Memories

I went to a concert last night - the music from Larkrise to Candleford. (Not the TV series, but the stage show from many years ago, featuring The Albion Band). It was fantastic - great music, banter, such fun. At one point the band started playing and I instantly recognised the tune. However, I knew that the reason I recognised it was not that it was part of the show, or that it was on the CD (it isn't!) I puzzled until the chorus came and I recognised it as a playground song: "In and Out the Windows." With that recognition came a flood of memories - positive ones of playing in the playground. Lots of songs, rhymes and games. So here, perhaps to awaken similar positive memories for others, are some of the things I remember singing:

The big ship sails on the Ally, Ally Oh. We joined hands for this and then the leader led the line through each of the pairs of arms in turn, ending with us all twisted round.

In and out the dusky bluebells. This was a circle game, where one person chose another by tapping on their shoulders, then the increasing line went between the other children in the circle.

The Farmer's in the den. Of course. No description needed.

Bubble Car, Bubble Car.. A skipping game. Alone with Cinderella dressed in yeller went to the ball to kiss a feller. How many kisses did she get.... And When is your birthday? Please jump in.

What's the Time Mr Wolf? Another I guess most of us (or those of us of "a certain age") remember.

Does anyone else remember playing "7s" and "Two balls" with tennis balls up against any convenient wall?

Or French elastic?

Or clapping games? Sadly the rhymes for many of those have deserted me. Good things to remember.

Gleanings from BLPT Trust Board Papers part 2

More on (lack of) services from the minutes for January.

· EH enquired why the percentage of referrals for psychology waiting more than 11 weeks was in excess of 20%. HB confirmed that the process was effective but that there were capacity issues. She said the Trust does receive funding for the service but at present this was insufficient to fund the level of service needed, although this did fluctuate throughout the year.
Not enough money to pay for the number of people referred as needing psychology input. When I was referred, several years ago now, I was told I would not be accepted as the waiting list was longer than 6 months and so the waiting list was closed - no new patients would be accepted. (After a lot of fighting, I did get psychological treatment). Seems things haven't moved on much in this area, despite the Government's declarations that access to talking therapies is improving. Or at least, it doesn't seem to have moved on in Bedfordshire.

Personal progress

I'm trying to note this as I see it.

Counselling sessions with J are having a big impact. Yes, the sessions are often tough and I do spiral down from time to time. But I have not missed a single day of work since I started seeing her. The flashbacks have become much less frequent and much less terrifying. I'm not feeling that incapacitating depression, or the anxiety that I was feeling regularly before I started seeing her. When I do encounter them, the periods are fleeting and I have strategies which I can use to try to manage them.
I'm starting to believe it is not all my fault. That's a process and likely to be a lengthy one.
I'm beginning to be able to say no on a more regular basis. I am more inclined to weigh up requests. I'm getting more inclined to express what I want as well - to the surprise of some people, I suspect.
I'm so grateful for her help and support.

Congratulations BLPT

You have reloaded your February agenda and now NONE of the links to documents are working. Fantastic work.

The documents are online - it just takes a lot of playing around to get to them, given that all your links point to the wrong addresses.
For anyone who (like me) wants to know what is going on, here are links to some of the documents:
Minutes from January
Finance Report
Executive team minutes 23 January
The Performance report now seems to have been replaced by a blank document. I wish I had saved a copy in the brief hours it was up.

For anyone who is interested - the error initially in the links which did not work - about 5 of them - was that extra spaces had been placed in file names. The error now is that the address seems to point to the wrong part of the web - or possibly the addresses used were to the files on a local sserver or machine and they have not been amended to have the https://www.eastern.nhs.uk/Bedfordshire/Beds&LutonMentalHealth&SocialCarePartnershipTrust/Corporate/TrustBoard domain address.
This is a recurring issue - I have lost track of the number of times I have been unable to access BLPT files through their own website. Recent comments at Board level have focussed on efforts to engage more people with the Trust Board. Making information available (and obvious - it's not easy to find on their website) would possibly be a start. Publicising the meetings on the front page of the website might be another useful step to take.

Gleanings from BLPT Trust board papers part 1

These seem to have come online in the last couple of days. I've had the usual fun getting into them, given that many of the links are incorrect.

