Unplugging

“No phone, no phone/ I just want to be alone today.”  --Cake, “No Phone”

For Sabbath-observant Jewish readers, the Sabbath Manifesto probably sounds familiar.  Since my job at CEP involves sitting in front of a computer for nearly 8 hours a day doing data entry for fundraising or other computer-centric activities, when given the opportunity, I turn off the tech.  When I arrived in Alexandria in July, I arrived to my aunt and uncle’s house without electricity.  Turns out that situation was truly a blessing—albeit a hot, sweaty, cranky-cat one—for helping me appreciate life without beeps, buzzes, and screens.  OK, fine, I had to use my cell phone to keep in touch with my aunt and uncle in their absence, but other than that, I wasn’t plugged in.

I took the Sabbath Manifesto a few weekends ago, and noticed that I felt more at-ease and was happy to do all my writing in my notebook.  You can probably tell from this train of thought that I was raised by my grandparents. Though I will not deny technology is useful (it’s allowing me to talk to you right now), like all things, moderation is the key.

I will stop writing this sermon now and…for as much as possible during the long weekend, unplug.

The Calm Before the Storm

As we are gearing up for a new school year to start at the New York Center for Child Development, I, like the rest of the staff, am enjoying a mandatory week-long vacation before staff development week begins bright and early the morning after Labor Day. While I feel like I haven’t been working long enough at NYCCD to have earned a week-long vacation, I am certainly not complaining! From what my coworkers have told me, the workload really begins to pick up as the new school year begins, and I am enjoying this time to relax and spend time with my family away from the fast pace of New York. The break has also provided me with a timely opportunity to reflect on my first two months as the Parent/Community Outreach Coordinator at NYCCD, and to think about my next steps as the summer comes to an end—taking with it the feeling that I can simply enjoy settling into my new job without having to worry about what I will be doing post-fellowship.  I would say this lack of true job stability is the one pitfall of a one-year fellowship—I began to think about finding a new job almost immediately after I started this one!

For now, though, I will take advantage of these last few days of summer to focus the attentions of this blog post solely on the work I do now. When I reach the inevitable “And what do you do?” segment of any post-undergrad introductory conversation, I always struggle a little to convey my work in a succinct but comprehensive manner. I think that indefinability is one of the greatest strengths of my position at NYCCD—in practice, it means that I am doing something different every day. During the days I am at the center-based location, which is where our special needs preschool is located, I am helping Debby, the teacher-supervisor, coordinate events for the students’ families. I am assisting teachers in the classroom. I am analyzing parent satisfaction surveys. I am interviewing parents and crafting their stories for our new website. I am doing essentially whatever needs to be done to ensure that the school creates an environment in which parents are as engaged and educated as the students are—an end goal which entails many different tasks. And during the days I work at the North General primary care clinic, I am helping Kirsten, the NYCCD psychologist, administer mental health screenings with the parents and children who come in for check ups with the clinic’s nurse practitioner, or who, in some cases, are referred to see us. I am following up with the parents whose children screened positive for emerging social-emotional delays and mental health concerns to ensure that they are hooked into the recommended services. I am meeting with other members of the North General team to discuss ways that our screening program can become more integrated into the clinic. Here again, then, I am essentially doing whatever needs to be done to ensure that the clinic creates an environment in which parents are as engaged and educated as possible, but doing so at North General requires an entirely different set of tasks to be tackled and completed. So, I am always interacting with new people in varied settings who do completely different kinds of work—but all ultimately promoting the optimal development of young children across New York City.

This comprehensive exposure to a number of different career opportunities in the child development field was exactly what I wanted out of my fellowship this year, and it’s proving to be extremely valuable as I learn more about my own strengths, interests, and tendencies while working alongside these professionals. I think this is a reasonable price to pay for working a little bit harder to craft a strong personal elevator pitch!

Settling in

It's been about a month since I started work at the Character Education Partnership (CEP) and I'm gradually starting to realize how long it takes to truly understand an organization's mission and workplace culture. My past work experiences have been short-term internships with low stakes and few major responsibilities. At CEP, I've felt genuinely included at almost every step of the organization's process. The office is currently occupied with developing an "elevator pitch" to briefly and succinctly describe our mission and I'm surprised at how challenging I've found it. I'm finding that my professional responsibilities are also finally shifting from quick, one-off tasks to more long-term, sustainable projects that I oversee, at least in part.

On a different note, I've started to fully appreciate that CEP is a workplace that has the promotion of certain values in schools as its primary mission. I've found this to be a fascinating opportunity to identify specifically why this mission is important to me and applicable to my larger sense of what I want to accomplish in my career, as well as what my values are.

