Here is an excerpt from the book I have been working on this past year. Feedback is welcome. This book spans over a thirty five year period covering my career in the art of helping. Chapter 12- EMARC Days on The Road- It Was January 2003, I had left the Governor’s office in Late December after a very nice holiday/send- off party and a warm departure from my colleagues. I was about to embark on another human service journey and write a new chapter concerning what turned out be a sorted and one of the most difficult three plus years of my life. I was joining EMARC a well -established agency in Reading Massachusetts that had been founded by families which is most typical of ARC’s in those days, and had been providing services to individuals with a developmental disability and their families for over thirty five years. My job was the new director of all-day services including a rather large and at this point in time, much dated shelter workshop serving almost 90 people daily. The model was obsolete and it would be my job to turn this around and convert so called “slots”, into more meaningful and economically viable jobs and activities for our clients. A small task to say the least, this workshop had been established circa 1980 or so as people were leaving and moving from the state schools to community settings on the first and major wave the returning of people to their home communities throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the rest of the country. As discussed earlier in this book, I worked at the Fernald School in Waltham and was very familiar with the process and what types of supports people may need to be successful in their new life ventures. This challenge was huge and daunting; my commute would add to the daily stress and wear and tear on my health, and most importantly my spirit. My ride began at about 6:30 AM and was seventy five miles each way five days per-week. The total number of miles travelled not including travel once I arrived at work, was 750 miles per week, 3000 miles per month and 36,000 miles per year and over the three years plus, I drove 108,000 miles which is equal to 4.32 full drives around the center of the earth where the equator makes its way. This was also the equivalent of 3 hours per day, 15 hours per week and sixty hours of the month spent in the car driving to work which is the equivalent of sixty hours a month, 720 hours a year, thirty full days per year in the car and 90 full twenty four hour days over the three years. I identify these numbers only to say that driving this much compounded by 9-10 hour work days, traffic jams on a regular basis, one six hour commute in a major snow storm which at one point I had no choice but to continue on to Reading. The work in human services is so difficult, stressful and yes exhausting at times, when compounded by all this driving it took its toll. I needed to amuse myself, books on tape, Howard Stern, Sirius Left Radio, and NPR. All the media was helpful and in addition I had a CD player so I could listen to my favorite records. I also started to recognize people on the highway each morning to the point that I was in a somewhat delusional sense in feeling part of a community of people sharing my daily nightmare with me. I also decide that I needed to amuse myself further and developed a set of bizarre but routine type behaviors such as Tourette’s type tics and dystonic muscle movement so I could intrude on people’s quiet riding solitude by acting in a totally immature way to grab attention, great and rude as well as insensitive behavior for a fifty three year old adolescent. The new job was big, I was adjusting to a new culture, a new group of personalities and behaviors to learn and I now had to work with the DD system in Massachusetts as member of the provider community side of the fence which I hadn’t participated for a good number years since leaving IPP in 1996. All this newness raining down on me, by choice and the incentive of more money which was a greater amount than I have received for working up until this point in my career. In addition to this our oldest child, Emily had just started college at Wentworth so I had to also wear the hat of a worried parent who also had to pay over $3000 per month for tuition. And so it went and it goes. This was going to be Joel’s equivalent to Pee Wees big adventure without the humor and fun. The obligation was huge, the work serious and meaningful and the daily ride not fit for most humans.

Is Carl Rogers still relevant? I find that people in our current culture of tearing people down and not offering much in terms of building people up, the climate for respect and dignity is needed more than ever. In the heated political climate is a great illustration of the lack of civility and disrespect we seem to have with people we or others perceive to be lesser than ourselves. So given the climate and the time of devaluation of others the concept of Unconditional Positive Regard, is needed in our daily practice of helping those individuals and their families who are struggling to maintain their small territory on the edge of the so called mainstream. Let us not judge, but also let us be true to ourselves as we acknowledge our biases and clearly define from the outset who we can and who can not work with before we do damage to them and ourselves. We need to help with authenticity to use another old but I believe relevant Roger's term. So keep on helping in the free world and know doing good takes many forma and is often not recognized. JB3G

It's been awhile but felt like getting back into it. Still working in the helping profession and I 'm trying to pave a way out gracefully without leaving too much dust behind. I'm writing a book entitled " Under The Radar Screen" My life in the Art of Helping, An Instructional Memoir. I have written 12 plus chapters that span a timeframe from 1976- to present and it amazed me how clearly the memories of each stop along the way arrive as I sit down to write. This process has been therapeutic and also quite enlightening in terms of the effect a lifetime of helping people in need can stamp it's memory into ones life and psychic soul. I am still working and have been for the past two years helping people with a broad range of needs and it seems that there are no simple issues but people seem to be dealing with multi-layer challenges that are primarily driven by low economic status that in my opinion pushes people to the edges and more so than ever before. I also have been doing a fair amount of reading on the idea and notion of, parallel trauma that is quite common in the social work world as there are many things we see that we can't emotionally deal with in the moment and so we put them away some where, only to arise when least expected and at times we don't plan for. I will be writing more about the long term effects as well as the long term joy of doing great and meaningful work over a lifetime. I also plan to post excerpts from the book in future blogs. Until the next time, remember this if were are all on the same page, first we couldn't fit and the novel of one's life would be quite boring. so honor the differences in all the people you help and in yourself, it's a good thing.