The foster care agency where I worked "downsized" and I was laid off in March 2008. I said "Thank you God" since my stress level working that job was very high.

A month prior to being laid off, I applied to be a substitute teacher for my city's public school district. After a month down time, I started working as a teacher and (apart for the summer months), I've been working as a "floating" substitute elementary school teacher some week days ever since.

I like substitute teaching much more than I liked being a foster care caseworker. It's true that I'm making much less money and there are no benefits (including no health benefits-I've been paying for COBRA since April 2008 and that benefit will end in November 2009 and I admit that I'm worried about that). But I'm not in constant crisis mode and I'm never "on call" (which means that I won't be called in the early morning hours or during a blizzard to pick up some children who've been abandoned or to try to find some teenager who's run away from their foster home). Besides, I feel as though I'm making a difference with some of the children I've meet as a teacher (I've been at the same school throughout and I've gotten to know the children there). Unfortunately, I rarely felt that anything I did or said as a caseworker made that much difference. And there were always more children coming from awful circumstances. It was very depressing.

Yes, maintaining classroom discipline takes up too much of a teacher's energy-particularly in the older elementary school grades and particularly for substitute teachers. But in spite of that, I really like the children and I like this type of work.

So even though I count myself among those people who have been laid off in the last two years, and even though I'm struggling financially, I still feel as though I'm blessed.