My day really began when I attended a staffing this morning. The major question of eligibility for this particular student was muddied by the fact that there had been major interruptions in their schooling. With that being the case, the student shouldn't be eligible for special education services since, legally, that becomes an issue since this may constitute an effect of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage. The catch is that if the student isn't eligible then they won't get the services they need for remediation if it is due to inconsistent schooling.
Among the other highlights of the day: we were given the new Special Education Medicaid Initiative service logs. On the upside, the forms are easier to fill out than the previous ones. More of a check off thing than having to really write stuff. On the downside, the new forms were only available as a PDF as opposed to the previous forms which were a Word document. So now I couldn't type my forms up.
Do you know what you get when you prevent a geek from being able to complete things in the way that he wants? You get an angry geek with a mission. After several attempts to convert the documents with free online PDF to Word document conversion websites, I finally downloaded a free trial of higher grade program which got the job done. I know I could have checked to see if our district had the full version of Adobe Acrobat but the turnaround time of finding out this information and actually getting access to it would have been stress inducing. And turning the PDF into a form would have been a time consuming, manual process. This program converted the form pretty instantaneously into a Word document that could be used right away.
Finally, I got together with one of my Spanish speaking coworkers and called a parent to see about making a change in a student's program. So I have some paperwork lined up for me to do tomorrow, as well as a need to arrange some meeting dates.
Two more days of work left this week. Friday is the big NJASP conference. I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends and former coworkers. If anyone reading this is going, let me know.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Excuses, excuses...
I could say that nothing really interesting happened on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I wouldn't be lying, but that isn't the real reason I didn't post. In all honesty, I just flaked due to the prospect of a four day weekend and the need to finish up season one of Leverage before it had to go back to the library.
Monday was another story altogether. It started off normal enough. I had to ask a coworker to cover for me at an initial referral conference because I had misread an email and accidentally rescheduled one of my own re-evaluation conferences for a time that was too close to cover both. And it was a good thing I did because the parents of that afternoon meeting were extremely punctual. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So after I got another psych to cover for me, I started packing up my stuff to go to the school with the expectation that I would have several hours to do paperwork and perhaps get a little counseling done. As fate would have it, that was not to be. About 10 minutes after my arrival at the school, I get a phone call from my boss to go to another school for a risk assessment.
The situation was interesting. The triggering incident didn't even happen in school. It happened the day before at the student's home. The student had gotten into an altercation with a sibling. After the altercation, the student had gotten a weapon with the thought to do harm to the sibling but didn't because the parent had intervened. No one was hurt.
The thing that was interesting was that neither the parent nor the student could keep the story straight. Details of the story kept changing. The only constant was that the student had gotten a weapon. Since this was the first time something like this had happened, I recommended the student follow up outside the school to determine if they were a danger to themselves or others. At the time of my interview, I didn't think the student was a danger to harm themselves or anyone else. And from my experience with mental health screening, I'm fairly certain that a screener isn't going to think so either. So my decision was partly a "cover my bases" thing but not completely.
I felt that the behavior indicated an escalation in behavior. In the world of siblings, arguments and fighting are pretty common place. Even in the world of just being boys, if my childhood was any indication, I would have a fight with my best friend. The type where we would end up rolling around on the ground wrestling each other because we were upset. Then go into our respective houses, angry. Then five minutes later, we would call each other up on the phone and say, "Wanna go out and play?"
But when something standard like a sibling fight over standard stuff occurs and the reaction is to get a weapon with the thought of doing bodily harm then something has changed and it needs to be looked at.
Now the other thought that occurs to me with this is: since the student is already connected to services outside of the school, why wasn't this brought to those service providers attention? Why come to the school?
I have some thoughts on that too. Or rhetorical questions, actually. Is the role of the school in the community changing? Should schools become a mental health resource? I know that there have been some school districts that have had mental health centers as part of their district, even having such centers open after school hours. I don't know how I feel about that. Part of me thinks that there does need to be some sort of boundary and definition of roles. Or, at least if these boundaries are going to be blurred then administration needs a better understanding of what is being taken on.
After this my morning went on fairly smoothly. My meeting arrived, as did the parents. As I said, it was a re-evaluation planning meeting. With this we reviewed the previous testing. For anyone reading this that isn't a school psychologist and is thinking of becoming one then consider this: Are you able to tell someone bad news? Or tell them news that will be hard for them to hear? That may even make them cry?
