action I decided to spit the gum I had been chewing into the trashcan located at the bottom of the bleachers. I bounded down, missed the next step completely and instead barrel-rolled down the stands until I landed upside-down in a heap down next to the trashcan. Although mighty embarrassed, I was none the worse for wear except for this funny little crook at the end my finger…

But I digress. As January draws to a close, so does the non-profit holiday fundraising season. Like every year, it all began back in November with the conception and design of some attention-grabbing pitch on behalf of Penikese, then the writing, printing and mailing of 2,000 appeals to donors, prospects and other friends of the school. It is quite a bit of work, especially when it comes to personalizing the appeals. We try to add this touch to as many of the appeals as we can in hopes of drawing donors closer to our cause and expressing our sincere appreciation.

Everyone on the Board has an appeal personalization list, and so do I. Being the director and local boy who can’t go anywhere in Falmouth and Woods Hole without running into friends and donors, I have the most, over 800 names, many of whom I know quite well. I wouldn't think of asking them for money without including some kind of written recognition of our relationship, some personal touch that shows how much I appreciate them and their gift. I’d be embarrassed to do otherwise!

Signing and personalizing 800 letters takes a lot of work and time, probably the better part of two weeks in mid to late November to get them all done. I have them with me at work, in front of me while watching the TV, on the weekends at the coffee shop (sorry about the stain!). Worse, I tend to grip the pen like a vise, which absolutely kills my hand, and my handwriting is awful, forcing me to slow down in a vain attempt at legibility. My pace is glacial, but I forge on (so to speak) to do ten more, five more, 25 more…

You’d think the work is done when the last letter is stamped and mailed, but it isn’t. Then comes the second wave when the gifts start pouring in, hitting their peak in early to mid-December, this year right around the same time I injured my writing hand. Like the appeals, every thank you letter is personally signed by me, every donor receives a few words of personal thanks and best wishes. As you might imagine, after 800 appeals and several hundred thank you letters, my hand and fingers begin to curl and cramp into a claw and my wrist, forearm and shoulder throbs from one end to the other. But eventually I get them done, a labor of love not without a bit of personal sacrifice, at least this year anyway.

Your generosity amazes and humbles me, and “thanks” always seems too small a word. I will never, ever take your giving for granted, and especially want you to know how much gifts from friends in this community in which we live and work together mean to the school and me. I just hope you will cut me some slack this time around if my handwriting seems more illegible than ever.

Do It Anyway: Maintaining personal integrity and effective treatment

Traffic jams and troubled kids
“Do it anyway” has become a popular exhortation to do the right thing even if it gets you nothing in return. This phrase derives from the Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent Keith, which were later revised as Anyway by Mother Theresa. One example of might be letting someone merge ahead of you in traffic, not because you will get a wave of thanks or earn a few instant traffic karma credits, but because it is the right thing to do. Some drivers are thoughtless and rude, but let them merge anyway.

Easy enough, but getting trapped in traffic with the surliest drivers pales against the personal injuries suffered when working with troubled teens. Adolescence, especially the early years, is often hallmarked by questionable peer attachments, a sudden belief that the world’s rules no longer apply, and an abrupt devaluation of parental currency without any commensurate decrease in expectation of their childhood entitlements. You remind yourself adolescence is a stage, they are still children and need you, and locked away deep within their metamorphed selves, they probably even still love you. So, love them anyway.

Why bother?
Loving troubled teens anyway can sound hopelessly naive in the face of harsh reality. Rather than mere sullenness to deal with, you have disruptive and sometimes violent behavior for communication, openness and generosity taken as an opportunity for victimization, and the material things you share and give often trampled on so that you feel every bit as trashed. It’s enough to make you ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?”’

Good question, because you can’t expect to work closely with troubled people of any age and emerge unscathed. Secondary traumatization is not a possibility, but a virtual certainty in this line of work, especially when taking the close-quarters approach of the therapeutic relationship. Staff claiming that “nothing these kids do phases me” are likely conducting relationships from too safe a distance to have much therapeutic effectiveness with the students.

Repeat after me: Supervision is key
No, we are not advocating that staff be carted away wriggling inside a straightjacket to prove they are earning their salt. Some will have significant reactions, but the most common symptoms of burnout include compassion fatigue and emotional withdrawal, sarcasm and sour attitude, and engaging in might-makes-right power struggles that exact control at the price of connection.

