The Settlement Home

I was employed there for 6 months and it was one of the worst jobs i’ve ever had. Like another reviewer I was a male employe which is rare because Settlement Home doesn’t employ many males. This was a double edge sword because I could never be one on one with a young girl in case there were accusations of abuse. I liked the rule because it protected me but it also made it difficult if I had to take a client to a medical appointment as there always had to be at lease three girls so when one went in to see her physician there would be two girls and one wouldn’t be one alone with me.
I was promised a full time position by the relief coordinator as well as HR but no full time positions materialized. I had an interview with one of the program therapist but she never got back to me. Actually this rotund therapist, whose only interest in life was restraining young girls, poisoned the well often speaking bad of me to other therapists until eventually no one wanted me to work direct care in their program. This made me a condemned man and and for work I did a lot of relief shifts working in a lot of different programs but never consistently enough to make acquaintances or develop a bond with the kids. At SH relief staff are often treated as pariahs and unlike most jobs you aren’t allowed to make any mistakes and if you do your condemned, a scapegoat. I would often get in trouble for doing something core staff told me to do. One night I was sent home from work because the house parent had a dog who didn’t like men. In other words they chose a dog over me as an employee. I knew it was time to move on when during one shift my senses were raped after witnessing a cat wedding coordinated by one of the obese therapists.
I was initially enthusiastic to be working at Settlement Home but due to the poor treatment I received and a terrible work schedule I began to dread going to work. I sometimes would show up for work and would talk myself into staying. My spirit was completely squashed after a therapist who was returning from maternity leave blindsided me when she made wild accusations against me accusing me of not knowing where the clients were and what they were doing. The fact I never had worked at this program before I thought I was doing a good job to the best of my abilities. For his the HR person (and one of SH’s syncopates whose job responsibility no one knows) tried to coax me into signing a paper full of libels which were unfounded and proved to be untrue. I felt as a male relief staff I was alone and there was no way to protect myself against cruel therapists and their libelous accusations. I felt like an outcast and no longer safe. I began to work Settlement home less and started to work other jobs more until the day I started to work full time elsewhere and thank G-​d almighty I was free at last.
All in all if you want a job as a new age correctional officer and love restraining kids Settlement Home is for you. Most of the other employees and house parents seemed phony and were obsequies towards their house therapist except for a few. The few I didn’t get to know because of my schedule I worked all over the place and didn’t get to know anyone that well. The clients were awesome but I didn’t work with any of the girls long enough to form a bond. It seemed like staff was dictated to write up their negative behavior to get money from the state while ignoring their positive behavior.
Sometimes when a girl didn’t have a negative behavior you either had to accentuate a negative behavior or make one up. working at Settlement home was a horrible experience and I am grateful I am no longer employed there.

