Kristin Bennett

WADADS put on a Symposium today that was discussing the deficiencies in the Parent/Caregiver-Initiated Treatment for Minors Symposium.

My presence at the Symposium was as a survivor sharing parts of my story covering pieces of my experiences at Red Cliff Ascent and Mount Bachelor Academy in 1995. A wide variety of other perspectives and experiences were also shared including a mother and daughter who experienced positive things out of their experience which in ways was similar to mine except for my running away from the school and the parent involvement/family counseling afterward which they had and I did not. There were young women speaking about their inpatient experiences as well as parents who have or are dealing with struggles in getting the help they need for their children.

There was a lot of talk about the WRAPAROUND process, a kind of intervention model for helping to develop an individualized care plan and development of a child and family team for families that need help with their adolescents. Experts talked about the research leading to these evidence-based programs and so forth as well.

From what I understand this sounds like a huge improvement in that it gives more personalized case by case support that is taking the whole family into account. Often times I hear about situations where the child seems to be the scape goat for acting in response to the family distress and trouble they are all a part of creating.

I was very pleased when I learned that it was not black and white, the parents present acknowledged the importance of children to be able to seek treatment without their parents consent. Personally I believe the the most important thing is that the whole family is involved and evaluated and that any sort of treatment facility that is overseeing treatment is held to strict standards rather than seducing the families with their cult like tactics and abusing the children.

I’ve been away from the girls all day and am going to go spend some time with them…I’ll log back on and update this later if I’m able to get them to sleep early enough!

What a busy weekend!! Saturday started out taking a tour that for me was an interesting blast from the past at a church where my congregation is considering moving to. I lived in the neighborhood where this building is when I got my first apartment in Seattle as a single mom and also where I lived when I met my husband Geoff!! After the tour, we went to a dear friend’s 2yo’s birthday party which was fabulous, loads of fun…and much needed after a pretty intense morning.

Sunday started with church at the Masonic Lodge where we had a meeting after wards followed by a Christmas party where I took pictures of all the kids with Santa Claus!!

It was my first time photographing an event and it was a lot of fun, I wrote more about it here.

I was hoping it wouldn’t get to this point but it has, and my phone will be shut off tomorrow unless something comes through, wouldn’t be a huge deal except that I’m looking for jobs and that sort of thing, not to mention how active I am all the time with my blackberry etc.

I will absolutely be checking email and other sites @ least once every day or two still but responses might take longer.

Ironically my time will be focused on getting web design jobs probably, which I’ll pretty much be doing from starbucks.

It sucks because the way my husband has our phones set up, my phone, his phone, internet, and data plan to the phones are all linked, so that makes it expensive AND it makes it so if we can’t make the payment on time…all is lost at the same time too. Plus since we were already 30 days late, once it goes to 60 we have to make the FULL payment plus reactivate to get back in business.

I’m starting a 10 hour a week job watching another little 6mo which I’m looking forward to, that starts tuesday.

It’s crazy how hard it is to find a job these days what with the recession and all. My husband got rushed through 3 interviews for a position about a week and a half ago and then suddenly no call back at all, not a yay, not a nay. Meanwhile I’ve been applying for at least 3 jobs a week, I have to because I’m on unemployment, and nothing aside from this childcare gig has come through. It’s a trip considering I was making about 2.5 times the rate I’ll be making an hour and had benefits just about 7 months ago.

Anyway, surprisingly I’m not that upset, I’ve kind of accepted it and decided it’s time for me to write more, so I’ll be probably doing better writing too, the old fashioned way with that ‘word’ program and then bringing it to the cafe to upload. That is I will write as long as the daycare my daughter is at will let her keep coming. I might have to switch her to part time or fully pull her out of preschool because of this money stuff, I’m behind there too.

I think it would be great if we could just do everything based on a barter system, you know that whole you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours? There seems to be a lot of people who need ‘cheap’ websites, so I think I’ll pick up a couple of those low paying gigs just to build up my portfolio and then start going after the real design jobs…

In my dream world I’m finding a way to make this whole site into a non-profit so that I can help moms who are in a situation like mine. It’s the long term goal, if you want to chat about how to make that happen let me know, I’m a passionate designer wi/out a lot of non-profit experience aside from being a part of the board for a couple. I’m told to not bother even being an official 501(c)3 until I’m bringing in 6 figures but I have to get a lot more organized to make that happen. I’ll be working on that too though as that is where my passion is pulling me.

