Stardate: -317697.85

All day today and yesterday I've been going through OIS (Oregon Intervention System) training at the Alvord-Taylor office. Actually really interesting stuff. Our teacher was very energetic, passionate, and knowledgeable, with a lot of stories and examples from his own experience in the field. Some of his stories were crazy -- I-can't-believe-that-actually-happened crazy. He was all over the place and would frequently go on very interesting tangents, so we learned about everything from communication styles to how alcohol affects babies in the womb to philosophies about institutional care and medicine. The main thing that we were learning, though, was intervention strategies, primarily preventively, but also reactionary and crisis situations, for negative behaviors and such. Today we were trained in evasive physical maneuvers to avoid physical aggression, and physical restraints to prevent injury from punches, kicks, holds, and the like. Physical restraints are a last resort, and not very common, but they do happen in the agency sometimes.

Wild. Welcome to Human Services -- direct care for people with developmental disabilities.