Buffalo Psychiatric Center

Submitted by Sunly Vong on February 18, 2009 - 1:56pm.

Week of 2/3 – 2/6

My first week of my practicum was held at two different locations. At the first session, I spent 3 and a half hours at 1547 Hertel Avenue, which is a local community center that is part of the Buffalo Psychiatric Center. The center was a place for outpatient individuals to gather and utilize as a recreational service or as a vocational training service. While on the site, I helped individuals participate in tasks that they wish to participate in. On Tuesday, I met some of the individuals there and participated in an arts and crafts session where we made some jewelry. Then, I participated in a yoga session with some of the individuals as well.   On Thursdays and Fridays, I spent my time at the psych center at two hour intervals each day. During the times that I am there, the patients attend various programs in which they participate in which to help themselves in daily activities. On Thursday, I met my director and she gave me a tour of the psych center and all the different units on each floor. Then for the second half, I sat in on a motivational thinking program. During the program, the patients read an article about an individual who had a mental illness and overcame it to motivate the patients as well. On Friday, I spent my time in the educational program, in which I help a patient who was going toward his GED with math problems.

Week of 2/10 - 2/13

This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., I played the bowling on the Wii with some of the individuals. Then, I helped the staff and some of the individuals cook in the kitchen to prepare for the Chili Cook-off they were hosting the next day. We made a regular pot of chili and another pot of chili with just vegetables. We also made several trays of cornbread to go along with the chili.

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I helped a patient in the educational program. He was working on some English worksheets that dealt with nouns and proper nouns. Then, I sat in a "Positive Thinking" program in which patients learned about the positive and negative sides of trying to think positively. Another program I sat in on was a "Dealing with Relationships" program. In this program, patients had to recall a significant relationship they had with someone that affected them somehow. Then they learned about differences between being in a healthy and unhealthy relationship. The final program was an "Art Therapy" program in which the patients were able to create drawings or artworks that dealt with "love" to prepare for Valentine's Day.

 

Week of 2/17 – 2/20

This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., I played bowling on the Wii with some of the individuals. Then, I sat and watched the individuals play in a golf tournament on the Wii. One individual participated in the yoga session that is held there weekly, another lady sat around and knitted because it was a hobby of hers, and others sat around in the kitchen reading the paper and having coffee.

 

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I spent the first hour in the educational program tutoring a patient one-on-one with English worksheets. We worked together to complete worksheets that he wanted to work on and he was very cooperative and enthusiastic in completing the worksheets. Then, I sat in on a vocational exploration program, in which patients talked about their future goals of hopefully getting back into the community and work force again someday. They also talked about past careers that they once held and enjoyed doing and what caused them to not be able to work any longer. The second day at the BPC, there were suppose to be two guest speakers that were suppose to speak about housing options for when the patients were discharged, but they never showed due to some confusion about the date. So instead, one of the counselors informed the patients about some possible housing options that they could look into and then they had a juice break. The second hour, my staff supervisor was trying to come up with a quick plan of what to do for her next program because she expected the guest speakers to take up the whole two hours. She came up with an idea of having the patients in her group play a game that involved random questions that they would try to answer. She let me conduct the game with the patients while she passed out snacks and beverages to them.

 

Week of 2/24 - 2/27

This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., I sat in the kitchen and had coffee with some of the individuals and talked about our weekends. Then I played bowling on the Wii with three different people and had a bowling tournament. One of the individuals wanted to bake cookies because she stated that it was a hobby of hers but had lost the ability to or thought that she didn't know how to bake anymore. So, the staff helped her find a chocolate chip cookie recipe and she helped in making the cookie dough from scratch and placed them onto the trays and baked them. The cookies turned out great and very delicious.

 

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I sat in on a “re-tooling” conference the staff held on Thursday. During the conference, the staff of the Treatment Mall all got together to discuss how the current programs were going for the patients. They also discussed how things were going on each ward and what needed improvement or what was already working well. They also brainstormed on new ideas of different programs that they could create so the patients would have a variety of choices to choose from and benefit from. While observing the meeting, it didn’t seem as effective because many people had different opinions on what should change and how things were going in certain programs. Then, they reviewed a tentative schedule of the upcoming weekly schedule to see if the program time would fit with the specified instructor. On Friday, two guest speakers came to talk to the patients of the Treatment Mall about housing options. One of the guest speaker use to be a patient of the BPC and she retold her experience of when she got discharged and the help she received in finding an apartment to reside in. She said that the process wasn’t hard and she had a lot of help in finding an apartment that was affordable, safe, and she had really liked. By sharing her experience of different options after being discharged, it gave some of the patients some encouragement to stay positive and realize that they have various options as well and hope for discharge out of the center soon.

Week of 3/3 – 3/6 This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., I sat around in the kitchen and had coffee with some of the individuals and chatted. Then, one of the gentlemen asked to play golf on the Wii with a staff member and I watched as they played. After they were done with their game of golf, we tried to gather some more people to play bowling on the Wii. After a few games of bowling, some of the individuals got tired and decided to sit in the kitchen and relax until their ride came to pick them up.   

 

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I spent the first hour working one-on-one with an individual in the Education program. We worked on different English worksheets together and then reviewed the information we had learned from the worksheets. Then I sat in on a Vocational Exploration program. There were only three people in the program that day so the counselor decided to integrate her class with another class and everyone played a vocational exploration game. It was a board game that everyone got to participate in and they just had to answer questions about different jobs to move forward. The next day at the BPC, I sat in on a Relationships program. During this program, they discussed relationship issues that arise such as abuse and the signs of an abusive relationship. The next program was a Cultural Awareness in Films program, where the patients watched the movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and enjoyed snacks.

