I'm going to tell you the best kept secret to living in a group home. Anyone can get through it. The two hardest things you need to do is figure out who you can trust and the way each staff member does their job. Finding who to trust isn't that hard really because it's pretty easy to figure out who does the snitching. You just need to pay attention to who talks to staff privately the most. And by watching the staff you can see who really pays attention to what you do and who doesn't really care what you're doing at all.
Being in a group home is hard but at the same time it's chill. The only thing that you really need to watch out for is the drama. Being in a group home makes it easier to get away with stuff because staff can't always be watching only you when they have other people they need to pay attention to. There's a lot of do's and don't's that will help you get through your time of being in a group home.
DO: Find a friend that you can trust. That way if either of you get into problems then you can have each others backs. It will be really hard to get through your program if you don't have a friend that you can trust. Make sure you really trust your friend. Other wise you're going to be paranoid and worried every day that they are going to snitch on you.
DON'T: Trust anyone until you have something on them. You can't ever be sure you can trust someone until you know they are willing to trust you too. Once some one trusts you don't do anything to ruin their trust. If you do then it's more than likely no one in the home will ever trust you again.
DO: Find a staff that you can talk to. If you find a trusting staff then you can tell them stuff without having consequences so technically you're still being honest in your program. Just because you find a staff you can confide in that doesn't mean you tell them everything. You still have to be smart about what you tell staff.
DON'T: Get involved in drama unless you absolutely have to. Even if the drama involves you you still need to try to stay out of it. All drama does is cause more drama. If you stay out of it then it goes away faster.
And finally DO: Stay out of as much trouble as possible. The less trouble you get in the more staff will trust you and the more freedom you get. You can't be perfect but you can at least pretend to be perfect. What staff doesn't know won't hurt them.
And for the love of all that is holy DON'T: Deny doing something when you're sure you have been caught. If you deny it then in the end you just get in more trouble. It's better to own up to what you did. If you deny it and end up getting in trouble later on then staff will punish you more than they were going to before.
