Training

I have to admit that it's hard work to pretend to be interested in this training. Here are a few reasons why:

They are attempting to train us to train prospective foster parents. I've already been doing that for 2 years, with the material they are teaching us. In fact, yesterday I ran into the gal from Children's Home that I co-train with and she questioned why I was there. She doesn't have to attend the trainings but we are having lunch together on Thursday :)

Out of 22 people there, 18 are social workers and/or licensing workers. They are mandated to be at the meeting. There are only 4 foster parents.

Our four "master trainers" (their words, not ours :) have been in the system about 20 years each and aren't the best speakers. It was really ironic that the entire first day of training, they were trying to teach us how to best train adults. They were giving us all kinds of information about how to keep the material interesting, how to know the audience, how to use techniques that would encourage participation, etc and the whole room was completely bored out of our minds the entire afternoon. If they can't even keep us interested, how in the world do they have the authority and know-how to teach us to keep other adults interested?

Enough with the negative. Here's a few positives to the week:

The person who signed me up for the training actually told me where to sit! That wasn't a positive and made me kind of crabby but then one of the DSS people I know from the Foster Parent Network ended up beside me so it ended well :)

Best moment of the training: when one of the "master trainers" who shall remain nameless, stumbled three times over the word 'sex'. Call me juvenile, but it was funny! Especially if you know her. Don't worry, I didn't laugh out loud :)

I've met some new people and made some new connections. I actually made two other people go out for lunch with me. I just walked over when they dismissed us and asked if they had lunch plans. When they said they didn't, I told them we should all go together. I originally thought they came together but it turned out they didn't really know anyone at the training, including each other. I know. I know. I'm supposed to be anti-social. But someone's got to step up and make the first move when people are too intimidated to talk to each other. We ended up having no shortage of words during lunch and were almost late for the afternoon session :)

When one of the instructors, a really nice gal (Mom - think Carleen Holm), was training us in diffusing hostility from the group or an individual, I had a really strong urge to start arguing with her about techniques. Not because I thought she was wrong. I just wanted to slip into scary debate mode to see how she would respond. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have been able to use any of the 'techniques' that she was claiming would work. It would've been fun to get her riled up! And you know I could've done it. But I held myself back and sat quietly :)

I've had time to myself in the evenings. The first night, I didn't even turn on the tv or computer. I sat in complete silence and read until I'd finished my book. Last night, I came back to my room by 4:30pm, intending to change and rest for a few minutes before doing paperwork and then going out. The next thing I knew, I was waking up at 8pm! I guess I was pretty tired. So I called home and got to talk to my baby, my hubby and my eldest, then worked for a while and was back to sleep by 10:30pm :)
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The most positive thing I can say about this training is that they've taught me a lot about what NOT to do when training adults :)
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