#community based

image: one of many different solarpunk flags

Reading time: approx. 3 minutes Solarpunk is not only a literary and artistic genre, somewhere between science fiction and utopia with positive visions of the future, but also a growing social movement worldwide that is not centrally organized. Incidentally, it has this in common with paganism/heathenry and the witchcraft /magickal community, but I digress. I find many solarpunk contributions here on Tumblr and in the Fediverse – at least for the German- and English-speaking world; others are not accessible to me personally due to language barriers. When it comes to fiction and art, but also further information on solarpunk, I can recommend the Story Seed Library. It has been translated into several languages, hopefully including German at a later date: https://storyseedlibrary.org/ There you will find art and ideas for stories. The art is created by human artists, free of AI-generated slop, and may be used for free under certain conditions. More about this here: https://storyseedlibrary.org/pages/about/ An English-language video with many beautiful images that explains well what solarpunk is, from Andrewism (4.5 minutes):

This “Solarpunk Manifesto” is also worth reading: https://storyseedlibrary.org/essays/solarpunk-manifesto/ I quote from it: "Solarpunk embraces a diversity of tactics: there is no single right way to do solarpunk. Instead, diverse communities from around the world adopt the name and the ideas, and build little nests of self-sustaining revolution."

Some examples of ways this can be implemented:

 Hello! Welcome to the Nocturnal Crisis Culture, or NCC for short!

We’re a community-based Tumblr/Discord/Steam group, which means this Tumblr is here for you! We’re here for all those people that can’t be who they want to, for any reason. It doesn’t matter if you’re LGBT+, Anthro, or just a gamer, artist or musician! We accept you!

Now, what can you do here?

Ask us things!

Post stuff anonymously!

Be yourself!

Who you want to be!

Who you’re too scared to be irl!

When posting anon or submitting posts/questions, it can be whatever you want. The whole point of this place is to let you be you, or post what you normally wouldn’t, whether it be for closet reasons or just out of character. Even if you didn’t want people knowing still, you could do it anon! So please, we encourage you to be a part of it!

If you’d like to join the discord, it’s a place for you to talk to whoever you want, however you want! We have several chats, just for whatever you could possibly wanna talk about! Feel free to join, we’d love to have you!♥

[Click me for the Discord link!]

HOWEVER! We do have some rules!

No posting any kind of artwork without crediting the artist!

No NSFW stuff! If you wanna share that, do it in our discord!

Don’t spam us! We’ll post it if we don’t see anything wrong with it!

You may advertise your social media if approved by our staff!

No discussion of religion or politics! This may be a place for everyone, but those conversations lead to argument more often than not!

If you want to be staff, there’s a staff application in our discord! Do not beg to be staff, or you probably won’t get it!

I’ve done therapy in a residential setting, in a school setting and some in private practice. Right now, I’m primarily in a school setting. It’s very different than private practice. Private practice - it’s all on you administratively. You are marketing yourself to get referrals, billing insurance if you take it, finding, renting and maintaining your own space, your own health insurance etc. It also means that most of the time, you set your own schedule, which days you work and the times, how many clients you see. Clients also come to you. You still have to write some notes but from my experience - private practice folks vary *widely* in how extensive they are. Cost can be issue (i.e. if you think a client needs supplemental sessions or more than once a week, that’s coming out of the client’s pocket or you are justifying that to the insurance panel). When a client misses sessions, man it’s a thing you have to deal with. Depending on your policy, you have to charge them because that is time reserved for them. Income can be decent if you are seeing a fair number of clients.

