Writing for the Profession CYCS 2011 Child & Youth Care Program

George Brown College

Cody Lang Case Study Part 3: Unethical and Unprofessional Reporting Preamble: Below are 2 examples of unethical and unprofessional writing by 2 fictional workers. Shelly

Lincoln, who is in placement at Cody’s school, has written a report. Elias McPherson, who works

at Acorn House, has written the second report. The writing includes biased, oppressive, and

deficit-focused language. The writers also make errors in the conventions of professional

writing (e.g., sentence structure, grammar, spelling, use of colloquialisms, slang, etc.). Both

reports contain a significant incident that should be recorded in an incident report. This should

be documented in an ethical and professional way, as discussed in class.

Report #1

Student: Cody Lang. Date: March 10, 20XX

Cody finally made it on time this week and I was so proud of him! Like, he really stepped

his game up today because he arrived at 8:30 AM!!!! Anyways, he did look really tired today.

Probably because he made it on time cause I no he really likes to stay up all night writing songs

which is really actually a good thing but he really needs to make school his priority, which is

what we talked about last week, the writer told him that you even if you are a song writier or

rockstar you don’t want to work low class jobs while you get there so clearly my advice paid off

and he actually listened. I told him so when he came intoday that I was impressed. I could see

Cody working with troubled kids like me one day!!

I did notice when I checked in with him that he smelled bad like he smoked a joint

before class or something. The writer asked him if he was under the influence of marijuana

because I could smell it on him, but then he got all mad at me and said, “it’s like you completely

don’t get me sometimes”! Here I am trying to help the kid and he goes off on the one person

trying to make his life better! Anyhow, I said that we should have a sit-down at lunch to discuss

this further. Cody said sorry for coming at me! Progress.

When I met with him after the morning classes, he came over with another student Jon

Snow. I’m pretty sure he likes to smoke pot with him. Anyways, I told him this was a private

meeting, and he gave me a look. then he was all “um miss I want my friend with me for support

and then laughed” so I was like “no this is a private meeting”. I am pretty sure he was making

fun of me. Then, Cody was like “catch you outside” to Jon and then Jon went to leave but he

lightly shoved Cody as he was leaving, which I think was just being playful but Cody was like

“Jon you’re a little b**h” and then Jon told Cody to “F-off” which of course triggered Cody

because he’s mentally ill (and I suspect he’s undiagnosed bipolar in addition to his other

Writing for the Profession CYCS 2011 Child & Youth Care Program

George Brown College

problems). Jon Snow also has issues due to his ADHD which is more on the hyper side of things.

The two boys are really not healthy for each other as I see it.

Anyways, like I expected, Cody did in fact get violent and whipped his book at Jon and

hit him in the shoulder. I was personally terrified by it all because it happened so fast but no

one threatened me, I’m just saying how it made me feel. Like I said, it happened really fast

actually and then all of a sudden Jon hit Cody square in the jaw. The boys both threw a couple

of punches at each other. The teacher, Mr. Syed, at this point was on the scene and physically

separated the boys along with my help to deescalate things – “calm down” n “move apart” was

what the writer said, that sort of thing. Both boyz did in fact calm down, so I was please with

that part at least.

Both boyz went to the principal’s office with the teacher, and the writer was also called

down give my account of what happened. The boyz both got a 3-day suspension for fighting.

Cody was debriefed by me after and Jon by Mr. Syed. I can’t speak to Jon’s debrief I only know

what I said with Cody. He did actually apologize again and that is 2 times in one day! Before,

he wouldn’t take any responsibility whatsoever, for the way he is dangerous sometimes so that

something to document here. Anyways back to my debrief with Cody:

So, Cody also said that he planned to apologize for getting so upset with Jon because he

said “he’s my only friend at this school and we do hit each other all the time. But not hard and

we are just joking around”. I asked Cody what was different this time then and he was like

“maybe because I was on edge because you were making me speak with you. Plus, you accused

me of smoking pot before class, but my clothes probably smelled like it because I was smoking a

lot last night”. Cody went on to say that he doesn’t actually smoke pot at school and is tired of

being accused of that. Time for me to practice what I preach , so I apologized for accusing

him. I told him that making these connections between feelings and behaviour is important.

Cody agreed that he thinks he needs to do this more. Cody left for his suspension without

further incidentals. Now off to write my incident repot as I was instructed to by my onsite

supervisor who I also spoke to about all this.