Whenever I think of the Settlement Home the first thing that pops into my mind is the movie, «Girl, Interrupted,» because I feel like this is mostly what happens to girls who end up here. The only difference is that once they turn 18, they don’t come back, and instead of it being a ward in a building, their individual homes that the abused girls live in.
My time spent here was as a former employee. I found my time to be both interesting and frustrating at the same time. I learned that it was rare for a male employee here to work there because most of the girls there have a history of abuse from males. In order to relate and help the girls there, I did what I do best, make people laugh.
The Settlement Home receives funds through the state, in order to get those funds; they have to show documentation that the girls’ behavior is out of control in order to get more money. When I received training I was told to write down any problems that occurred and how it resolved and if staff had to restrain a girl (which usually ended up forcing the girl to the ground, while each staff held each appendage and made her lie facing the floor), and anything else unusual. I knew that if I only wrote the bad stuff the therapists’ would never know when any of their goals were working so I made sure to write down the good as well to showed progress in their behavior.
Well guess what happened? I got called in by my supervisor who explained to me that I cannot be doing that because I should only focus on the negative behaviors, otherwise they could lose money. I was appalled at this and told her that. The reason for this was that it showed the state that these girls’ behaviors were so out of control that they needed more money to hire more people and get more training. I explained to her that they were risking these girls’ behavior by putting them on more medication all because they wanted more money. I told her no & that I would document their behavior as I saw it, not how much they could milk it for. She did not like that and told me I could be fired over that. The good side to that was, therapists’ there told me that they was glad that I was providing both sides because it really helped her to know what treatments were working and what wasn’t. After I found out that they were very profit driven (don’t always believe that non-​profit stuff), I documented both sides more.
As part of state requirements, any girl that enters this place is immediately placed on a set of drugs — birth control, anti-​depressants, mood control, and probably more I’m forgetting. Now you might be thinking that for some of the girls there that might sound reasonable, but for a 9 or 10 year? No.
Another thing that bothered me about working here was that most of the staff was overweight. There were many times that I would be the only one to take the girls outside to play with them because most of the other staff was not in shape for real physical activity for long periods of time.
Part of the job requirement also is to help the girls develop proper social skills, such as making friends, maintaining friendships, respecting privacy, and communicating. There were times when I would be cooking and talking with the girls and a staff member would get mad at me for being so informal with the girls. Their idea was that staff should be in the office mainly and only out in the common areas when needed. I found this to be a huge problem with their system and told the offending staff member what I thought of that rule and how it goes against the objective of the job. I was glad to hear later on after I left that that staff member who got mad at me for talking with the girls, who was overweight and male, later got fired for inappropriate behavior with the girls. Karma does work.
The good thing about this place? They feed you here when you’re working.
I really gave my all for this job because it was important to help these girls get through living there. There was a time when I had just finished a double shift and went home; only for my supervisor to call me at almost midnight asking if I would be willing to work the night shift because the person assigned never showed up. I went back in and did the shift. The reason I left this place was because I was let go because my school schedule did not fit their needs. And that is really how this place works, no matter how great you do your job here, if it doesn’t match their scheduling needs, they let you go. I told my supervisor how wrong of a decision that was on her part.
Don’t fall for that non-​profit title; the idea of a treatment center is to provide unbiased treatment, not profit motive treatment. If you are thinking about working here just make sure you are aware of everything they do and ask you to do and what that means for the girls there. I hope things have gotten better here for the girls because they really need it. For the times I did help the girls here in anyway, it made the job worthwhile.

I stayed at the forsaken place for a year and a half tooooo long! I can’t begin to tell you how dreadful that this place was. I left fifteen years ago on my eighteenth birthday.
My first opinion is that, if they still do, the settlement does NOT need to hire people who are basically kids themselves. I used to wonder if the «houseparents» had bad days, which I’m sure they did, we all did. It appeared as though they took their frustration out on the girls who lived there. Everytime you turned around somebody got a consequence for SOMETHING! Damn! I wonder if giving the girls a consequence for something made them feel taller and better about their egos, especially if they personally had a bad day before they got to work. I heard and saw how the «houseparents» used to gather around and talk about how they punished someone and how they had to restrain a girl and then they mentioned what kind of punishment they had given them.
I feel I got punished every time I breathed fresh air. Instead of being punished, I felt as though they should have taught me the values of life. What’s out there in life and PREPARE me for it!!! I felt that there was no need to punish someone THAT often. Instead of punishing a girl, damn, get to know their past. See why they what they do, look behind the problem to correct it. A punishment is not going to do it. Work with them slowly.
I should never have been in such a place anyway, but that is another story, in which my family and I are in court as we speak against the state for what their CPS worker did when I was eight years old.
One of the houseparents told me that I had to be put on birth control, (I was not sexually active at the time), or else I would not be allowed to go anywhere on my own while I stayed there. I gave in and she ordered the birth control: I took the birth control for a month and a half and cheeked the bitch for the remainder of the time there. She never knew it, either. Then she told me that once a girl comes to the Settlement, it would be hard for she to leave it; I often still wonder sometimes if the Settlement home gets «high money» per girl who stays there. No wonder it would be difficult for she to leave unless she runs away.
One of the staff had gone to court exactly two weeks before I left the hell hole, two weeks before I turned eighteen. She tried to testify to make me look bad. She told the court all kinds of fake crap and a bunch of lies! I couldn’t believe it, but then again, they are the state employees, which explains why the CPS worker ten years prior to the date did what she did. HEY! I was trying to get emancipated, which didn’t make sense at the particular time because I turned eighteen two weeks later, in which, I still left the hell hole! She couldn’t stop me and didn’t!
My over all opinion of this place is that you people can do better and don’t chastise the girls for not having a loving home who want them, they didn’t ask to be born. It’s not their fault that they are in such a place.
Oh, yes, birth control and prozac, they call it, are popular drugs with this home and they have you open your mouth to show them that you swallowed them, but… damn I am good! I cheeked that crap all of its days!
God be with us all!!!