It was one of those situations. Unless you have been with the family since the student was first found eligible, you really don't know just how much the parents know until you talk about it with them. Even then you don't know how much the parents may understand.
This student had cognitive limitations and I had to discuss this with them and I also started discussing working on a program that is going to meet the needs of the student and prepare them for life outside of school. It could have gone one of two ones: the parents could have left feeling that I was placing a limitation on their child or they could have left feeling that we were going to develop a plan that would help the student meet their potential. I hope it was the latter. I know how angry I would be as a parent if I felt someone that doesn't know me or my son was putting a limitation on what my child could do.
Monday was another story altogether. It started off normal enough. I had to ask a coworker to cover for me at an initial referral conference because I had misread an email and accidentally rescheduled one of my own re-evaluation conferences for a time that was too close to cover both. And it was a good thing I did because the parents of that afternoon meeting were extremely punctual. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So after I got another psych to cover for me, I started packing up my stuff to go to the school with the expectation that I would have several hours to do paperwork and perhaps get a little counseling done. As fate would have it, that was not to be. About 10 minutes after my arrival at the school, I get a phone call from my boss to go to another school for a risk assessment.
The situation was interesting. The triggering incident didn't even happen in school. It happened the day before at the student's home. The student had gotten into an altercation with a sibling. After the altercation, the student had gotten a weapon with the thought to do harm to the sibling but didn't because the parent had intervened. No one was hurt.
The thing that was interesting was that neither the parent nor the student could keep the story straight. Details of the story kept changing. The only constant was that the student had gotten a weapon. Since this was the first time something like this had happened, I recommended the student follow up outside the school to determine if they were a danger to themselves or others. At the time of my interview, I didn't think the student was a danger to harm themselves or anyone else. And from my experience with mental health screening, I'm fairly certain that a screener isn't going to think so either. So my decision was partly a "cover my bases" thing but not completely.
I felt that the behavior indicated an escalation in behavior. In the world of siblings, arguments and fighting are pretty common place. Even in the world of just being boys, if my childhood was any indication, I would have a fight with my best friend. The type where we would end up rolling around on the ground wrestling each other because we were upset. Then go into our respective houses, angry. Then five minutes later, we would call each other up on the phone and say, "Wanna go out and play?"
But when something standard like a sibling fight over standard stuff occurs and the reaction is to get a weapon with the thought of doing bodily harm then something has changed and it needs to be looked at.
Now the other thought that occurs to me with this is: since the student is already connected to services outside of the school, why wasn't this brought to those service providers attention? Why come to the school?
I have some thoughts on that too. Or rhetorical questions, actually. Is the role of the school in the community changing? Should schools become a mental health resource? I know that there have been some school districts that have had mental health centers as part of their district, even having such centers open after school hours. I don't know how I feel about that. Part of me thinks that there does need to be some sort of boundary and definition of roles. Or, at least if these boundaries are going to be blurred then administration needs a better understanding of what is being taken on.
After this my morning went on fairly smoothly. My meeting arrived, as did the parents. As I said, it was a re-evaluation planning meeting. With this we reviewed the previous testing. For anyone reading this that isn't a school psychologist and is thinking of becoming one then consider this: Are you able to tell someone bad news? Or tell them news that will be hard for them to hear? That may even make them cry?
It was one of those situations. Unless you have been with the family since the student was first found eligible, you really don't know just how much the parents know until you talk about it with them. Even then you don't know how much the parents may understand.
This student had cognitive limitations and I had to discuss this with them and I also started discussing working on a program that is going to meet the needs of the student and prepare them for life outside of school. It could have gone one of two ones: the parents could have left feeling that I was placing a limitation on their child or they could have left feeling that we were going to develop a plan that would help the student meet their potential. I hope it was the latter. I know how angry I would be as a parent if I felt someone that doesn't know me or my son was putting a limitation on what my child could do.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
In Search of a Title
I don't know how people come up with titles for daily blog entries. Maybe I'm just beating a dead horse.
Most people at school are in Thanksgiving weekend mode. I know I feel that mood teasing at my mind. Even so, I had a bunch of stuff to get done and I actually managed to accomplish some of it.
