It's not just the walls of Murray High School that are lines with inspiration. Rooms are brimming with excitement, love and intelligence... Not just from the incredible teaching staff but students too.

With a philosophy of Choice Theory behind all of it's teaching, communication and existence, Murray High School is not only innovatively changing the way we build, maintain and develop relationships with each other, they are installing notions that most education seems to have lost... A given that exists in all of us, just maybe we weren't all so lucky as to have someone help to ween it out... intelligence! 

Just check out some examples of students Quality Work.

Eeeek.. so much to tell you about the amazing  Murray High School

Just quickly popped on to show you this for now though A Tribute to Daniel Memorial

Peas & Love x

An example of inspiration H2O

This is an example of something wonderful...

At Murray High School, we are more than GRATEFUL

to Dr. Glasser

for his creation of Choice Theory, Reality Therapy, and Lead Management.  We believe that these three concepts together create the perfect school environment.  Indeed, they create the perfect environment for developing relationships that matter and that will last for a lifetime.  From our perspective, this is what happiness and success are based on, in schools, in businesses,

and in our personal lives.

This is a quote from Charlotte Wellen at Murray High School and the words that drew me from London to a small town called Charlottesville... it was here I discovered a magical place, a school at that... welcome to Murray High School...

The Fish Philosophy.... I thought you might be interested in one of the many amazing things I took away from Daniel Memorial on my last day thanks to Director of HR and the man that made my experience at Daniel so great, Doug Standard... it's called The Fish Philosophy and it is a major factor in what maintains and inspires such a positive moral in the staff at Daniel. It is based on these 4 principles which are pinned up around the staff areas.

Daniel staff also use this little fish to stick on their colleagues door as recognition when someone has helped/supported them.

The theory of this is based on the love and laughter that the staff on a fish market in Seattle - despite waking up at 4am every morning and handling smelly fish all day they spend the day laughing and inspiring people with their positive attitudes...!

Love this video and the song and all that it says....

If I Could

This is my friend Lucinda at Daniel Memorial, Florida doing the english accent....

Lucinda goes english!

Peas & love

So my time in Jacksonville, Florida has come to an end... I am at Charlotte airport waiting for a flight to Charlottesville where I will meet Charlotte!! lol!

Thanks to Julia and her husband

...this week has been jam packed with amazing food, experiences and a wonderfully comfy bed where... yes you've guessed it... I miss my alarm every morning yet Julia and Matt can hear it from their bedroom... I just don't understand... lol! They really have been incredible though; so generous and hospitable - new friends for life me thinks!

Working at Daniel this week has also been amazing - so insightful. Thank you to everyone there. My week broke down like this

Monday: Home visit to a Theraputic Foster Parent with Licensing Specialist Julia Kalinski (AKA host for drifters like me!).  Foster parents have to undergo evaluations to check they are following correct procedures as well as just checking that the home is still a suitable environment for a child. Therapeutic foster homes are for children presenting more challenging behaviour such as suicidal threats, physical violence to others and so on. We met the foster mother and I left like 'oh she was wonderful, so inspiring bla bla bla'.... Turns out later that week complaints were made. It was clear role as 'Licensing Specialist' for Daniel Memorial defines what she is - a specialist in her field!

One thing I realised this week through talking to various professionals is just how detrimental that lack of consistency can be for a child. On going into any new environment of course they are going to portray behaviours that have taught them to survive... if everyone in their path gives up as soon as they show these behaviours rather than working with them to learn new tools, their sense of trauma will just get worse and worse. Let alone them feeling that no-one cares. When Daniel Memorial licence Therapeutic Foster Parents they are obliged to sign something saying they will give a substantial notice period, if any, if it is decided the child needs a higher level of care.

Being so holistic, Daniel also offers that higher level of care in the form of a Therapeutic Group Home which I visited in the afternoon and spent some time learning about some behaviour models as well as the set up of such a home and the importance that is placed on structure - from regular daily routines to just being on time for things.