 In a school setting, most of the time you aren’t dealing with most of the stuff above. You are an employee for a district or an agency. They do the business taxes, the health insurance, the physical space stuff. When you are seeing clients in school, you get a lot more flexibility - especially if you are at placement all week. Client absent? No worries. Try and catch the client tomorrow. Major dissociation in session? Again no worries. The client just stays through the next period. Something major just happen? Cool, twice a week this week. And your clients have to be at school so it’s easy to find them, even if they are choosing not to come to session. It’s not my therapy and it doesn’t affect my livelihood if they don’t show. I can be way more patient with school based than in private practice because I get paid whether or not they come. It gives slow to warm clients more flexibility - I have no problem holding a slot for them and them not taking it because I do have the flexibility. I can fill that time a lot of ways - including seeing other clients because of the environment. It can also be really fucking frustrating to deal with everything not client related. It’s formal assessments and treatment plans every 6 to 12 months for every client. It’s not being able to control your caseload. I’m not good with psychotic disorders. But I’m expected to take what come down the line. They also control my caseload. I can (and do) push back against this aggressively but unless I can make an ethical argument or my individual supervisor backs me up I don’t have a lot of choice. Medi-Cal or district note writing can die in the fire. Having to get notes in within 24, 48, or 72 hours is a exercise in both futility and aggravation. (My notes? Basically only on time if I’m writing about a no show. If I have to choose between clinical care and paperwork - clients come first and I can’t maintain 10-12 hour days.). I also have to step carefully around teachers and school staff as well as all the office drama. To me, it’s worth it because I do get to do such cool work and get this much flexibility. But most agency therapists eventually get burnt out and leave or just make the choice to leave because the pay isn’t very good, you are expected to work long hours, to meet impossible productivity requirement and you are often dealing with intense trauma. And all of that is happening in addition to the systemic racism and oppression inherent in the systems that you and your client are trying to navigate. And most of the time the district doesn’t want to hear, “Hey this long term teacher is a racist asshat who is using racial slurs in class” especially if they are teaching the difficult to fill classes (like special education). I wish that I could say I have done this. I'm done it multiple times. I mean I do it. Everytime. It’s important that my clients know that I believe them and will fight with them and for them. But I know it will cause me a mountain of shit. I know it and do it anyway. But some people can’t.  And that’s okay because hopefully they’ll move onto something that suits them better. For me, this is worth it and I love, love my job. 

{Sidebar to the therapists and social workers reading this: We are going to real for a second. if you are a therapist in a school, public health or a community setting and you are feeling like, “Fuck me. I can’t do this work anymore” - get out. Secondary trauma is a serious occupational hazard. Take care of yourself. Try a new job in the same setting if you think it’s the agency. Try a new job is a different type of therapy. You have to make the best choice for you and your family. You won’t be helping anyone if you are burnt out. You’ll miss stuff and beat yourself up. You have to put your oxygen mask on first. Anyone who judges you for knowing your limits is fucking jerk and should be mentally classed as such. Love to all y’all}

April 30, 2017

It is now my last couple of days in Afghanistan.  I have very mixed feelings; I have worked in parts of this incredible country for the last four years. The loss of working which such wonderful people, fully engaged and motivated to learn as much as they can, weighs heavily on my heart.  However, five weeks is a long time to be away from home.   I can’t wait to get my anchor, my wife, my children and grand-kids (and, I have to admit, Bruno, my dog!). It will be great to spend a few days of recovery, and to eat food that is not based upon meat and carbohydrates!

 I have no internet, so it is an ideal time to write a blog.  It has been a fascinating couple of days.  It is wonderful to watch Education Officers take what I’ve written, and directly apply it in Dari. They are interpreting complex qualitative data (written questionnaires), and, after a two-day process have a complete summary of the information, including recommendations. I watch them as they work totally in Dari, are completely engaged, and come up with valid, reliable, in-depth results.  

 Today, I’m largely working with the Swedish Committee of Afghanistan (SWA) coupled with the GIZ (German) Education Officers.  I found out in talking with them, that they have implemented the Mentorship Programme throughout most of their remote areas, including the small community-based schools.  Next year they are planning to roll out the same initiative, but this time grouping together an experienced teacher, a beginning teacher and a community-based teacher.  This is all without any of my input, but just based on the workshops they attended led by a colleague and I supported by the written materials.  It is very humbling and rewarding to watch this process.

 I also had a fascinating talk with one of the participants who oversees the SWA programme in Kunduz, and area under Taliban control. It taught me to not believe much of what we hear in the press. He has the complete support of the Taliban government who not only support the students going to school, but send out school inspectors to make sure the teachers are attending and doing their job. They support the hiring of the best teachers for the schools, not those who are ‘connected’.  This is opposite to the government (i.e. officials appointed from Kabul) who were described as corrupt, not doing their work, and trying to manipulate the hiring of positions according to what is best for those in control.