Another day of new experiences...

I guess I need to start off by explaining where exactly I am interning, and what I am doing. A lot of people are asking and it’s kind of hard to explain over and over so let me try to put it as easily as possible. I was originally going to be working with the Family and Resident Outreach Director with the National Citizen’s Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR) but upon my arrival on Tuesday I learned that she would no longer be with the organization as of this Friday for some personal and family reasons. Nonetheless the organization is more than happy to have me there and it’s a very nice environment to be in. So I then learned that my actual ‘supervisor’ is the Director of the National Long Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center (LTCORC).

This is where things get complicated. The NCCNHR works on issues in long-term and advocates for resident rights. A few of their hot topics right now include fighting for better staffing ratios, speaking out on issues of abuse and neglect in nursing homes across the country, and culture change in facilities. The organization primarily focuses on nursing homes, but also includes the areas of assisted living and board and care type homes to an extent. The organization has done and is doing some really powerful stuff and I have only begun to truly experience it all to the fullest possible bit.

Now, within the NCCNHR office is the NLTCORC. The Administration on Agency funds the majority of this organization, and NCCNHR is granted the opportunity to housing the organization on a year by year basis from the AoA. The Center acts as a resource center for Ombudsmen across the United States.

So what am I doing exactly you might ask? Well, A LOT of different stuff. I am creating a large packet of information for Residents’ Rights Week that is going to be October 1-8^th. The packet goes out to all State ombudsmen and is available for purchase to regional and local ombudsmen, nursing homes, and others who may be interested. I am currently researching theme ideas and hopefully the theme will officially be announced soon! I can’t divulge that information right now. I am also working on compiling and analyzing over 250 surveys that have been returned over the past 4 or 5 years from NCCNHR’s website. Let me tell you my headed is spinning in numbers tonight after only making it through about a third of them today. I had one of the law interns ask me if I was programming, or doing binary code. It was hilarious.

Both organizations work together. Total, there’s only about 10 staff between the two organizations. There are also two other interns there for part of the summer, but they are doing different work, as they are law students finishing up graduate school soon.

Our office is good sized, but there’s not much “roaming room” for a girl who is used to being able to go from one end of a large facility to another for exercise throughout the day. :) The monotony of sitting at my desk in my office all day long gets tiring and I try to get up and walk a bit but the staff start to look at my roaming patterns oddly after the first half of the day. Speaking of the office, this week I have been sharing a very spacious office with my supervisor, but since she is gone now I officially have my own office. I feel like I have known this lady forever. It’s really weird, but I was sad to say goodbye today when I left. Did I mention the office has a view?!?! I’ve posted some pictures below of the office space and the view from the office overlooking L Street NW between 19^th and 18^th. The first picture is the view looking straight down from the window, then is my former Supervisor's old desk, looking out the window, then is the view to the left and right of the window, and finally is my lovely and large desk and one of my computers.

The long day brings up another point for me. I have come to realize how lucky I have always been back in Michigan where I am at work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. but also get an hour lunch that is paid within that time. Here in Washington D.C. I think myself and a few others have quickly learned that you work 9 or longer hour days because you don’t get a paid lunch. Now obviously we aren’t being “paid” but you get the idea. For example, I worked from 8:45 a.m. until about 5:20 p.m. So I didn’t quite work 9 hours today, but I still worked more than 8 hours. Crazy big city life! Or maybe it’s just the real world.

I’ve learned a lot of other things too around the District of Columbia. Tonight we had a guest speaker in our class from DCVote, a organization that is working to get congressional voting rights for the residents in the District. It was very interesting to hear about all of the fighting they have done to try and get residents voting rights.

After class we thought about going out for a bit to explore Georgetown some more, but after going upstairs to see the guys for a minute they invited us up for movies and whatnot. We ended up spending a couple hours up there just talking and watching a season of Jacka$ on DVD. It provided some good times after no tv for almost a week!! J

With that, I must call it a night for its WAAAAAY past my bedtime! More later…

Stephanie