I put in a call to a mother whose child was in an short-term care facility (STCF). My purpose was three, maybe even four, fold. First, to find out how the student was; second to inform her that the STCF hadn't called me back and this was likely due to HIPAA and I would need a release to get them to talk to me; and third (okay, I guess it was three-fold) to discuss scheduling a re-evaluation planning meeting.
From my call, I found out that the student had just been discharged and was returning to school; that the mother was irate with the STCF; and that she was able to proceed with the re-evaluation planning meeting. So we worked out the details after a few calls with the out of district school and I wrote up the paperwork.
I finished writing my risk assessment from the other day. I also started another psychological report. In addition to this, I completed my assessment of the student from yesterday so I now have that one in the hopper.
Due to scheduling conflicts, I still didn't get to contact a Spanish speaking only parent since my potential translator was tied up with other stuff. In the afternoon, I did some paperwork stuff, which included faxing psych and ed reports to a neurologist that was seeing a student of my for an evaluation. In turn, the neurologist sent me a rating scale to give to teachers. I also sent out a letter, and the copies of my risk assessments to the proper administrators.
In the late afternoon, I helped a coworker deal with our IEP software...thinking about that program raises my blood pressure. Then I attended the staffing for a student that I evaluated and we found that the dear child still qualifies.
And so ended my day.
Most people at school are in Thanksgiving weekend mode. I know I feel that mood teasing at my mind. Even so, I had a bunch of stuff to get done and I actually managed to accomplish some of it.
I put in a call to a mother whose child was in an short-term care facility (STCF). My purpose was three, maybe even four, fold. First, to find out how the student was; second to inform her that the STCF hadn't called me back and this was likely due to HIPAA and I would need a release to get them to talk to me; and third (okay, I guess it was three-fold) to discuss scheduling a re-evaluation planning meeting.
From my call, I found out that the student had just been discharged and was returning to school; that the mother was irate with the STCF; and that she was able to proceed with the re-evaluation planning meeting. So we worked out the details after a few calls with the out of district school and I wrote up the paperwork.
I finished writing my risk assessment from the other day. I also started another psychological report. In addition to this, I completed my assessment of the student from yesterday so I now have that one in the hopper.
Due to scheduling conflicts, I still didn't get to contact a Spanish speaking only parent since my potential translator was tied up with other stuff. In the afternoon, I did some paperwork stuff, which included faxing psych and ed reports to a neurologist that was seeing a student of my for an evaluation. In turn, the neurologist sent me a rating scale to give to teachers. I also sent out a letter, and the copies of my risk assessments to the proper administrators.
In the late afternoon, I helped a coworker deal with our IEP software...thinking about that program raises my blood pressure. Then I attended the staffing for a student that I evaluated and we found that the dear child still qualifies.
And so ended my day.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Catchin' Up
So the weekend passed without putting up the Friday post, so I'm grouping Friday and Monday, together.
To be honest, not a whole lot happened on Friday. I did the risk assessment that had been scheduled the previous day. The student wasn't a risk to their self but was a very angry, young person. And very suspicious of adults, so I made sure I was very straightforward. Most of the conversation revolved around his trust of counselors since the student was going to be taken to outside counseling again by their parents. I talked with the student about addressing the ground rules for confidentiality with the counselor so they could begin with a clear cut understanding. Building trust with this student will be a long haul. Lucky me...I was just assigned as the student's in-school counselor.
That was the highlight for Friday. Today, I started my evaluation of one of my students. I got a good way into the assessment before sending them on their way. Then I sat in on an IEP meeting for one of my coworkers. After that, most of the morning was shot and I had to return to the office for a Thanksgiving day party for the alternative program in my department building. It was more a political thing than something I really felt like doing today. On the plus side, I did get a good meal. After this, I banged my head against a psychological report and managed to come out of it with something resembling English. The Flesch grade level of the report was a bit higher than my usual but it was the actual simplicity of the report that drove it up, I think.
When I type my reports in Word, I run the spell and grammar check with the readability options turned on. This gives me the percentage of passive sentences, as well as the grade level and Flesch-Kincaid reading level. If you've never done this, you should try it. I remember a presentation at an NJASP conference where a speaker there said you should try to keep your reports grade level at around the 10th grade. By way of comparison, some report sample text from the Essentials of WISC-IV Assessment (Essentials of Psychological Assessment)
, when typed into word and assessed came out at the 18th to 22nd grade level. So watch out for the jargon in your reports and think about who is going to read your report: parents.