 

Week of 3/10 – 3/13 This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., we started the morning by having coffee and chatting in the kitchen about our weekends and plans for St. Patrick’s Day. The community center was going to host a St. Patrick’s Day party the next week that included food and games for $1 and we were trying to get people to sign up for the event and answer any questions they had about it. After we were done with coffee, I asked the ladies what they wanted to do for the day and no one came up with and ideas. So I suggested playing cards and was able to have a small crowd join us. We played Rummy and Uno and it was fun to have many people interact with each other.  

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I spent the first hour in the Education program working one-on-one with an individual who was working towards getting his GED. He wanted to work from his History workbook so we started on a chapter and he began reading the article to me in order to answer the questions that followed. The article was pretty long so he wasn’t able to finish it all within the hour time slot. After every paragraph in the article, he would stop and we would discuss what we just learned from reading the article. Then, I sat in a Vocational Exploration program in which we discussed possible job options for the patients once they were discharged. The next day at the BPC, I sat in a Relationships program where they discussed positive relationships they had in the past and how the relationship has affected them.

Week of 3/24 - 3/27

This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., I met some new people that decided to join us at the community center and we sat around in the kitchen having coffee and chatted. The community center held a St. Patrick’s Day event the week before, which included food and games that the participants who attended were raving about. Everyone commented on how much they enjoyed the event and how delicious the food was. Then, we gathered a group of people to play a friendly, yet competitive, game of bowling on the Wii. Afterwards, everyone gathered back into the kitchen and we decided to play a game of cards. 

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I worked In the Education Program helping two patients with different subjects. The one gentleman wanted to work on his multiplication worksheets and he completed them with little assistance. The other gentleman wanted to work out of his history workbook, in which he had to read an article and answer questions based on it. Then, I spent the next hour in the Vocational Exploration Program. We were given a sheet of paper with a list of characteristics that we had to choose from in order to describe ourselves. Then we discussed how the characteristics we chose would help in applying for jobs and which jobs would best suit us. The next day at BPC, I sat in on a Relationships Program where they imagined traveling to somewhere that was a “happy” place. Then, they discussed who they would take with them on their trip to this “happy” place and what kind of relationship they had with this certain person. Next, I sat in on a Cultural Awareness through Film Program where we watched a video called “Tough Guise.” The video was about tough guys and how they are influenced by society and the media. It was a pretty informative video.  

 

Week of 3/31 - 4/3

 

This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., I watched a gentlemen and a staff member play golf on the Wii and then we gathered a group of people to play bowling. After we were done bowling, some of the ladies were interested in making arts and crafts. Two of the ladies decided to make Easter cards for their friends and families. Another woman worked on her hobby of drawing cartoons. Other people decided to join the weekly yoga class offered at the center.

 This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center was the beginning of a new “re-scheduling” semester. The patients were given a list of programs they could choose from and began sitting in their new programs of choice this week. I spent the first hour in the Education Program working one-on-one with a patient on English worksheets. He completed five grammar worksheets and I checked over them and reviewed what we learned. Then, I sat in a “Relationships” program. During this program, the counselor talked about different relationships that can form and how they should be valued. The next day at BPC, I sat in a “Peers Relations” program. The counselor discussed how staying positive can improve relationships with others and encouraged the patients to not give up on their dreams and goals. The next program I sat in on was a “Cultural Exploration” program. During this program, the patients answered a true/false questionnaire on different questions pertaining to different cultures and customs. Then, they compared and contrasted different traditions and customs of other countries to those of American traditions and customs.    

 

Week of 4/7 - 4/9

 

This week at 1547 Hertel Ave., many of the usual staff members were absent due to training programs and illness. I spent the morning playing golf and bowling on the Wii with a gentleman who enjoyed playing on the Wii. Then, we gathered other people to play bowling and I tried to teach a woman how to play on the Wii. She had a difficult time getting use to working the remote for the game but she later got the hang of the game and enjoyed it. Then, I sat around in the dining area with some of the ladies while they were having lunch to discuss the recent events in the newspaper.

 

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I spent the first hour in the Education Program assisting a gentleman with math problems. He was working towards his GED and was reviewing some math concepts. Then, I sat in a “Living with Respect” program which my supervisor was running. Before she started, she had to do rounds on two floors to make sure everyone was right where they belonged and I shadowed her while she did it. Once that was completed, we went back to the room and she began her program talking about respect and having people voice their opinion of what respect meant to them.

Week of 4/16 - 4/17

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I worked in the Education Program. The first hour was spent working with a gentleman on math problems from a GED workbook. We worked on percentages and fractions. Then I spent the second hour looking through an optical illusion book with another patient. The next day, I sat in a “Coping Skills” program, in which they talked about how to deal with circumstances that occur in life. The counselor talked about positive things to do in life that can change it. Next, a different counselor and I took five of the patients outside to the courtyard so they could get some fresh air. Some of them walked around the track and some played catch with a ball.

 

Week of 4/21 - 4/24

This week at 1546 Hertel Ave., I spent the majority of the time playing the Wii with different people. First, we played golf and then bowling. Many people participated and took turns with the sport activities. After we finished playing sports, the Wii Fit was connected and everyone tried out different fitness activities. 

 

This week at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, I spent the first hour in the Educations Program assisting an individual with decimals and percentages. Then I helped another gentleman with simple multiplication and division. During the next hour, I sat in a “Living with Respect” program in which everyone talked about different ways to respect someone or something. Many people discussed their own experiences with respect and how it benefits people to be respectful. The next day, I sat in the “Cultural Awareness” program in which they discussed about different traditions and rituals of differing cultures. Then, the counselor asked cultural history questions to the patients.

 

Keywords:
Groups: