Still Standing While Eating Penne Pasta Salad With Walnuts and Feta

This post is continued from yesterday’s topic so you can read there to catch up. I wrote this quite a long time ago and will just continue to share because I’ve come this far. You can always skip to the recipe at the bottom.

Alright, so I take over for this woman and it’s pretty evident that I would be doing the complete job, not what she was doing, and that bothered the counselor.

In case this is a bit confusing, let me break it down. I worked within the middle school, for the psychiatric hospital, in short, an outside agency that this counselor had previous issues with, or rather with a specific person connected to the hospital. The problem was told to me near the end of my time at the school, by a friend and mentor, the resource room teacher. She also worked for an outside agency brought to work in the school as a teacher; she was treated appallingly but put up with it for the kids.

She remains there (dreaming of retirement). A much stronger person than I with a smile for each student, plus an intuition and wisdom that never failed her or failed to help me. The previous case manager had been told horrible things about this woman from the counselor and therefore, didn’t get along well within her classroom…and this woman never knew what had been said, or even that she was not liked, and the case manager never questioned the counselor’s opinion. My mentor was an important character during my time there and to this day.

The issue that I mentioned earlier, between the counselor and the man connected to the hospital that was now the resource room teacher’s supervisor of sorts, happened 12 years prior to my arrival (when I was in middle school). He worked with my hospital through this agency for special needs students (dually diagnosed= emotionally and learning disabled). He and the counselor were present at a meeting, to discuss a student’s learning plan, and something went wrong so from that day on the counselor refused to be in the same room as this man (although the counselor was requested and I believe required to be a part of these plans).

I gathered that his hatred for this person, turned into hatred for outside agencies…he has issues with power. Think no one is coming into my school, I have this under control…his idea of “fixing” something was to ship a problem student out (often before a student actually had done anything as I found out later), ignore things (especially if he knew the family and they had money), or blame someone else, me.

He loved to state how he was “the gatekeeper,” which meant that I talked to him alone (legally) and that he would speak to anyone, like the principal, with the information to pass along….but I’m fairly sure 90% never made it to the others-nothing that I had actually stated anyway. His idea of us communicating was for me to write him notes but his idea with the previous case manager was to meet personally in his office to “talk” about the client’s progress for an hour. I was present during these times for 2 months (during my training) and there was rarely, if ever, talk about the clients. I remember volleyball, hunting, other sports, other agencies, complaining about teachers and parents, things like that. Issues that were between the principal and the counselor, since oddly, the principal was often present at the meetings but legally not supposed to be there.

When I came along, that stopped, even though I began meeting with him in the same manner as the woman I replaced. Somewhere in there, it became a burden on the head honchos of the school to give me any time so I wrote (I was known to write a note or two a day about each student and any updates/issues that were coming out…not that I thought they would deal with it but because I wanted to cover my ass). Halfway through the year, I began copying these notes, as suggested by the resource room teacher because she had experienced the counselor conveniently forgetting issues so that he could blame her. She had a large folder of these copied notes with dates and if he had responded, which he didn’t most of the time, or would make a snide one sentence comment on the note and return it to you (a hit to the ego). He would be upset if he didn’t know even the smallest thing but he would rarely do anything about any of the issues. Most of the notes didn’t hold any important information and were just updates but he ignored nearly every note.

Unfortunately for me, I learned the hard way to copy these from something that happened with one of my clients (that the counselor had selective amnesia about), causing a rather large argument between the school, my agency, the probation officer (who was the sister of a teacher at the school-not helpful), a few teachers and a sexual offense agency that my client was ordered to work with. That was the first time that I had learned the outside agencies had been through this with the counselor before and thought he was a jerk. I wasn’t alone.

The case management services were considered new (only in their second year) when I began working for the hospital. I was told it was important to, and I quote, “kiss ass” and try to make them (the schools) happy. I was often advised to agree when I didn’t or just keep quiet and I did but that still didn’t help anything. The two schools considered against us were in my district (lucky me) and my school was ranked second in their fight to close us down. The high school in the district was number one and the head counselor there was best friends with the counselor I had to deal with, perpetuating and inflating the problems.

The elementary and high schools even knew my name and attached a label-thanks to the counselor. My fellow case managers let me know when it came up and defended me but had very little influence within the schools. Not that I was that important but word spread about the dissonance and pretty soon, a therapist (that worked for the same hospital that I did and later left because of her unhappiness), the probation officer of 2 of my clients, a few case managers at other agencies, this woman and some of the teachers began treating me like nothing I said mattered…I didn’t do anything to deserve this and it was rather hard to help a client when only a few took me seriously (and this was the norm as a case manager at this hospital, obviously adding to the high turnover rate). I was willing to put up with this because, like several supervisors were doing, my Master’s degree into therapy would’ve been paid for by the agency (after a certain amount of time) and that was my route until things fell through for a start-up business Greg was invested in and we had to move back towards home (something I really didn’t want to do).