Following this I started the risk assessment write up from Friday and finished my day staring at the computer screen.
To be honest, not a whole lot happened on Friday. I did the risk assessment that had been scheduled the previous day. The student wasn't a risk to their self but was a very angry, young person. And very suspicious of adults, so I made sure I was very straightforward. Most of the conversation revolved around his trust of counselors since the student was going to be taken to outside counseling again by their parents. I talked with the student about addressing the ground rules for confidentiality with the counselor so they could begin with a clear cut understanding. Building trust with this student will be a long haul. Lucky me...I was just assigned as the student's in-school counselor.
That was the highlight for Friday. Today, I started my evaluation of one of my students. I got a good way into the assessment before sending them on their way. Then I sat in on an IEP meeting for one of my coworkers. After that, most of the morning was shot and I had to return to the office for a Thanksgiving day party for the alternative program in my department building. It was more a political thing than something I really felt like doing today. On the plus side, I did get a good meal. After this, I banged my head against a psychological report and managed to come out of it with something resembling English. The Flesch grade level of the report was a bit higher than my usual but it was the actual simplicity of the report that drove it up, I think.
When I type my reports in Word, I run the spell and grammar check with the readability options turned on. This gives me the percentage of passive sentences, as well as the grade level and Flesch-Kincaid reading level. If you've never done this, you should try it. I remember a presentation at an NJASP conference where a speaker there said you should try to keep your reports grade level at around the 10th grade. By way of comparison, some report sample text from the Essentials of WISC-IV Assessment (Essentials of Psychological Assessment)
, when typed into word and assessed came out at the 18th to 22nd grade level. So watch out for the jargon in your reports and think about who is going to read your report: parents.Following this I started the risk assessment write up from Friday and finished my day staring at the computer screen.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thursday Flagging
After my last two days, I was pretty tired so I tried to concentrate on paperwork. I worked on the Excel sheet for my PLC group. I managed to break down the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades for the last two years. After I finished it, I saved it as a pdf and sent it out to the folks in my PLC group.
Following this, I went back to work on my psych reports. This required me to go back and crunch some more numbers on a BASC-2 because of the teacher's unwillingness to commit to responses on a series of the items. The hardest part for me on any of my psych reports are the social/emotional sections. I just need to take in all the information and I have to feel inspired to write it. I have to get a picture of how all the information comes together. I'm almost there with this one report.
At the end of my day, I got called to come over to a coworker's office. I was told about a student that needs to have a risk assessment tomorrow. We discuss the student and the various things that they have been doing and saying that have been setting staff on edge. So first thing tomorrow, I'm off to see that student.
Following this, I went back to work on my psych reports. This required me to go back and crunch some more numbers on a BASC-2 because of the teacher's unwillingness to commit to responses on a series of the items. The hardest part for me on any of my psych reports are the social/emotional sections. I just need to take in all the information and I have to feel inspired to write it. I have to get a picture of how all the information comes together. I'm almost there with this one report.
At the end of my day, I got called to come over to a coworker's office. I was told about a student that needs to have a risk assessment tomorrow. We discuss the student and the various things that they have been doing and saying that have been setting staff on edge. So first thing tomorrow, I'm off to see that student.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Catching Up
I know I said that I wasn't going to post on Monday or Tuesday since I had some personal business to attend to on those days. Technically I'm actually sticking with what I said since I didn't post on either of those days but some of my plans changed on Monday and I actually went to work for half the day.
On Monday, I really didn't get to do much of anything that I had planned. I ended up in a parent meeting for a coworker that ended shortly due to the parent being unhappy with what was being said. The parent left, threatening to see us in court. My one interesting interaction was with the case manager of an out of district placement. One of my students attends this placement. They were actually placed there by the district. It is a very therapeutic placement. So something happened with my student where they had not attended in several days and I got a 5 day letter. So I was following up on it. I had left a message for the mother and hadn't received a callback and I called the case manager. The case manager said that she couldn't tell me anything about what had happened due to HIPAA laws. I found this very unusual. Considering that we are responsible for the student's educational program and are the ones providing the payment then some incident that leads to the student not being in that program would seem to me to be fair game for sharing information. It would seem odd that we would need HIPAA release papers signed to share the information with us. Or at least odd that that isn't standard practice.
