Brick Wall

We have dubbed this week the week of the brick wall. As in, hitting yo head up against it.

A co-worker attended a community forum on substance abuse thinking she could find allies for her prevention work. When someone in the audience brought up the issue of prevention, the DOCTOR on the panel said "I'm sure prevention has it's place, but it's largely ineffective." My poor co-worker was horrified that a member of the medical profession would adopt an attitude that addiction is a given if you have the genes for it - so we might as well just channel all our resources into treatment and not prevention.

Then, I attended a meeting in which many agency leaders were treated to a lecture by someone completely unqualified about our internal controls and bookkeeping practices. The person lecturing us, in the manner of a school teacher who has just caught students cheating on a test, is a board member of an agency that just faced sanctions from funders because their director was a criminal and their lack of oversight allowed it to go on for quite some time.

Oh, and we distributed cds with a positively messaged hip-hop style song urging men to take up the cause of ending rape. An employee of a local youth organization took several to hand out to the kids they serve. Today, the director of that organization stomped into our office, slammed the cds down on my desk, and declared that they would not be giving those cds to their kids. Um, because if you don't mention rape it won't happen?

A co-worker attended a lunch meeting today - and she was treated to the leader of a local non-profit substance abuse group blather on and on and on about how his organization is single handedly saving the whole world by getting two prostitutes off the street.

And, our local united way is sponsoring a "best legs" contest. They have one category for men, but three for women based on age. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it kinda sniffs of being sexist and exploitative.

Oh, and my volunteer who was on call this past weekend saw 4 clients in the er -- ranging in age from 10 months to 16 years.

Maybe we'll save the world next week. This week, I think they won.