I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that the counselor’s relation in the county helped spread word like wildfire. Again, what did I do? I was hired by an agency that he did not like. I had support from half of the teachers, other therapists (I was offered an even lower paying job at a competing case management office), a few agencies and the families I worked with but life was not much fun in those days (not that now is bliss).

Here’s what case management does: provides social and academic assistance to clients, most signed onto Medicaid, by mentoring and monitoring the children/adolescents in the school and at home, helping with family and daily life interactions. The students were diagnosed with emotional disorders like ADHD, ODD, anxiety disorders, and on and on (there’s a huge list) and some were dually diagnosed. Most of the clients went to therapy and were taking medications, some were on probation and had an officer that I communicated with (she had her own problems and I think only talked to me on the phone twice the entire year but she seemed to get my messages)…there wasn’t a person in the client’s life that I really didn’t interact with, it was an army for one child (and I had 10 at once-other people had over 20…I don’t know how, beyond an extreme amount of pressure from the hospital, but that’s another story). Don’t get me started on the paperwork.

My school was so far out that they gave me a laptop and didn’t require me to go to the office every day. I went in twice a week and stayed there on Fridays (not in the beginning, until I had to in order to keep some of my sanity), when we had staff meetings with our team therapist to discuss the progress of our clients and to ask for advice. The rest of the day was filing, copying, paperwork, signing other clients into service, meetings, doctor and probation appointments, court hearings and so forth. My fellow case managers, my friends, along with Greg, got me through these tough times.

I would describe the school as male-oriented and very machismo. Being a young female from an outside agency had this counselor and his buddy, the principal, in an uproar. To walk into this place was horrific, you could feel the tension. The majority of my evenings, when I finally got to go home to do fee slips for an hour, I was in tears. I remember the days that I went back to the hospital for some reason and I would be crying in my car, trying to pull myself together to walk up the hill to my shared office. I was pretty much just angry in the last few months-I couldn’t change what they thought about me when they had never got to know me.

Their influence on the faculty/staff made my days a nightmare and I was often met with disdain and treated like I was a child. I had one teacher, who began as my friend, yell at me in the hallway…twice in front of the students…because of something she forgot she said and the second time, I have no idea why. She wasn’t exactly the student’s favorite nor other teacher’s pal but that was uncalled for.

I was well-liked by the students and they would often come to talk, high five and ask for advice from me. I wasn’t legally able to work one-on-one (or really supposed to talk to students I didn’t have as clients) but they needed assistance and I wasn’t going to turn my back on them. I didn’t step over any boundaries and I wish the very best for all of them.

I miss the kids (clients) and their families. That’s the worst part: I was another person that came into their lives and left when they needed something constant. I wake up to this day wondering where they are, if they are safe, how things are going with their families-just hoping that all is well and that they know I care about them. Most case managers just move on and are ecstatic to be away from the hospital but a part of me is paralyzed; I have had a different outlook on my career and life since then. I keep in contact with a number of past coworkers, all but one has moved on. (One has dropped off the face of the earth-where are you, Ryan?)

I would like to get together with these former coworkers and serve pasta, which has historically been my favorite meal. I’m thinking something light: whole wheat pasta salad with walnuts and feta from Ellie Krieger but changed in several ways by me. I would also make something delicious for dessert and have several bottles of wine on hand. Too bad this will only happen in my mind, being so far from all of them. Many of my good friends are spread throughout the states now and away from that place. That deserves a party! Anyway, Greg and I enjoyed this easy, healthy dish. I can’t refuse anything with feta in it.

Penne Pasta Salad with Walnuts and Feta
Serves 4
 Print Recipe
Ingredients:
½ lb. whole wheat pasta (I used penne)
½ cup walnuts, chopped
¼ cup pine nuts-optional (I added)
½ cup feta cheese, crumbled
½ cup red onion, diced (or shallot)
1 cup fresh baby spinach, chopped
2 tbsp walnut oil (or olive oil)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
½ tsp Dijon mustard
salt/pepper

Cook the pasta according to the directions. Drain the pasta and rinse under cold water (not normally done but it’s for cold or room temp salad). Chill in the refrigerator while making dressing.

In a pan, over low heat, toast the walnuts and optional pine nuts for a few minutes. In a large bowl, whisk the oil, vinegar, garlic, onion or shallot, mustard and salt/pepper. Add the walnuts/pine nuts, spinach and feta to the dressing. Toss the pasta into this mixture and chill or serve.