Friday, August 6, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Intentional community
For a long time I have dreamed of making a kind of "intentional community." I have visions of a beautiful property nestled between the beach and mountains of coastal California. It began as a dream of a neighborhood of wonderful people, friends and family, who shared a piece of land together and had a safe place to raise their children to be free and unencumbered by the worry of kidnappers or pedophiles. A property big enough for us to have our individual homes, a central community clubhouse and meeting center, and a cluster of cottages where our parents could live when they retire.
My vision has slowly expanded to include some other ideas I have and is now more of a village than neighborhood. In the current vision there is a central circle of retirement cottages that ring around a community center/dining hall. the rest of the community spreads out from this center, there are private residences of course, a community garden and fruit orchards, playgrounds, and even a lodge/hotel for some extra income. What is most exciting to me, though, are two nonprofit ventures that seem likely to not only give our community a bigger sense of purpose but also improve the lives of people who are in great need.
The first project is based partially upon the practical consideration of exceptional schooling for the children of our community. We would have a community school that allows children to learn at their own pace, modeled after the Montessori method, perhaps, but make it something larger than that. We would open our school to also be a group home for gifted children who are in the foster system. Perhaps some people would object to offering it only for gifted youth but there is currently no system in place to address the specific needs of gifted children who enter the foster care system and the individualized education seems best suited to gifted kids in these situations. Anyway, I think this would be an ideal setting for a group home because it would give them the ability to grow up in a safe place with a strong sense of community. They would have the opportunity to be raised by a village of loving adults (including our retired residents) and have mentors to help them reach their full potential.
The second project I would ideally place in this community is a family reunification center for incarcerated women and their families. This idea is based upon some research I have been doing into the plight of families who are split up when mothers go to jail. The numbers of women in prison is rising dramatically and up to 80% of incarcerated women are also parents of dependent children. more than half of these women are incarcerated for drug related crimes, usually nonviolent, and 50% of their children will also become criminal offenders without intervention. Most of these families are in an intergenerational cycle of poverty, substance abuse, and incarceration; I think a community like this would be an ideal place to have a reunification center to help highly motivated women and their children learn how to break out of this cycle.
This project would begin near the end of incarceration with a pre-release educational program to prepare the women for the reunification project. It would not only begin the process of helping them become ready to succeed (get their GED, parenting, counselling, recovery etc) but also allow us to ensure that applicants are capable of succeeding in our program. Upon release from prison the women would come live in our reunification center. For the first month or so they would be restricted to the center while they settle in and learn some important occupational and life skills. Before and during this time we would also move their children into the reunification building, but they would live in a dormatory setting while they restore their relationship with their mother and receive individual and family counseling.
Once the mother showed that she is capable to independently care for her children she would move with them to individual family housing for up to one year while she prepared to take her family back out into the world. One important part of this program would be an employment requirement that, after month 1, has the woman working full time in our community or outside. She would receive money management training and also be required to pay rent for her accomoddations. 90% of her rent payments would be put into a savings account to be used for housing and transportation needs when she graduates from the program.
I think this program would be ideally suited to an intentional community/village setting because it would provide a safe and stable environment for these families to heal and flourish. The sense of community and opportunity to be a part of a healthy and giving atmosphere would be helpful for them, and the mothers would have great role models within the parents and grandparents of the community.
Perhaps all of this is a dream that cannot come true but I like to think it might be possible. I wonder if other people would enjoy my dream as well.
My vision has slowly expanded to include some other ideas I have and is now more of a village than neighborhood. In the current vision there is a central circle of retirement cottages that ring around a community center/dining hall. the rest of the community spreads out from this center, there are private residences of course, a community garden and fruit orchards, playgrounds, and even a lodge/hotel for some extra income. What is most exciting to me, though, are two nonprofit ventures that seem likely to not only give our community a bigger sense of purpose but also improve the lives of people who are in great need.
The first project is based partially upon the practical consideration of exceptional schooling for the children of our community. We would have a community school that allows children to learn at their own pace, modeled after the Montessori method, perhaps, but make it something larger than that. We would open our school to also be a group home for gifted children who are in the foster system. Perhaps some people would object to offering it only for gifted youth but there is currently no system in place to address the specific needs of gifted children who enter the foster care system and the individualized education seems best suited to gifted kids in these situations. Anyway, I think this would be an ideal setting for a group home because it would give them the ability to grow up in a safe place with a strong sense of community. They would have the opportunity to be raised by a village of loving adults (including our retired residents) and have mentors to help them reach their full potential.
The second project I would ideally place in this community is a family reunification center for incarcerated women and their families. This idea is based upon some research I have been doing into the plight of families who are split up when mothers go to jail. The numbers of women in prison is rising dramatically and up to 80% of incarcerated women are also parents of dependent children. more than half of these women are incarcerated for drug related crimes, usually nonviolent, and 50% of their children will also become criminal offenders without intervention. Most of these families are in an intergenerational cycle of poverty, substance abuse, and incarceration; I think a community like this would be an ideal place to have a reunification center to help highly motivated women and their children learn how to break out of this cycle.
