Therapeutically chaotic itinerary (TCI) from Perth to Newcastle

The trip up to Newcastle from Sydney Airport was rocky, and in all honesty, I was in a bit of shock. When I pulled into the looped driveway of the Apollo in the middle of the night, I was exhausted and a bit frazzled, but unscathed - at least on the surface. I hadn't suffered any injuries or illness on the trip up, just a rollercoaster of emotions. 

It wasn't just the unfamiliar roads of NSW that had my whole body reeling, nor the fact that I'd been turned around twice in a confused effort to navigate the inner city roads before ascending north onto the Pacific Highway. There were tunnels and bridges; the sheer audacity of navigating at that late hour could be likened to untangling a spider's web. 

When I realised they'd closed the path to cross the Harbour Bridge, I panicked, unfamiliar with any other way out of central Sydney. The detour took me down a corridor of a road that ended in a roundabout, and as I was mid-panicked thought attempting to reroute my navigation to find an alternative way out of there, I reached the end of the corridor and started to turn into the circle at the end. 

There right in front of me, looming over me, was the Sydney Opera House, in all it's billowing glory. The luminous white sails blooming and seemed to beckon the oncoming traffic around the corner. I stared up at it. I wondered how many other tourists, lost and confused had stumbled upon this view in much the same way as I had? 

I wanted to pause there for a chance to stand, stare and take in the breathtaking view of this monument, however I knew I had to get moving or I'd be arriving in Newcastle as the sun came up. I needed sleep before the week ahead. It would be one of those weeks that I could not survive on no sleep. 

It was a long way to travel, from Perth to Newcastle and a huge responsibility was weighing on my head. This week, I was not here to be a tourist. I'd flown all this way here and hired a rental car to drive the remainder, leaving my husband and two young boys behind to engage in five intensive days of training and assessment.

As I was driving through the night in a rented Volkswagen S-Cross, whose wipers and indicators were on the opposite sides of the steering wheel to what I'm used to - European style, I was in my head. I nervously anticipated the gravity of the learning experience I was about to endure. I'd already been through the pre-course material and testing, so I knew the content of what lay ahead of me. 

But not only was I here to revise and learn this coursework, I was expected to, by the end of this course, be able to teach it to our frontline staff. I had to take this knowledge back with me to our organisation and help embed these practices in our staff, policies and procedures. 

I was mulling over all of this in my head as I was driving, and was snapped out of my thoughts by flashing blue and red lights behind me. I was about an hour out of Newcastle still, and sure that I wasn't speeding, I was terrified of going over the limit. However, due to my distracted train of thought and existing level of anxiety, I couldn't help but be nervous as I pulled to the side of the road. 

My heart was racing, I'm a woman in my thirties travelling alone and it's the middle of the night. I'd heard about cops in these parts of country Australia who liked to abuse their power and position in ways that I could only imagine. Part of the reason for the very course I was about to take was due to the broken criminal justice system and the historical cycles of trauma within generations of families who had felt viscerally the breakdown and oppression of a system built to set them up for failure. 

My heart was pounding as the cop walked over to my car and I rolled down the window. 

"Can I see your licence," he started to say, then refrained. 

He paused and then changed his tone of voice and said 'Sorry, you know, rental cars late at night down these roads can often be drug traffickers, but you don't fit the profile."

He stalked back to the cop car and I was stunned at this clear display of profiling and racism, but I was relieved that I 'did not fit the profile' and could continue on my way. What would have happened if I did look the part of a drug mule? *shudders* In any case, I had much more than this on my mind and still an hour to get to the hotel.

The next morning, as I was driving to Allambi Care, still weary from the night before, I happened upon a school zone of traffic and a crossing guard who was flagging the traffic to come to a stop so the school kids could cross the road. 

My eyes caught sight of the little boy crossing the road and honestly, I thought I'd travelled back in time. I'd noticed things about the neighbourhood as I was weaving through the suburbs of Charlestone. Up and down the hilly roads there seemed to be many homes that still looked as if they were built in the 50s or 60s, with large verandahs and hills hoists, cobbled brickwork and well-maintained gardens. 

But this boy look like he'd stepped straight out of a 1950s time portal. He was wearing a mostly grey ensemble with a chapeau, vest and suspenders. This was clearly a private school, the suburb and surrounds practically screamed 'money'. I for sure would have paid a lot to live here. Everywhere including the hotel and the learning centre at Allambi were surrounded by beautiful forests. You could observe kookaburras, parrots and other native birds and wildlife up close. I love being surrounded by nature. Any time that I'm out of the city and surrounded by big tall trees and the sounds and songs of the Australian outback, I feel at home. Peaceful. 