In any program working with troubled populations, attentive and regular clinical supervision is critical, especially so to preserve the integrity of the therapeutic relationship treatment model. Supervision not only helps counter staff burnout, it helps preserve treatment integrity. Otherwise, your beloved program with all its virtues and ideals is destined to begin an inexorable drift towards staff and students doing time together rather than treatment.

Who are you?
As is so common among those with a trauma history, Penikese boys are forever testing staff to gain some reliable sense of what they are all about. This behavior is not just a game to find out what they can get away with, but also about seeing if you can be trusted to uphold the standard and integrity of the program. Like children of any age and circumstance, Penikese boys seek a dependable standard of safety, structure and consistency from their “surrogate parents.” Except for troubled children, the standard and need is even higher, inversely proportional to their unfortunate life experience.

Labor of love
Building therapeutic relationships with those who ordinarily wouldn’t even want to be in a relationship to begin with is an artful, inexact and unpredictable labor of love from which the first “grab” of attachment and connection develops. However rudimentary, this connection becomes the engine powering treatment and its eventual successes later. The relationship is everything.

Now, with apologies to Kent Keith and Mother Theresa, here are a few examples of Do It Anyway Penikese-style, meant only to be a helpful guide and not a definitive list:

• If you let students know they are getting under your skin or tell them how their behavior makes you feel, they will keep hitting your buttons, and call you too sensitive. They need to know where they stand to feel safe, so tell them how their behavior makes you feel anyway.

• If you admit you made a mistake, they will jump all over you and question your authority. You are human and a model of reasonable authority, so admit your mistakes anyway.

• If you give students certain choices, you will lose control and the students will run the show. Might doesn’t always make right, so frame interventions as a choice anyway.

• You can’t really hold students accountable to home passes, so don’t sweat the small stuff like missed curfews and phone checks. Small stuff can add up to big stuff, so hold them accountable anyway.

• Offering extra support, redemption, and second chances often results in their flubbing - if not trashing – the opportunity. Offer redemption and second chances anyway.

• Failing to follow through on appointments and promises with students, especially graduates, isn’t a big deal because they never follow through themselves. Follow through anyway.

• Giving your best to the most troublesome students is a waste of time. They will probably get thrown out or end up in jail anyway, and there are other students more deserving of your time. Especially to those needing it the most and deserving the least, give your best anyway.

Shalom, friend: Jerry Holtz

For those who haven’t heard, former Penikese Board Chair Jerry Holtz passed away Saturday from myelofibrosis, an illness he had been battling with customary courage and dignity for a few years. His obituary appears in today’s edition of the Cape Cod Times.

Jerry’s life was remarkable and meaningful in understated but no less powerful fashion, measured not by headlines grabbed but lives and organizations enriched and strengthened. Penikese was only one of many missions that he gave himself to in the years after his retirement, and the school is far stronger for his service in ways that will endure for time to come.

Many have made mention of Jerry’s kind and gentle manner, but I also found him to be tough as an anvil, able to command attention, civility and respect without demonstration or, for that matter, remonstration. I grew to deeply appreciate and admire him as a leader, mentor and friend who, despite his affection for Penikese and its many colorful and high-maintenance characters, wouldn’t hesitate to share a pointed observation or administer the occasional upbraiding. I envy these qualities of his, those from which true authority derives, and desire to grow them in myself. Jerry made me want to be a better person, and my guess is that he had that effect on others as well.

A quick story: at Penikese’s annual meeting last September, current Board Chair Ted Doyle took a moment to recognize Board members rotating off at end of term, including Jerry who had served the maximum allowable six years. It is Jerry’s shoes that Ted has been filling recently (a considerable challenge that Ted has been more than up to), so it was with special significance that Ted thanked Jerry for his wisdom and support, then asked him to come to the podium to accept a gift from the school. 

As Jerry stood and approached the front of the room I was in the back standing next to Jerry’s predecessor and Board Chair emeritus, the estimable Fred Greenman. As the audience applauded and Jerry shook Ted’s hand, Fred leaned towards me and in teasing tone whispered, “There goes another rabbi… “

Fred’s remark was a layered one, a tribute to Jerry and a reference to my good fortune to have worked under his and Jerry's back-to-back tenures of, shall we say, rabbinical Board chairmanship. Fred was also needling me, too, asking just what was big Mr. Executive Director going to do without them?

How true, and I don't have an answer. For this hapless soul, the mantle of responsibility already seems far heavier, and the world considerably emptier now that Jerry is no longer among us.