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7. Expertise and the Work of Staff Meetings
- University of Minnesota Press
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There was a weekly staff meeting at Driggs House every Thursday afternoon, from 2:00 to 5:00. Its length was one indication of the complexity of work coordination and, for both clinical and legal reasons, the value placed on efficient communication and consensus across shifts. Sonia and the main counselors—those who worked the weekday morning and evening shifts—were the regular attendees. The weekend counselors never attended, but the morning and evening counselors all worked one weekend shift, and it was part of their responsibility to convey information from the meeting to weekend staff, who were expected also to review the week’s log. There were others who attended the staff meeting often but not regularly: Mike, the regional supervisor; Beth, the nurse; and Cynthia, the behavior specialist. The overall tone of the meetings reflected the informal camaraderie that generally characterized staff relationships. One of the morning counselors always managed a trip to the store with petty cash to provide soda, chips, dip, and cookies. On special occasions, such as a staff member’s birthday, the counselors often provided a proper lunch, bringing homemade dishes or, for the morning staff, using the kitchen between tasks during their shift to prepare a spread for the meeting. The staff office was barely adequate to contain the eleven or twelve people who assembled regularly. Extra chairs were brought in from the dining room and arranged in a tight circle backed up against the desks, cabinets, and shelves that were lined with the treatment and goal books and other binders of vital group home information. Sonia ran the meetings, often sitting with her back to the closed door because she was usually the last one to arrive from her office down the hall. She had to maneuver her chair or stand up to answer a knock or let 145 7 EXPERTISE AND THE WORK OF STAFF MEETINGS people come and go. As the staff gathered, there was always chitchat about movies, politics, sports, or personal issues. If there was an unusual group home issue or brewing controversy, the counselors might already be discussing it before Sonia arrived. She called everyone to order informally as she passed out an agenda that listed the six or seven items she planned to cover. The way Sonia ran the meetings elicited certain ways of being a counselor: her participatory techniques drew on the very clinical assumptions of group home work, emphasizing the significance of each individual. Sonia continuously encouraged and sometimes required counselors to participate: “Your input is important, because you are the ones who really work with the guys.” Each counselor’s capacities and commitment became visible to Sonia in the collective decisionmaking work about the work. In fact, it was not all that difficult to mobilize counselors to participate in the work of staff meetings, at least in the talk about clinical work. It was the one regular occasion when counselors were required to discuss clinical issues in a formal, systematic, and collaborative way. And the absence of residents permitted more openness than shoptalk, which, though continuous, was subject to constant interruption and always had to account for residents coming in and out of earshot. There were three kinds of business conducted at the meetings: employment issues (such as benefits and payroll), administrative issues (staff shift schedules and certain group home procedures), and resident issues (work on conduct and interventions, medical issues, and concerns related to other programs). Resident issues were given the most attention, by far, usually at least two and one-half of the three hours. These issues were dominant, in part, because they comprised the bulk of the work, but counselors were also very invested in discussing them. Clinical matters were the most engaging, if also the most frustrating, because they represented the professional and moral importance of counselor work. Though Sonia at times might use the written agenda to control a meeting’s pace, keeping things moving could be a challenge when some counselors were not satisfied with the way a problem had been defined or resolved. The counselors also understood full well the meeting’s crucial organizational function in establishing, week to week, the practical course of their everyday work. The largely friendly, informal, and participatory sensibility of staff meetings in no way precluded the possibility of 146 expertise and the work of staff meetings [3.81.97.37] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 14:19 GMT) tension or even outright conflict. In fact, disputes about clinical matters revealed...