I work at a Psychiatric Mental Institute for Children, Ask Me Anything!

I have worked at a PMIC center in Northern Iowa for over five years as a direct care staff that treats children with varying degrees of trauma.

Edit: Per guidance - submitted proof to the Mods (further confidentiality)

Edit 2: For obvious confidentiality reasons I will not list actual names of the children. Describing a situation does not violate confidentiality for the clients or families.

Edit 3: I am trying to answer as many questions as possible (there are quite a few questions)

Edit 4: Still trying to answer as many questions as possible, I was not expecting this many questions.

Comments: 862 • Responses: 42  • Date: 

Bodymaster14 karma

What's the funniest thing you've seen at work?

nunez0123 karma

One of our more special needs clients told me this:

"Butterflies like pretzels because of the sodium on them. When butterflies mate the males produce so much semen and the butterfly looses alot of sodium. So they need the sodium from the pretzel to replace what they lost from the semen."

TIGit1 karma

Isn't this a breach of confidentiality?

nunez0111 karma

Breaching confidentiality would be if I gave names of the children or the families - I don't even tell my family names of the children when explaining situations at work.

TIGit-8 karma

ಠ_ಠ Discussing your clients personal issues though is a breach of conduct.

WILLingtonegotiate5 karma

yes your clients, but as long as there is no personal information given at all there is no breach of privacy. There may be security breaches but not privacy.

nunez016 karma

I will not discuss any past or current clients actual issues. I am using this AMA to give people an idea of what some of today's troubled youth are experiencing/going through.

[deleted]-2 karma

[deleted]

nunez012 karma

I have not seen "The Omen" and can not attest to the accuracy of the movie.