Are Those Lemmings Frolicking Across My Line Of Sight?
Hoo boy. I'm now remembering why I worked with disability services in college. My program evaluation project is due today at 3. I'm totally strung out after weeks upon weeks of anxiety avoidance and inability to manage the timing on multiple tasks left me paralyzed when I attempted to tackle this project. I'm pulling the first all-nighter since my junior year (pt 2) of college. That's six years, people.
So, I'm going to do something incredibly stupid, but necessary. I'm not taking my tranq's tonight. I can't. If I take them before work, I'll pass out. I've forgotten to pick up my meds from the pharmacy once and had to work on half a dose. That wasn't too bad, but I'd at least been able to cat nap, and there had been no stress the night before outside the realization that I didn't have my happy pills (or in the case of the tranq's, the OH DEAR GOD I'M SO HAPPY I COULD EXPLODE!!11!!1! preventatives). I also wasn't facing a full day of classes after work. This is new territory.
The big issue with this program evaluation is that St Ben's program is a TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) program, which means it's incredibly complicated. Coming up with a suitable experimental design that can evaluate my practice without depriving people of treatment is close to impossible. Even delaying treatment can be a problem, because TANF is capped at a five year LIFETIME limit. Wasting even a week of that is ethically dubious at best. Single case studies don't work, because the diversity of our client base means that it wouldn't even come close to evaluating whether our program works or not. In the end, I'm going with a quasi-experimental design that delays treatment to the control group until after the experimental group receives it and I'll cross my fingers that my prof's not going to think too hard about that 5 year lifetime limit.* GAH!
So, wish me luck, that I finish my project (whether it be good or bad) and not tank my career.
*Worry not, in practice I wouldn't dream of actually doing this study.
So, I'm going to do something incredibly stupid, but necessary. I'm not taking my tranq's tonight. I can't. If I take them before work, I'll pass out. I've forgotten to pick up my meds from the pharmacy once and had to work on half a dose. That wasn't too bad, but I'd at least been able to cat nap, and there had been no stress the night before outside the realization that I didn't have my happy pills (or in the case of the tranq's, the OH DEAR GOD I'M SO HAPPY I COULD EXPLODE!!11!!1! preventatives). I also wasn't facing a full day of classes after work. This is new territory.
The big issue with this program evaluation is that St Ben's program is a TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) program, which means it's incredibly complicated. Coming up with a suitable experimental design that can evaluate my practice without depriving people of treatment is close to impossible. Even delaying treatment can be a problem, because TANF is capped at a five year LIFETIME limit. Wasting even a week of that is ethically dubious at best. Single case studies don't work, because the diversity of our client base means that it wouldn't even come close to evaluating whether our program works or not. In the end, I'm going with a quasi-experimental design that delays treatment to the control group until after the experimental group receives it and I'll cross my fingers that my prof's not going to think too hard about that 5 year lifetime limit.* GAH!
So, wish me luck, that I finish my project (whether it be good or bad) and not tank my career.
*Worry not, in practice I wouldn't dream of actually doing this study.