Signed: Shelly Lincoln, CYC Placement Student

Report #2

Resident: Cody Lang. Date: March 15, 20XX Cody came in this evening just before dinner time and went to go upstairs without

saying hello to anyone. He also did not offer to help out and thought he was just gonna go up to

his room and then come back and eat after all the work was done. I kindly asked him to help

with dinner because all resident should help up with prep or cleanup for dinner. He said, “I

don’t need your food” and stormed off upstairs. He did not eat dinner and stayed in his room.

Writing for the Profession CYCS 2011 Child & Youth Care Program

George Brown College

At 7:00pm or so, Cody was the recipient of a call from one of his mothers. Her name is

Ellie. I went upstairs and I told Cody for about the phone call from her. He continued with his

arrogant attitude and said “thank you, Jarvis” like I’m his butler or something. This was so

insulting, but me being professional, I just told him to please address me by my real name. He

came down and took the phone call in the office. He asked for privacy, so I left the room. Right

after the phone call ended, Cody came out looking very sad and kinda angry, as I have observed

he does look this way whenever he talks to his moms on the phone. After these calls, he seems

to be even more antisocial than he normally is, which is quite sad because his moms do actually

care about him.

I checked in with him and asked if everything was ok with Ellie and Janice and he said,

“yeah they’re great” but this was with a sarcastic tone and then he walked away and went

downstairs. Before I get to that, here is my professional assessment. Cody has experienced a lot

of discrimination based on the fact that he doesn’t have a normal family, so he is constantly

reminded of the fact of this when he talks to them. Like stated above, they do love him, and he

loves them back, but I think his traumas of being made fun of his whole life get triggered when

he talks to his mothers. phone call just worsened his dysfunctional attitude, which now leads to

conflict with other youth.

while the group was watching TV in the basement, cody went downstairs, sat down,

took the remote and changed the channel. Troy Jackson yelled at him and tried to grab it back,

but Cody began messing with him by holding it above his head. Lyndsay Brown flipped out and

called Cody an “as*****” which resulted in Cody throwing the remote at the wall and it

smashed due to his violent nature. This is what Lyndsay, Troy both told me after the fact but I

did not witness this first hand. They also said that there was lots of name calling and and I could

hear it from upstairs. Things got nasty BUT no punches thrown though! Whew! I was afraid

cause it sounded real violent downstairs but just verbal aggression, aside from the broken

remote of course – but again that was not thrown at nobody.

My shift partner Jemma Willow ran down the stairs and settled the group down and told

Cody to go upstairs to his room. Cody went up to the main floor and sat in the living room and I

could see him from the office. Jemma came up and tells him again to go to his room. Cody

finally went to his room upstairs but swore all the way there and slammed the door loudly

twice. Cody continues to be unable to follow directions because he is defiant and ruled by his

emotions. He had no trouble finding his room earlier, so he CLEARLY knows how to go to his

room!

Later, I wanna say about 9:15pm, I checked on him and tried to help him see his role in

starting the fight, but of course Cody couldn’t focus on his behaviour and blamed Lyndsay for

breaking the remote. He did FINALLY admit to the details as detailed above by Troy and Lindsay,

which is honest of him at least. Right when things were going good in our talk, Lyndsay just so

happened to walk by the staff office and overheard her name while we were conversating and

Writing for the Profession CYCS 2011 Child & Youth Care Program

George Brown College

that was it!! I think because of her paranoia she was like “I can f***ing hear you guys, talking

sh** about me”. But of course we weren’t saying anything bad about her. Cody called her the

b-word and I asked him to be respectful. He said sorry so I continued my chat and told him that

as a result of what went down tonight, he will not be able to watch television with the group for

the rest of the week. There will also need to be some form of payback (money) for the cost of

the broken remote. Cody decided all on his own that he would try to find a replacement remote

at Best Buy after school tomorrow. I did not suggest this so I was actually impressed by this, and

I did tell him this also.

Cody went back to his room after talking with me without any further incidents. Jemma

had done already informed the on-call house supervisor by telephone of the incident with

Cody. Boss asked that I draft the incident report bcause I was the one to debrief with cody. Will

write it up before my shift ends…

Signed: Elias McPherson, Residential Support Worker, CYC-P