Alaska Job

I have been working at a local behavioral health clinic, it is great since I am able to use my education, the office is only 5 minutes away and I am able to see new areas almost everyday.
The clinic I work for treats children ages 5 to 18 in my department (22 for other areas) with SED's (severe emotional disorders).  The issues these kids have vary from needing help developing social skills, to much more serious problems.  Some have been brought by their parents most of who are great people who want what is best for thier kids, some have much more tragic stories, many are in foster care, lots of trauma in thier backgrounds.
I work in the school based area, so during the school year we do lots of work in the schools with these kids, but for now we are in our summer program. 
The summer program is great, we get all the kids together in the afternoons and take them on field trips.  We do lots of hiking, parks, lakes etc. we like to get them outdoors.  It is great for me since this is our first summer here, I am able to check out lots of areas and get fun ideas for family weekends.

Hatchers Pass is one of my favorite hikes, I have done it twice with work, the last time my client was a seven year old boy so we stopped and "paned" for gold, he really did find a few flakes and was so excited to take them home to show his Mom.
We spent one day hiking next to a river in Palmer, a couple of us and our "kids" (I had a 8 year old boy that day) even hiked down the side of the mountain so we could play at the river for awhile, getting down was not bad, getting back up took some effort.

Today I had one of the girls I really like working with, Friday is free time so we get to choose what to do, we walked to Wasilla Lake, it is a mile each way, so a nice walk.  She and one of her friends who joined us spent the afternoon, the girls caught leeches in the lake, big nasty looking ones, needless to say my girls will not be swimming in the lake, even though it is full of swimmers when we drive by.

Even without swimming it is a gorgeous lake to walk along the shore of.
I split my time at work between kids who are in the 7 to 9 age group and teen girls who are 12 to 18, I like the change, it is nice to work with a variety of kids and the different age groups keeps it interesting.
So far I like the company and the people I work with, they are flexible and that is so important with all I have going on, school, my own kids, home, Richard, all the work the new house needs and so on.