5
“How’s everything going?”Amanda poked her head into the door of the room that Ava was holding her one-on-ones in.
Ava gave hertwo thumbs up as she enthused, “Great!”
“Let me know if you need anything,” Amanda said as a call came over her radio that Ava couldn’t understand. She put the walkie talkie to her mouth and said, “Be right there.”
With a wave, Amanda hustled to wherever she’d just been called to. Amanda had not let the fact that she was seven months pregnant slow her down in the least.
Ava turned her attention back to her files as she waited for the next camper. So far, she’d met with twenty out of the eighty-two campers. If she was able to keep this pace, she’d meet everyone by the end of the week, which was the goal.
Lisa had been with the camp for the past four years and had developed a wellness program that concentrated on mindfulness, nutrition, as well as education and awareness surrounding common mental health issues. Her program covered mediation, tapping, and several other techniques to cope with anxiety, depression, and other issues that young people deal with. She did a lot of group work but also did one on one sessions with campers at their discretion.
Ava was impressed with the work that Lisa had done and was excited to continue in the footprint of what she’d already developed and build on it.
There was a knock on the door and Ava glanced down at her notes before she stood, “Come in.”
This was her last one-on-one of the day, and after this she was off-duty.
A young girl walked in who looked familiar. Ava wasn’t sure if she’d seen her around town or if she recognized her from the orientation that morning.
“Hi, I’m Ava. It’s Blake, right?”
The girl nodded, looking very displeased to be there. The one-on-ones weren’t mandatory, but they were encouraged. Most of the kids she’d met so far were happy to be there, only a few were distrustful. Blake definitely seemed to fall into the latter category.
“Did you want to sit?” Ava offered her the chair.
Blake walked in and took a seat across from Ava and crossed her arms. Her body language was coming across loud and clear that she did not want to be there.
Before Ava could lower back down in her chair Blake announced, “I’ve been to therapists and psychiatrists so I’m good. I don’t need therapy.”
“This isn’t therapy. This is just a chance to introduce myself and let you know that I’m here if you ever need to talk, but this is not a therapy session. And I’m meeting with all the campers.”
Blake’s shoulders relaxed a little.
“You said that you’ve been to therapists and psychiatrists before.”
The girl’s response to Ava’s prompt would tell her if the girl was really shutdown or if her bravado was just a front.
“Yeah, my parents made me go the first time when my dad got shot and then him and my mom got divorced. And then my mom made me go last year because of my grades.”
Ava had read Blake’s file and knew that her parents were divorced, and her mother had remarried, but it hadn’t mentioned anything about her father being shot.
“Your dad was shot?”
“It’s not that dramatic, he’s a cop.”
Ding, ding, ding. In that moment it clicked why the girl looked familiar. She’d been with the man that had given Ava goosebumps on Saturday at Sue Ann’s.
“It was a long time ago, but at the same time my parents got divorced and the psychologist thinks that my psyche fused the two traumas together, or something stupid like that.”
Ava made a note to revisit that if the two of them had more sessions, but she didn’t want to push her anymore on either subject now. She’d found that people were more willing to talk about things when they didn’t feel like they were being pressured to. Especially teenagers who thought that they were smarter than everyone.
“And you mentioned you also saw someone because of your grades?”
“That was so stupid! My mom freaked out because she thought I wasn’t going to graduate eighth grade and she made me go talk to someone because she thought I was flunking.”
“Were you flunking?”