On the other hand, this placement doesn't just receive students from school districts. They have a residential component to their program and receive DYFS placements and referrals from non-educational agencies. So that might be where the difference comes in and that extra layer of confidential arises. Still, this is the first time I've encountered this.
So that pretty much ended my Monday.
I returned to work today to find that I had to reschedule a re-evaluation planning meeting for the second time because the rescheduled time was next week when the teachers had half-days. So I rescheduled that. I also called a parent to find out if they had met with a neurologist for an appointment, just to see if I would have to harass the neurologist to get the report. The parent told me that the appointment was scheduled for next week.
I was also a little trapped at my office today. I didn't have my work keys with me, so I was nervous about going anywhere and getting locked out. So I stayed in the office and did the follow up work that I mentioned. Also, I finally spoke with the parent of the out of district student and got the information. This resulted in speaking with my director and making a follow up call to find out information about education for the student while they are not attending the out of district placement.
I also worked on the report of one of the three psychological evaluations that I completed last week. The good news is that I am almost done with that report.
Finally, I attended an eligibility conference and worked on calming the parent who became upset when reading the section of where I reported the results of the BASC-2. This is the problem with the law that says that we must provide the parents with copies of our reports 10 days prior to the eligibility meeting. As much as you may try to avoid using the jargon of the profession in a report, and I have been taught and believe that you should try to avoid it as much as possible, when you report the names of scales, there is almost no avoiding it. So you are sending out information that uses words like "depression" and "anxiety" and "hyperactivity" to people that don't know the instruments and whose understanding of such words are formed by popular culture. Everyone has an idea of what "depression" is. Just not what it may mean on the BASC-2.
When I think about it, I know there are somethings that I need to work out for my reports to try to avoid this in the future. I just have to make the time to work that out.
Finally, I'm going to talk about what happens when your personal life begins to impact your professional life. This is a particularly important topic for this profession and any helping profession. Again, I'm not going to go into too much detail since this blog has been about the profession.
Someone very close to me is very sick. This has placed a great deal of stress on me in my personal life and the days that I have taken off, such as Monday and Tuesday, have been related to the care of this person. The situation and the stress related to the situation has made it difficult to focus at work, particularly when the situation originally arose toward the end of last school year. This situation was the reason I didn't work during the summer.
At this point, I'm just going to say that in a helping profession you need to be aware of how your personal life impacts your professional life and how your stress level may make you more prone to acting in a rash manner. You need to be aware of your triggers and insecurities so that you can guard against overreacting or not reacting when you should.
As time goes on, I can only see the stress of my situation increasing and I have to remain aware of how this is impacting me at work.
On Monday, I really didn't get to do much of anything that I had planned. I ended up in a parent meeting for a coworker that ended shortly due to the parent being unhappy with what was being said. The parent left, threatening to see us in court. My one interesting interaction was with the case manager of an out of district placement. One of my students attends this placement. They were actually placed there by the district. It is a very therapeutic placement. So something happened with my student where they had not attended in several days and I got a 5 day letter. So I was following up on it. I had left a message for the mother and hadn't received a callback and I called the case manager. The case manager said that she couldn't tell me anything about what had happened due to HIPAA laws. I found this very unusual. Considering that we are responsible for the student's educational program and are the ones providing the payment then some incident that leads to the student not being in that program would seem to me to be fair game for sharing information. It would seem odd that we would need HIPAA release papers signed to share the information with us. Or at least odd that that isn't standard practice.
On the other hand, this placement doesn't just receive students from school districts. They have a residential component to their program and receive DYFS placements and referrals from non-educational agencies. So that might be where the difference comes in and that extra layer of confidential arises. Still, this is the first time I've encountered this.
So that pretty much ended my Monday.
I returned to work today to find that I had to reschedule a re-evaluation planning meeting for the second time because the rescheduled time was next week when the teachers had half-days. So I rescheduled that. I also called a parent to find out if they had met with a neurologist for an appointment, just to see if I would have to harass the neurologist to get the report. The parent told me that the appointment was scheduled for next week.
I was also a little trapped at my office today. I didn't have my work keys with me, so I was nervous about going anywhere and getting locked out. So I stayed in the office and did the follow up work that I mentioned. Also, I finally spoke with the parent of the out of district student and got the information. This resulted in speaking with my director and making a follow up call to find out information about education for the student while they are not attending the out of district placement.
I also worked on the report of one of the three psychological evaluations that I completed last week. The good news is that I am almost done with that report.