A Tale of Two Entities
Useful:
1. Settlement Home: Helps young girls who were abused have a place to live and thrive. It’s a great nonprofit residential center that I hope no one on Unilocal ever has a chance to use.
2. Settlement Home Garage Sale: At Palmer Events Center the first weekend in November.
Friday you have to pay to get in. Don’t bother.
Saturday, it’s free and it’s a great day to scout out the merchandise and buy things you just can’t go without.
Sunday, the morning is pretty picked over, but the afternoon is the highlight of the whole thing. At a certain hour, they start selling boxes. Get there early, buy one or two boxes, depending on whether you think you can manage it. Plan to be trampled, nudged, elbowed, et cetera. Stuff your box as fast as possible and get the hell out.
Funny:
1. My freshman year of college, my rooommate worked for Settlement Home, where abused girls get their lives on track. Some have been sexually abused, physically abused, and so on. I really respected that.
This same roommate thought it was funny to tell her mom and boyfriend (stationed in Iraq, by the way) that she was pregnant. After he got someone to buy the ring (within 24 hours) and freaked out sufficiently, and her mom went a little nuts, she called both of them back and said, «Just kidding!.» I don’t respect that at all.
2. The people at the Settlement Home Garage Sale are friggin’ animals. After I bought my box, I went to stand in front of the Center.
«GET BACK BITCH! I’VE BEEN STANDING HERE FOR 20 MINUTES!» Wow. I stepped back about 10 feet, actually closer to the door. I think I actually got in before this woman.
She had two of the largest boxes available, $ 8 apiece, duct taped together and on a big luggage rack.
I went to the art section. She was sweeping entire tables full of frames into her boxes. She swept in a picture I was in the middle of grabbing. «Can I have that please?»
«No!»
“Are you even looking at what you’re taking?’
«NO! I JUST CARE ABOUT THE FRAMES, NOT THE ART, STUPID!»
Well, she got a really interesting picture of Michaelangelo’s «David» in the deal. Lucky lady.
Cool:
1. The Settlement Home basically runs off the funds raised by the gigantic garage sale once a year. What a neat concept. But you can donate to them at any time. It’s a good cause, really.
2. For a $ 3 box, I got the following:
An antique intercom that doesn’t work
A bunch of Royal Doulton «Thistledown» bone china (valued at about $ 15 a plate)
3 novels
2 small framed photos
A large framed photo of a broken window
A toothbrush holder
A citrus zester
Two original, one-​of-​a-​kind paintings
What a deal!

I’ve never actually been to the Settlement Home itself, but I have been to their well-​advertised, annual garage sale umpteen times, so I wanted to share info about that. This sale, which usually happens in early November (this weekend, in fact), is G-​I-​G-​A-​N-​T-​I-​C. The Citywide ain’t got nothin’ on the Settlement Home sale. Many, many, many volunteers work year-​round to amass enough stuff to fill the Palmer Events Center. And they get some pretty good stuff, too. Things I’ve purchased at this sale: Kate Spade shoes, Kate Spade handbags, designer clothes, games, a set of pom-​poms for a Halloween costume… and surely much, much more that I can’t think of right now. Don’t let my clothes-​centric list fool you — there are items in pretty much every category, including furniture, collectibles, electronics, garden stuff, toys, bedding, books, clothes… you name it, it’s definitely here, somewhere. There’s even some new stuff at the sales, too — I know I’ve seen items here that started out life at local retailers like Breed & Co. However, be prepared to dig for the good stuff, as the sheer volume of goods here can be extremely overwhelming.
Prices are higher than regular garage sales, but it’s for a good cause; the Settlement Home is a home for neglected and abused children and also provides foster home services. On Sunday, they have their bag and box sale where you can stuff a bag or box as full as you want for like $ 3 or $ 5, depending on the size of your container! I try to avoid this time, though, because it would encourage me to buy a bunch of stuff that I REALLY do not need. But if you’ve got room to expand your collection of stuff, this is the place to be — and you can feel good about supporting a terrific local non-​profit in the process.