In the minutes for last month (here, not as linked from the online agenda), one non-executive director's comments are recorded thus:
EH was concerned that there was an adverse forecast for Corporate Services and Operations Management. Savings appeared to be made only from operational areas.
Interesting that. Money is being cut from operational areas (those directly affecting patients, it could be argued) and yet the Management side is identified as (presumably) overspending.
The response was:
CB [another Non-executive director] asked that more detail be provided of the problems in Corporate Services that had caused the overspend. HM [Medical Director] asked for the reasons for the Operations Management overspend. TD [Finance Director] said that she would be happy to provide the information and suggested that this should be discussed in detail at the Finance Committee.
Thus the reasons were not minuted as part of this set of minutes. There is no online record of the Finance Committee minutes either. The director who asked the original questions continued to express her concerns:
EH said that she would not be at the Finance Committee but was concerned that there was a continual pattern of overspend within Corporate Services when monies were needed for frontline services.

Indeed.

More BLPT cuts in service

I wrote before Christmas of my shock at finding that my then CMHT had "merged" with another local one, putting me back with the team where I had huge problems previously. My trusted psychiatrist told me he was moving to inpatient work. The new CMHT did not act on his request that I was allocated a key worker. All bad stuff - though my discharging myself from their "care" has led to a lot less anxieties for me as I no longer wait for promised services to materialise (they rarely did).
Reading Mandy's blog today, it seems the same has happened in her part of the county. Like me, the first Mandy seemed to know of it was when her psychiatrist told her he was leaving.
Not long ago BLPT minutes revealed their plans to "cleanse" the outpatient lists. I'm not sure if this team merging is an extension of this plan, a reflection of this, an admission of defeat, a result of lack of staff, or just that they don't care. It stands to reason that removing two consultant psychiatrists from outpatient teams must reduce the number of people who can be seen by that service, or the amount of contact time individual patients can have. One thing I cannot see is how this can improve services.
I also have failed to pick up in the minutes for the Trust Board any mention of this policy. I wonder if they are aware or not? Or care.
I'm glad I no longer have contact with them - but very concerned for those who rely on the service they are supposed to provide.

Half term!

I made it...
Now, there's just the not-so-small matter of 160 reports to write, 100 assessments to mark, a similar amount of other work, oh, and the housework. But let's not worry about that...

Actually, at the moment (and this may change!) I am not worrying too much about it. I am feeling OK. I'm making progress in my work with J and gaining understanding of what is going on. I think I am getting better able to manage what is going on - for the most part. Things still have the potential to cause me a wobbly, but at least afterwards I am starting to recognise what memories etc have been triggered to cause the wobble.

I even managed to sleep reasonably well last night without sleeping tablets. That's the first time in over a year.

Of course, the snow days helped. The start of next term, with parents' evening and reports and all the other stuff, may not help, But at the moment I am OK - and that is worth celebrating.

BLPT press release

There's a very interesting press release on the blpt website. For such a major announcement, I found it interesting that its only appearance is buried in a press release, several unremarkable clicks away from the front page.

The start of it reads:
TRUST CHAIR AND NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS PLAN TO STEP DOWN FOR A BETTER FUTURE FOR LOCAL SERVICE USERS

The Chair and Non-Executive Directors of Bedfordshire and Luton Mental Health and Social Care Partnership NHS Trust have today announced their unanimous intention to stand down from the leadership of the Trust (within six to nine months), in order to allow the organisation to create a new partnership with an NHS Foundation Trust.

They are all (that is, all the non-executive directors - those not directly employed by BLPT) resigning. The view seems to be that there is no future for BLPT as a Trust and the NEDs have decided to ask NHS East of England to find another NHS trust to take over BLPT. They state that,
we do not believe that with the current structure and size of the organisation, there is any prospect of the organisation attaining Foundation Trust status in its own right

It appears as if the non-executive members of the Trust no longer believe in that BLPT have the ability to serve those who need its services.
Some of us could have told them that quite a while ago. In fact, some of us have been telling them that for some time.

The press statement also says,
Having seen the energy, skills and enthusiasm in the leadership of other Mental Health Foundation Trusts, we have come to the conclusion that seeking a partnership with one of these holds the best prospect for delivering modern mental health and learning disabilities services for our local communities.
In other words, other MH trusts are doing a better job, with better leadership, than BLPT. Again, some of us could have told them that a while ago.