In a way, the process of defining my role within the organization has functioned on both concrete and abstract levels: both understanding what I am best-equipped to do (and what I want to do) and what the reasons are for wanting to do it.

Championing affordable housing in CT: Housing Development Fund, Inc.

It has been nearly a month since I started work at the Housing Development Fund (HDF) in Stamford, CT. So far, I've really enjoyed the process of learning and getting involved at work. HDF is a community development financial institution serving three counties in the state of Connecticut. The mission of HDF is to facilitate the development of affordable housing, both rental and homeownership, and to assist individuals and households to enter into responsible homeownership. Thus, HDF provides services such as counseling, lending and homeowner education, supporting a range of clients from those who aspire to become first-time homeowners to people seeking to avoid foreclosure on their properties. At the moment, HDF is working towards incorporating energy efficiency financing into its portfolio. That's where my fellowship comes in!

My focus area at the moment is supporting program innovation in residential energy efficiency for the state of Connecticut.  This involves co-ordinating a series of stakeholder discussions that will feed into the planning process of the state's Energy Efficiency Board. To say that I jumped into the deep end right at the start would not be an exaggeration. On my second day at work, I attended a energy efficiency workshop in New Britain, CT where representatives from the state government, utility companies, nonprofits and home energy contractors engaged in a day of presentations and best practice sharing. I was tasked with taking notes and following up with the event via a survey and the launch of working groups that would craft recommendations for the Energy Efficiency Board.

Last week, my organization sent several staff members including the two PP55 fellows to a training conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. We were there for almost the entire working week.  I attended a course entitled "Green Building Fundamentals for Affordable Housing" where I learned about building science principles and how they could be applied to green building projects. The course provided great basic knowledge about the importance of good insulation, ventilation, air sealing and energy efficiency. Beyond that, I got to visit several nonprofit organizations who were engaged in neighborhood revitalization in their areas. It was inspiring to see how groups such as Gabriel's Place and the Northside Business Association and Community Council were bringing about real change in the community through their work. Gabriel's Place hosts a community garden which brings fresh food to a food desert community where the last supermarket closed down in 2009. Their youth employment program hires local youth to work on the gardens (two paid hours every three hours of work) which encourages young people to adopt healthier eating styles while providing a source of part-time income for them. Northside Business Association has been buying and redeveloping abandoned buildings to attract new homeowners and businesses to the neighborhood - literally taking over streets controlled by druglords and gangs. In addition to learning about these "green" community transformations, I also got to watch a Reds game at the stadium and taste Cincinnati chili! It's been a really fun first month on the job and I look forward to sharing more soon.

Being in Baltimore

Hi Everyone!  I've been here for about a month and finished jumping through (most of) the logistical hoops of moving and starting a job.  I feel like it's time for me to share a little about my experiences so far.

First, Baltimore is wonderful.  It's just a big enough city that there is something fun going on every day of the week, from free concerts to outdoor movies to food truck festivals.  It's just small enough that nothing is too far away and, after only a month, I have already run into people I know several times while just walking around the city.  There's also a farmer's market a couple of blocks away from me every Saturday morning, which I love.  I couldn't ask for more.

In terms of work, it's taken a little while to get into the swing of things, but I think it's finally starting to go smoothly.  Most of my job is working with the communications department at the Center for a Livable Future (CLF) to get publicity for the research that the center produces.  Right now that means "translating" a paper about oysters so that non-scientists can easily understand it, which is interesting but challenging when I know much less about the topic than the paper's authors.  We had a meeting on Thursday about exactly who the brief (for this paper and others) should target, though, so I feel like I'm on a better track now than I was before.

I have also been asked to contribute in a way that I definitely didn't expect--by subbing in a lab for a researcher who will be away for a few weeks.  Since I haven't been in a lab since I took Psych 101, this was initially surprising, but so far it's been pretty fun, and the research so far is yielding really cool results. It's also a great way to get up from the desk for a while to go do something pretty active.

The office environment is pretty casual and friendly- it's fun right now because there are a lot of people working at CLF in summer internships, so it's a pretty big group of people and a lot of them are very young.  A lot of the employees also live in the same area as me, so it's easy to get together and they all share similar interests in food, sustainability and activities in general.  One colleague even loves to hike and is planning to show me all the best places around Baltimore, which apparently aren't far away at all.

The only downside to being in Baltimore is that most of the other P55 fellows are in or near DC.  It's a little far for me to get to for weekday evening gatherings, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunities to go down there during the year.