See everyone around, hopefully this won’t take long!!

What a busy month!! We have left Alki, and now I am considering closing down this blog as I have been writing on KristinBennett.com, AssociatedContent.com, DivineCaroline.com, Open.Salon.com as well as keeping up with all sorts of websites for mothers to spread word of MomsWithMS.com.

Today is a great day, I feel fulfilled, happy, secure, and hell, it just feels like a good day!! Daddy went south for a business meeting after a great phone interview, and this morning after dropping off big sister Kenzie at school Hazel and Mommy went off to DSHS to see if we could qualify for some Emergency Childcare Assistance. We found out that that whole process was done differently now and got some papers to fill out and mail from home. This means that I followed the instructions given and K can still keep going to her school. I moved my computer up on top of a dresser, which I think is part of what is making me so happy, and called the pound…poor kitty died, which is very unfortunate but at least he was with some loving people.

Now I’m home still, and Hazel is with me, she slept most of the morning while I wore her in the moby carrier, and I got so much done! I wrote a review for the wonderful rescue shelter/boutique that we found HERE which hasn’t been published yet, but hopefully will be by the time you click that link . I also have been getting all my memberships set up on a variety of networking sites for women/mothers/entrepreneurs with the main purpose of spreading awareness of my recent project of Moms With MS. I am determined at some point to write and publish a book of my story or stories to help other people facing hard times regarding relationships, diagnosis with a chronic disease etc.

Hazel and I are having a blast and I think it is because we are both so relaxed, I could do my work and hold her at the same time so she could sleep…result is the happy baby and a happy productive mommy.

I apologize if this didn’t make sense, I’m writing and in a happy daze listening to her play and my husband talk about serious stuff on the phone

Almost time to go pick up my big girl too…I am so excited to see her, and I’m so glad we had so much time together in her first year too. I’ll be even happy when all four of us in our happy family is home after such a great rainy day.

Recently my daughter, who is 4 years old, has developed an obsession with a song from the movie “Sleeping Beauty”, in particular it is the song that Briar Rose sings in the woods with the animals when the Prince eventually finds and sings and dances with her for the first time. It is very sweet to listen to her sing, but of course she is 4, and so I can’t be to excited or smile too much or she gets a little self conscious. So this is where the challenge comes in, the song starts like this:

“I know you
I walked with you once upon a dream
I know you the gleameoi is so…”

Here’s where I must stop, take a deep breath while I’m listening to her and focus on not laughing….she’s singing with all her heart, drawing out the sounds and being very passionate and then it comes out:

“Chamele-uglee!!!”

To which my husband at some point cracks a little joke to say that it’s a word to describe someone who is ugly no matter how they change themselves like a chameleon does.

I love listening to the way that songs get interpreted by my little princess…and I enjoy it so much that I don’t necessarily correct her or tell her the ‘right’ way to sing it. I love the way that she makes it her own. The first song she did this with was “Little Star” which I’ll never forget, however it is gone now and I miss it. She used to sing it just as passionately as she now sings the princess tunes and it went like this:

“Twinkle twinkle LITTLE star (‘little’ was said with a lot of emphasis)
How I wonder what you are..”

here it comes…

“Up a bubble in sky
Like a diamond in the sky
twinkle twinkle LITTLE star
how I wonder what you are.”

I love my little munchkin…and I can’t wait til she starts teaching songs to her little sister. Read the rest of this entry »

I am available for work in the following areas:

-Creating an online presence for your business
-Beefing up your online presence
-Designing/updating your site
-Helping you (or your parents) get online and comfortable with social networking/email
-Providing your company with the latest in Netbooks and other Mobility Solutions
-Helping you with organizing pictures from your digital camera on your computer or onto a USB drive

I am starting with posting ads on craigslist, but if anyone sees this and has any of these needs in Seattle or somewhere else via phone please contact me: StrawberryTech at gmail dot com