PharmaTimes comments that:
The resignations of the chair and non-executive directors of Bedfordshire and Luton NHS Mental Health Trust are associated with issues around that trust’s potential financial viability. With annual revenues of £70 million, the trust is understood to have decided that its future lies in being taken over by a bigger foundation trust with the economic muscle to help its services survive in the new NHS world of patient choice and contestability from the private and third sectors.

Having read the minutes of Trust Board meetings, I sensed a lot of internal wrangling and disagreements. I just hope something which better serves the people of this region comes out of the wreckage.

Snow

Today has beena day of coping with changes. We had the open day for the work I am doing as a consultant - and it snowed all day. The pupils who were meant to be joining me couldn't get over. Nor could about half of those who were going toa ttend. Nor could several of those who should have been speaking. I did one of my talks in full; the other was truncated in order to allow for an earlier finish (because of the increasingly bad conditions). It all went OK, but I am recognising the strain of it all tonight. to add to it I was getting text messages from my daughters' school all day telling me that they were cancelling the parents' information afternoon, then that school was closing at 1pm, then that it was closing at 11am. None of which I could do anything about, and W was doing all the transporting today. But it added to the pressures.

Tonight I've had a bit of a fall apart. I phoned J earlier in "a bit of a state". I've now taken some tablets and done some sewing. am planning to head to bed soonish, and to hope that tomorrow is a (full) snow day - if nothing else because i don't fancy driving in our current road conditions.

Time passes...

It's been nearly a week since I last posted.

So, what's been going on?

Mostly manic work, and me coping to various extents with that. Given that I teach a lot of ICT, I will leave you to imagine the effects of the numerous internet failures this week. Today, however, added a new twist. I had ICT this morning with Year 8 (never easy). They couldn't log on; the machines just hung. So I sent for help, to be told that the profiles had been changed and one step had been left out. Itw as fixed; 20 minutes of my lesson lost.
Fast forward three hours and I am back in the ICT room with another Year 8 class. Same problem - they couldn't log on. I sent for help; no apology or explanation this time, but half an hour later it was "fixed" and the pupils could log on (albeit very slowly).
Fast forward 2 hours and I am discussing this with the colleague who also teaches ICT, only to find she has had the same problems in ALL her ICT lessons - since yesterday. Now, I don't teach ICT on Wednesday or Thursday (the latter being my consultancy day) - but how can this go on in EVERY lesson for two days without the problem being fixed AND staff being alerted to the likelihood of a problem? ARGH!

Other events this week - I saw J on Thursday. A good (and emotional) session. feeling a bit unsettled still but some of that is from awareness of issues to address.
Younger daughter is making progress with her GCSE options, thankfully.
Too much marking to do - but I did get through some of it this week.
A very enjoyable and, I hope, useful session in one of our local lower schools this week. Much enthusiasm; I felt I helped, which was good.

Also on the radar - on Monday I am giving two presentations to an audience of teachers from our LEA, about the work I am doing in my consultancy post. I'm increasingly nervous. Hoping I can say the things they need / want to hear, which will help and enthuse them. Snow is forecast in our area for Monday; I'm not sure whether to hope it appears or not!

All the positive words may or may not mask the fact that I am still very up and down, swinging from "everything is fine" to "I can't cope" in minutes. Very draining.

Update on where I am

I'm coped with J, my counsellor, being on holiday for two weeks. Hopefully she returns today and I see her on Thursday.
I've been doing too much and am feeling overwhelmed. I need to shut off more in the evenings. It wasn't helped my a member of management at work asking me to take no a major task - and continuing to try to persuade me to do so after I said it was too much work and I couldn't do it. His argument was that it would be good for the school / ICT. It wouldn't be much good for the school if I ended up off work again though.
I had a sewing day today which was good on many fronts - not least that I didn't work all day. I finished the top of a quilt. J has been away in Kenya, helping to set up an orphanage, and I am hoping to make quilts which can be used out there. Today's was the first of those. I've another well underway, and the makings of two more.
W has just had to go out to pick up elder daughter from a supposed sleepover; she's feeling / being sick. No, not alcohol - just an inexplicable inability to cope with excitement / fizzy drinks. This is recurrent and has been a feature since she was very little. Unfortunately it's a 30 mile round trip to collect her.
Tomorrow I have planning to do, as usual. I also have the second of two presentations to write for an open day in a week's time, when I will be speaking to an audience of teachers in our county about how to use the Learning Platform. Nervous? Yes, just a little. OK, so terrified is closer. I've written one presentation and am reasonably happy with it, but need to get my teeth into this one so that I don't worry about it all week. I also really need to get through some of my backlog of marking. In the evening W and I are going to see a Richard Thompson concert, which should be good.