This project would begin near the end of incarceration with a pre-release educational program to prepare the women for the reunification project. It would not only begin the process of helping them become ready to succeed (get their GED, parenting, counselling, recovery etc) but also allow us to ensure that applicants are capable of succeeding in our program. Upon release from prison the women would come live in our reunification center. For the first month or so they would be restricted to the center while they settle in and learn some important occupational and life skills. Before and during this time we would also move their children into the reunification building, but they would live in a dormatory setting while they restore their relationship with their mother and receive individual and family counseling.
Once the mother showed that she is capable to independently care for her children she would move with them to individual family housing for up to one year while she prepared to take her family back out into the world. One important part of this program would be an employment requirement that, after month 1, has the woman working full time in our community or outside. She would receive money management training and also be required to pay rent for her accomoddations. 90% of her rent payments would be put into a savings account to be used for housing and transportation needs when she graduates from the program.
I think this program would be ideally suited to an intentional community/village setting because it would provide a safe and stable environment for these families to heal and flourish. The sense of community and opportunity to be a part of a healthy and giving atmosphere would be helpful for them, and the mothers would have great role models within the parents and grandparents of the community.
Perhaps all of this is a dream that cannot come true but I like to think it might be possible. I wonder if other people would enjoy my dream as well.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Grad School Ambivalence
As I am wrapping up my second quarter at JFK I am really beginning to question the logic of completing this program. I know I want to pursue an advanced degree in psychology, but I am not at all sure that I want to be a full-time therapist.
I knew, entering this program, that I might not want to be a practicing therapist but figured that the only way to find out would be to give it a try. As I get deeper into the work of this program I find that I am much more interested in the research and theoretical ideas of psychology than I am in the practical application of therapy. This program, though, is clinical, not research oriented. It likely will not even transfer into a phd program, which is where I'd need to go to be able to do research and teaching, and would then end up being a waste of 45,000 and 2.5 years of my time.
On the upside, I would leave with the opportunity to become licensed, though not for 3 years after graduation... I could get a job as an intern though.
A couple of considerations: 1)having lived in California for a year now, I qualify for in state tuition at the public universities. This is more like 6-10,000 per year instead of the 20K+ that JFK charges, and in a phd program I am more likely to get funding to pay tuition (at some programs it would be free tuition plus a stipend!).
2) If I stay in the MFT program I will graduate with my Masters and as an MFTI (intern) in July or so of 2012. As an intern I might be able to get a job making 30-40,000 per year (though many interns are not finding anything nowadays) and will not be eligible for full licensure until sometime in 2015.
3)If I leave the masters program I will not be able to enter into a PhD program until fall of 2011, assuming I am accepted into a program, and would not finish my degree until probably 2016 at the earliest. With a PhD, though, I will have much greater earning power and have the option to teach at major universities etc.. and write/get published more easily.
It kind of seems most logical to leave the program and apply to PhD programs, especially since I'm only 2 quarters into the degree, but I guess I just feel disappointed to have wasted time, energy, and money just to find out that it will really not count for anything (except maybe a few good recommendations for a PhD program). I am also unhappy about the idea of having to wait a year and a half to get into a different program!
Then again... If I stay, I will be spending 40,000 more on a degree that is not going to get me where I want to be. I would love to do 5-10 hours of therapy a week but that is not adequate as a real career unless I'm able to do research, teaching, and paid writing as well. The MFT just isn't made for the rest of what I want to do...
Arggh! I have three weeks to decide... guess I better make some appointments to talk with people at those PhD programs and make sure I'd be competitive for admission.
I knew, entering this program, that I might not want to be a practicing therapist but figured that the only way to find out would be to give it a try. As I get deeper into the work of this program I find that I am much more interested in the research and theoretical ideas of psychology than I am in the practical application of therapy. This program, though, is clinical, not research oriented. It likely will not even transfer into a phd program, which is where I'd need to go to be able to do research and teaching, and would then end up being a waste of 45,000 and 2.5 years of my time.
On the upside, I would leave with the opportunity to become licensed, though not for 3 years after graduation... I could get a job as an intern though.
A couple of considerations: 1)having lived in California for a year now, I qualify for in state tuition at the public universities. This is more like 6-10,000 per year instead of the 20K+ that JFK charges, and in a phd program I am more likely to get funding to pay tuition (at some programs it would be free tuition plus a stipend!).
2) If I stay in the MFT program I will graduate with my Masters and as an MFTI (intern) in July or so of 2012. As an intern I might be able to get a job making 30-40,000 per year (though many interns are not finding anything nowadays) and will not be eligible for full licensure until sometime in 2015.
3)If I leave the masters program I will not be able to enter into a PhD program until fall of 2011, assuming I am accepted into a program, and would not finish my degree until probably 2016 at the earliest. With a PhD, though, I will have much greater earning power and have the option to teach at major universities etc.. and write/get published more easily.
It kind of seems most logical to leave the program and apply to PhD programs, especially since I'm only 2 quarters into the degree, but I guess I just feel disappointed to have wasted time, energy, and money just to find out that it will really not count for anything (except maybe a few good recommendations for a PhD program). I am also unhappy about the idea of having to wait a year and a half to get into a different program!
Then again... If I stay, I will be spending 40,000 more on a degree that is not going to get me where I want to be. I would love to do 5-10 hours of therapy a week but that is not adequate as a real career unless I'm able to do research, teaching, and paid writing as well. The MFT just isn't made for the rest of what I want to do...
Arggh! I have three weeks to decide... guess I better make some appointments to talk with people at those PhD programs and make sure I'd be competitive for admission.
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