I could see that the young boy looked happy with a wide smile and eyes that twinkled with delight as they crossed towards his school. A bizarre sentiment that I could not have shared from my experiences at that age, nor now, as I was headed towards a school of sorts. 

The bumpy trip to get here wasn't the only challenge I faced this week. My phone battery, which up until recently had been pretty decent (it's an iPhone) had been playing up on me. By the time I'd arrived at that first day of training it was only giving me one or two minutes before needing to be put back on charge and restarted. I brought my phone charger with me everywhere at this point and carried battery packs, but things like taking photos or video content (my usual M.O) was out of the question. What was a content creator to do? 

This major inconvenience turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though. The lack of connection to my phone took me further out of my comfort zone as I was forced to engage more with my surroundings and the people around me. I tend to be a little siloed and in my own world sometimes, particularly in a room full of people I don't know. This forced detachment from technology prevented me from remaining in my bubble and challenged me to be more present. 

Even now, as I write this, my phone is in the seat pocket in front of me. I can see the woman in the seat across the aisle from me playing a game on her phone. Were my phone in good working condition, I could see myself likely doing much of the same. Distracting myself from my thoughts and pushing at the buttons monotonously, with mind-numbing apathy. 

I'm not doing that however, I'm currently recording my thoughts in the blank pages of a book I'm reading (sorry Pagan Alexandria) and on the back of an envelope of postcards that I purchased on this flight back to Perth, eager to find anything I could use to cover in the words that were spilling out of my brain. 

This whole trip though, I've been feeling this overwhelming urge and sense of urgency to write. I've experienced so many thoughts, feelings and emotions throughout this whole week and I have had words at the forefront of my brain just kind of seeping out of me. It's been a long time since I've felt so compelled to put anything down on paper. I can only put it down to a mixture of circumstances and content. 

I'm glad I was able to recall the details of the drive up to Newcastle and the boy with the grey chapeau. I also want to write about the week that's just gone, but I'm a bit unsure where to begin. 

I can very clearly picture each of the trainers, Ben, Claire and Sally. I know I could probably give the names and descriptions of every single person, teachers and students doing the course with me. Share some anecdotes from the couple of people I connected with who were staying at the same hotel, Helen and Sean. The one really big thing I want to talk about - my anxiety and stress throughout the week, and I'll probably get to all of that later. 

On the first day of training after an introductory morning, one of the other students, Holly, came over to me. She recalled that in the introduction about myself  that I'd mentioned I was in marketing, and she also had a marketing background and remarked how we are often drawn to human services after a few years of  working in the biz. 'So true,' I agreed with her. 

We then went on to have a fascinating discussion about her work in the Drug and Alcohol space. Parts of the discussion I don't quite recall, but her curly blonde and pink hair and kindness in seeking me out, as I knew no one that first day, did not go unnoticed. I found her to be truly compassionate, also a mum with a neurospicy brain and an 11 year old boy who is nearly as tall as she is. I was grateful for the extension of friendship in that moment. 

This course was not going to be an easy one and I was quickly learning that I had the least amount of experience in the room. Yes, I've been working in out-of-home care for a while now, but in the office, behind a computer screen. The material in this course was heavy and required a very steep learning curve on my part. 

The trainer, Claire, had a familial sense about her. As if I'd met her before. She did grow up in Perth, Kalamunda (the hills), so it's possibly our paths had crossed before, or this is simply why she felt familiar. I felt that she, in particular, of all the trainers, was rooting for me to do well. I could see her excitement or acknowledgement, when I spoke up or answered a question correctly, at least I felt like she did. 

*giggles* Sorry, I just had a flashback to the activity we did on Thursday afternoon. It was an energiser before we tackled the last of the course material. Ben asked me to move and make the sound of a salmon. I wiggled my body and made a "bloop bloop bloop" sound. It was absolutely rediculous. Thanks Ben! Also funny, when the rest of the room had to copy this move and sound. Ben is a very experienced trainer. He's been doing this for over 10 years now, and he has a super easy-going nature about him, while being extremely serious about the material he's teaching and the gravity of it. 

I felt that gravity immensely. My anxiety was there and heightened almost all of Monday and Tuesday of the course. We dived into the course materials, and I was very quickly out of my depth. I knew that I had a very short amount of time to get my head around the key concepts of Therapeutic Crisis Intervention, enough to pass and gain my certification to teach it. 

We were going to be assessed on the final day (Friday) and the result of that assessment would either be competency, needs a review in 6 months before certification or incomplete. 

Our staff and organisation need this training urgently and it will be my job to deliver it. But how could I possibly do that with the very little lived experience that I actually have? Not to mention, I'd never been to a direct training of TCI before - so I hadn't even been exposed to what it's like to learn just the basics from a trainer. 