Emotionally - no, I'm not too good at the moment. No idea what to do about it though. Hoping things improve soon.

Lots to do

We have spent the weekend putting new furniture together (two bookshelves and a wardrobe for younger daughter). As a direct result, most of the house is in chaos - packaging, books on the move, clothes on the move - to say nothing of the housework not done because we were putting furniture together.

I have managed to write my first mini assignment for my MA - for Wednesday's session. Am quite pleased about that. However, I also have two presentations to write and two weeks to do it in. I started one of them at the weekend, but it's a bit of a slog. These are for our local conference on learning platforms, to an audience of local teachers.

I also have some monitoring to finish off at school, and a summary of the assessment cycle in my subject to write, to hand to the Deputy head. Then I have resources to order / buy, and schemes of work to write.

I have emails to send and people to contact about my consultancy role - needs doing, needs doing!

I also have a garage full of stuff to get rid of. Some can be donated to charities (but I will need to organise their collection of it; some needs to go to the tip; some can be donated to local schools (toys my children have grown out of). I need about a day to do all this - at least!

Ho hum....

Anyone care to donate me a spare week so I can tackle all this?

BETT show

Had a great day there today. Did some good networking, saw some cool things, had great conversations with friends I have not seen in a while. Really positive; have laughed a lot and come away feeling physically shattered but mentally energised. All good.

I am feeling...

...a bit overwhelmed. Lots of things competing for attention in my head right now - short term (is tea cooked yet), medium term (what about that lesson I haven't planned? What am I going to say at the two sessions I have agreed to give at a regional conference? What date should we go to visit my parents?) and long term (What about younger daughter's GCSE options? Will I ever complete an MA?)

... very tired. I need to get to bed earlier and use my "free" time more profitably.

...somewhat disorganised. Housework needs more time, bills to pay, letters to file.

...scared and childlike. Longing to hide away. Feeling alone; missing J, knowing I won't see her for some time yet.

...stretched. the needs of others are taking on a much greater priority than my own wellness. I am not sure how to address this.

Lost

I had my last session with J yesterday before she goes on holiday. My next session is in three weeks time. Gulp. It was a good session though - very useful.

All was going well; I had a positive phone conversation witha colleague about the support work I am doing; went into my own school to do some support work with a couple of staff there - and then set off for a meeting. The meeting was at a school I had never been to before, in Mandy's neck of the woods. I googled it and printed off a map of where it was, then set out.

I drove around the area for 45 minutes. Couldn't find it, or anything that looked like it. I ended up in a complete panic, totally lost.
I phoned my friend who was running the meeting to tell her I wasn't going to be able to make it. She (having SatNav) came out to find me. I cried in her car for a long time.

Feel very wobbly still today. Lots tied up in this, I know - it wasn't just about being lost on the way to a meeting. Feel forced into going into work today when I know it would help me a lot to take a day off to recover from this desperate feeling I have, but there you go. Am hoping I will pull things together this weekend.

Teaching

Not surprisingly, perhaps, given yesterday, I felt very subdued today. I was fortunate enough to have an hour of non-contact time first, which gave me time to complete some vital tasks away from pupils. Then it was a KS3 day. Two lots of Year 8 ICT to start with; the first was very hard work with the pupils extremely noisy; the second (usually a harder class) much better, with some pupils producing some excellent work.
After lunch I had Year 7 Maths - which is outside my comfort zone, but I was pleased with how today's lesson went; I managed to get them to discuss ideas and I think we made some progress. That was followed by my Year 8 English class. I have them immediately after a PE lesson, and to add to the mix today they had not been able to get outside for lunch or break. However, they worked really well. We started a new topic, on World War 1 poetry, and today we were looking at initial ideas, building towards them writing a poem of their own. It went well; there was some impressive concentration and some good first thoughts. I'm quite looking forward to their work tomorrow, finishing their poems.
I ended the day feeling much more positive than I began - teaching is still the thing which gives me a buzz - though tonight I'm again feeling none too positive about myself, picking my lessons apart and only seeing the holes.