Tuesday: All day in court listening to various cases of neglect, abuse, termination of parental rights. I nearly cried at least five times and could not help but feel so angry... the amount of people that have children and are not fit to parent. Granted I am not a parent and haven't always had the best role models of parenting however.... then you get to thinking, the problem is often so much bigger than that ... then you evaluate the problem and potential solutions and can't help but come right back to PARENTING!! Not just from parents themselves, wider families, friends and communities... It's far more complicated than it sounds... This day really inspired me though and has got me thinking about some potential ideas for when I come back to the UK...

Wednesday: Also mega inspiring; I spent the afternoon with the Statewide Inpatient Psychiatric Program... This is similar to the Therapeutic Group Home but for those with more severe mental health needs. It is however much less regimented than other inpatient programs. Most of the kids here were 8-12 yrs old although vary between 5-17 yrs old. How about I wanted to bring two of the boys home with me... yes, I re-evaluated my lack of tolerance for younger children lol! They were so cool - really interested in England etc and the amount of self awareness being in SIPP had clearly given them was phenomenal... they showed me their 'coping sheets' a small piece of paper that they all had to fill in with various things they can do when they need to calm down... most of them included 'a hug'.... what does that tell us....


Thursday: Learnt about yet more of the services that Daniel offer to families and children... Behaviour Management Program for young people in the justice system (equivalent of UKs Youth Offending Team but called Department of Juvenile Justice, I had to cringe though as Americans call young offenders deliquents as opposed to the more refined english term 'young offenders'!! Hehee!

I had another meeting with Jim Clark - Daniel's President and spoke with one of Daniel's commissioners who hit the nail on the head by saying 'we can get parent's to by into Coca Cola but we don't seem to have found the right marketing campaign for parenting classes'!

Friday - I spent the morning being inspired by the counselling in schools program that Daniel runs and discussing ideas of how to engage parents and the community with the school and learning. I also ate yummy birthday cake!

Peas & Love

A week in and all is wonderful! The first week at Daniel has been amaaaazing already - I met the president of the organisation

I have also met some wonderful people - Julia, who I fell in love with when I read this on her wall and she invited me to live with her by the beach for my final week! I am moving in today!

and Alison who took me for real 'southern' food.

and one of the most hardworking case managers there probably is, who drove me up into the countryside to do a home visit with one of her families (and introduce me to a wonderful 10 yr old girl), Briana. Briana and her husband also took me out to eat on Friday night and there was a live reggae performance - LOVE!

Briana is going to kill me for putting this up but here's a video of us attempting to play a so called musical instrument... lol    .... Horn play!

I have also met a whole host of Daniel's senior management team who are wonderfully inspiring, I will report on them more later this week, for now goodbye hotel (which does happen to have a wonderful view as you can see below) and hello beach and Julia's house.....!

So... I arrived! I'm not going to lie, my first experience in the states was HORRIBLE! The flight arrived at Miami airport late and then passport control took hours to get through - American Airlines were sooo mean as I'd flown in with BA (despite my connecting flight being with them?!). So I missed my connecting flight  to Jacksonville - even though a lovely lovely lady spoke spanish to a family in front and then a the few more people in front let me push in - and worked myself into tears at the airport! Lol!

With that out of the way I accepted I had missed my flight, qued for a further hour or so and then was re-booked onto a flight. I think the initial emotions were more down to anxiety about the hotel still being open when I arrived, not knowing the country/anyone in it! I was completely, in true Fairbridge style, 'out of my comfort zone'!

Nevertheless, the views on the flight over were amazing, I have had an extra day to settle in due to it being labor day and my contact at Daniel Memorial emailing last week to say this means I start on Tuesday. I used yesterday to familiarise myself with the city of Jacksonville - apparently it's the biggest city in America (in terms of size not people) - everything is so spread out so I walked the two and a half miles into the town centre and treated myself to a proper American homemade burger - it was amazingly tasty! Today I walked to the local 'grocery store' and then spent the day by the pool as it's been 29 degrees. I am completely refreshed and excited about meeting the staff at Daniel Memorial tomorrow....

P.S I also got talking to a guy by the pool today who is an ex-Crip (Crips and Bloods gangs in America) and spent some time in prison alongside the guys that assassinated Malcolm X.....