The biggest feeling I had throughout this whole week, was one of inadequacy and being a bit of a fish out of water. I knew going in that I was inexperienced, but when I walked into the classroom on the first day, and the rest of the group were telling stories from the field, I was the only one there who hadn't had lived experience caring for young people (that weren't my own). 

Despite these feelings, I knew I did have something to offer. It's why I was there. Omair wouldn't have sent me across the country to take a five-day course in something that he didn't think I would be able to handle. As the week progressed, I found myself searching my life for experience to draw from and I found so much. 

When it came to emotional first aid, I thought back to the time that a friend of mine was having a very rough day. I went over their house to hang out, but they were in a state of distress. I felt like me being there wasn't helping them, so I started to let them know I would be leaving, but they cried out, 'I wouldn't leave you if you were crying'. I went back and said, 'What do you need? I didn't think you wanted me here. How can I help?' And then I just sat with them and listened. 

I realised when it comes to active listening, and LSI's, that I've been practising that sh** for years with a number of my friends and even co-workers. I know when someone needs a good vent, and I don't have to say much, in fact, I usually say very little and they usually feel better after the chat. With many friends there's give and take with this. We take turns in opening up to each other, and lean on each other for support. 

Being that the course was about therapeutic crisis intervention for young people in care, I was trying to connect more with my experiences with young people. I thought about the kids in my life whom I always give the time of day when I'm around. I let them show me their dance moves or flips on the trampoline, and if they take an interest in something I'm doing, I'll see if they want to join me. My kids, my friends' kids, my sisters' kids, I think being a parent has given me a lot more experience and patience than I realised. I think I have developmental relationships with many of the kids in my life, not just my own. I'm grateful to be in theirs. 

My Great Aunty Barbara was a Children's Court Magistrate. One of the first female magistrates in Australia in the 70s. She was known as the Children's Champion. Barbara Holborow adopted 8 children from the work she did with neglected youths in the children's court. She set up free legal aid for children in NSW and established a care court in Campsie. I feel like Aunty Barbara was the OG of therapeutic crisis intervention. She went out-of-bounds of what was usually practiced in the courts. Challenged rulings, got to the pain behind the behaviours that some of the children that came before her were exhibiting. 

Weirdly coming to NSW felt like I was connecting to her and her life. I even brought her book with me 'The Good, The Bad and The Inevitable'. I had it in the hotel room and was reading stories from it at night before going to bed. I also showed it to Helen, one of the people in my course who was staying at the hotel, during our study session and she knew who she was. She'd even seen her speak at a conference, probably 20 years ago. The world is so small. 

So, I had never worked with the children in out-of-home care - except for the occasional interaction with them if they came to the office. I have experience, and I have history. 

Our boys are also autistic, which comes with a series of challenges in and of itself. We didn't expect to have children with a disability, let alone both kids. We've had to make adjustments to our lives to accommodate their needs, including accessing therapies, developing routines and strategies to help with their need for order. They have difficulty regulating their emotions when they get overstimulated and we'll often end up in a mess on the floor to help calm and return to baseline. 

The first day into this trip, I had a call from Dan to let me know that the boys have been ejected from After School Care. They've suspended services due to the difficulties with the boys behaviours, engaging them in the activities, absconding - running off to the other side of the school, biting and other rough behaviour. Talk about an added level of stress to my already mountainous week.

The Tuesday was the worst day for me. I was way off baseline for my emotions and I felt a bit out of control of how I was feeling. At the course, this was the day they set expectations for what results we could achieve - Competent (you can start teaching), Requires Review (complete a set of observations over 6 months before you can start teaching), and Inadequate - not able to teach without redoing the course. It was the day after I'd found out that bad news about the after school care from Dan, and we'd been assigned practice teaching for the next day that I was nervous about delivering. 

A lot was riding on me getting through this course with competency and thus the anxiety spiralled. Tuesday night I could feel the panic attacks coming on in a visceral way. The pain in my chest was palpable. I had experienced this before, when we were new parents to Tobias, and I knew what was happening, and how to bring myself back down from it. 

What if I was looking after a child in care who was experiencing a panic attack? How would I co-regulate with them and help them to know they would be okay? Something I thought about throughout the course was how my lived experiences could be applied - even though, I've had a comparatively sheltered existence. 

I told Claire during her feedback session with me on the final day, "Yeh, I was quite ready to 'nope' out on day 2." And I could have. If I had let myself, I could have cried, curled up into a ball, called up Omair and had him airlift me out of there as I would have been in no condition to drive. I did cry, but I didn't 'nope' out. As each day went by, after the Tuesday, I felt more and more calm. I'd come up against some walls, but leaped over them or at least hoisted myself awkwardly over them. And made it right through to the final day of assessments.