Training day

It snowed here - but not enough to prevent school from opening, sadly.

The training day was just as bad as ever and I now feel like crap. We started off with what our head called a "game" - he told us to write down the 5 key points of the Every Child Matters agenda, then the 6 key points of Personal Learning and Thinking Skills, and then the 7 key points of Assessment for Learning. So I felt rubbish from the start, because I couldn't remember them. (Part of me feels I shouldn't need to - I can look them up if they are needed, and I hope I am using them in my teaching; certainly when we have had training I have felt I am). Then we were shouted at for an hour and a half, given dire warnings, told we should be aiming for excellence (because, of course, without that we would have all carried on aiming for mediocrity). My first feedback on the recent ICT audit came in this public meeting and was very different to what i was led to expect in discussions with the audit team and with the deputy during the audit.
I feel like a big fat pile of rubbish - useless, not doing what I should be doing and not appreciated for waht I am trying to do.
Why do I bother, really?

Back to work

Term starts with a "training day" tomorrow and I am dreading it.
The pattern always seems to be the same. We return from our break, reasonably refreshed (and hopefully, at this time of year, with not too many of us ill!) Many of us have things we are looking forward to doing, with a new terma nd a new year.
Then we have the staff meeting. You can see shoulders slumping as it progresses, with "reminders" that we should be doing this, that or the other. It doesn't matter if we are doing most things, or doing a good job - there are always new targets, new initiatives, new requirements.
We come away feeling battered and dejected. It doesn't matter how good a job we are doing, it is never good enough (and the good job we are doing is seldom mentioned).
Additionally, for me, the "style" of delivery is immensely triggering. I don't do well with forceful, raised voices (actually, it feels like being shouted at to me and others). I don't do well with being told only what I have done wrong, or left undone.
So I am dreading tomorrow. I know I need to do lots of positive self talk, and I will try to. I am going to try to have something to look forward to in the evening. I need to come up with some distraction / grounding strategies for during the meeting. But I am dreading it.

Busy day

I've managed to get a few things done today, though (as ever) not as many as I wanted. A bit of housework, and a lot of shopping. Two teenage daughters who are shooting up (one is taller than e now, the other not far behind) meant new clothes were needed. So today was a trip to town with younger d (older one was in too, but with her friends)to buy new jeans. Success! Then there were various other errands to run - a quick food shop, some embroidery needles for my sewing machine (looking forward to using those on my crazy patchwork project) and various odds and ends.
Today I have also had the requirements list for my next sewing course. I'm going to be making a quilt with a "jelly roll" and am looking forward to it. I've even ordered a particular jelly roll - lovely jewel colours. Just have to try to complete some of the other projects before that!

Have roasted some potatoes for the freezer today, and used up the leftover vegetables to make a roasted veg mix, also for the freezer. I got some parsnips from the market today, which I intend to honey roast tomorrow.

Creative urges have kicked in again, and yesterday I enjoyed knitting while watching a DVD with the girls (Ballet Shoes - such a wonderful childhood memory). I completed one scarf, and started another. Today at the library I found a book of projects to make with odd balls of wool. That should be fun.

Creative space

We've finished our current room reorganising here. The dining room has now become the music room, while the spare bedroom is now my sewing room. I've dragged boxes from the loft, gone through all my fabric and organised it, and am now inspired. I've sorted out all my partially completed projects, and have begun completing one of them. I've also found some fabric for the border for the quilt top I was working on just before Christmas, so I can tackle the next stage of that as well. It's wonderful to have the space to set things out and leave them out, as well as space to work freely. It's also good to feel like being creative again - I haven't for a while. I've restarted a crazy patchwork piece, which I hope will make a pretty stunning quilt eventually. I bought, some time back, a collection of curtain and upholtery scraps, many of which turned out to be in whites and creams. I played with some of these in crazy patchwork fashion, and used the embroidery stitches on my machine to sew over the seams with metallic gold thread. The result looked good, but I didn't go any further with it, till yesterday. I spent a couple of hours playing with pieces, putting them together and ending up with something I am quite pleased with. I can do about half a dozen blocks at the same time - that way I end up with a cohesive theme. I think I will join them together with sashing when I get enough blocks. In the meantime they make a fun project. When I get tired with that I can pick up another of my incomplete projects.

I think I might make a couple of fabric postcards with the scraps of this project as well. Hmmm!