Finally, I attended an eligibility conference and worked on calming the parent who became upset when reading the section of where I reported the results of the BASC-2. This is the problem with the law that says that we must provide the parents with copies of our reports 10 days prior to the eligibility meeting. As much as you may try to avoid using the jargon of the profession in a report, and I have been taught and believe that you should try to avoid it as much as possible, when you report the names of scales, there is almost no avoiding it. So you are sending out information that uses words like "depression" and "anxiety" and "hyperactivity" to people that don't know the instruments and whose understanding of such words are formed by popular culture. Everyone has an idea of what "depression" is. Just not what it may mean on the BASC-2.
When I think about it, I know there are somethings that I need to work out for my reports to try to avoid this in the future. I just have to make the time to work that out.
Finally, I'm going to talk about what happens when your personal life begins to impact your professional life. This is a particularly important topic for this profession and any helping profession. Again, I'm not going to go into too much detail since this blog has been about the profession.
Someone very close to me is very sick. This has placed a great deal of stress on me in my personal life and the days that I have taken off, such as Monday and Tuesday, have been related to the care of this person. The situation and the stress related to the situation has made it difficult to focus at work, particularly when the situation originally arose toward the end of last school year. This situation was the reason I didn't work during the summer.
At this point, I'm just going to say that in a helping profession you need to be aware of how your personal life impacts your professional life and how your stress level may make you more prone to acting in a rash manner. You need to be aware of your triggers and insecurities so that you can guard against overreacting or not reacting when you should.
As time goes on, I can only see the stress of my situation increasing and I have to remain aware of how this is impacting me at work.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Delayed Friday
Sorry for the delay. Friday was a bit tiring after work.
I got into work and did a Google Maps search for the school I was going to. I found that the school was much closer than I expected so I killed some time with paperwork. When the time came, I drove out to the school and met with the student. Due to the nature of the student's disability, I completed the WISC in record time. Much less than the two hours that I allotted for it.
Once I got back to work, I found myself with much more time than I anticipated. I found that work had become something of a ghost town due to a number of people being absent or at trainings. I had a number of hours until my afternoon appointments, both of which were set for the same time. Just one of those funny little things. In the end it was okay. One of those appointments was canceled.
My remaining afternoon appointment was our first professional learning community meeting. I'm sure somewhere in the posts from last year, I mentioned this. Last year, they had been put on hold for a number of reasons but they have started up once again. Unlike many of the groups from last year, my group has remained pretty much intact and we even gained a new member.
Our topic remains the same: risk assessments. This year was interesting because, thanks to my personal improvement plan, we now have data on risk assessments from the past two years. We took a look at the data and saw that there was actually an increase in risk assessments from '08-'09 to '09-'10. The most interesting thing was that the "bubble" of risk assessments in the grades of the first year continued and increased in the second year. So we decided to take a look at that group in particular to see if there are any common factors. We also saw somethings that were to be expected like the spike of risk assessments during December and May. We concluded the meeting with delegating tasks and scheduling the next one.
I got into work and did a Google Maps search for the school I was going to. I found that the school was much closer than I expected so I killed some time with paperwork. When the time came, I drove out to the school and met with the student. Due to the nature of the student's disability, I completed the WISC in record time. Much less than the two hours that I allotted for it.
Once I got back to work, I found myself with much more time than I anticipated. I found that work had become something of a ghost town due to a number of people being absent or at trainings. I had a number of hours until my afternoon appointments, both of which were set for the same time. Just one of those funny little things. In the end it was okay. One of those appointments was canceled.
My remaining afternoon appointment was our first professional learning community meeting. I'm sure somewhere in the posts from last year, I mentioned this. Last year, they had been put on hold for a number of reasons but they have started up once again. Unlike many of the groups from last year, my group has remained pretty much intact and we even gained a new member.
Our topic remains the same: risk assessments. This year was interesting because, thanks to my personal improvement plan, we now have data on risk assessments from the past two years. We took a look at the data and saw that there was actually an increase in risk assessments from '08-'09 to '09-'10. The most interesting thing was that the "bubble" of risk assessments in the grades of the first year continued and increased in the second year. So we decided to take a look at that group in particular to see if there are any common factors. We also saw somethings that were to be expected like the spike of risk assessments during December and May. We concluded the meeting with delegating tasks and scheduling the next one.
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