The agency that I am currently interning at is the Y. The Y is a non-for-profit agency serving the surrounding community. It is a non-sectarian Jewish Agency that offers many different types of services and programs. The Y serves many different populations. It also offers many programs specialized for individual populations. The Y offers programs in Chinese, Hebrew, English and Russian.
The Y offers many different types of programs. They offer programs for older adults, children, teens, new immigrants, and toddlers. These programs include educational, social, fitness, cultural, trips, and summer and winter camps and after school programs. There are also specialized social adult day center programs. These programs include two meals, fitness activities, case management, swimming, transportation, art, music, and inter-generational activities. There are two different social adult programs, one in Mandarin or Cantonese and the other one is in Russian. The Y also offers programs for children with special needs on Sundays.
I work with many different populations at the Y. I work with senior adults doing social discussion groups. We meet Monday mornings and discuss current events as well as different topics that interest the individuals within the group. The other program that I work with on Mondays is the after school program with the Chaverim program. This is an after school program that focuses more on getting homework done. On Tuesdays I work in the Alzheimer's respite program. I am the peer leader of this group. There are four different interns in the group and I am in charge of coordinating the sessions as well as planning what the different activities for each day will be. The Alzheimer's respite group is a group where individuals effected by Alzheimer's can come and get stimulating brain activity as well as socializing. Tuesday afternoons I work in the after school program for the Hebrew Language Academy. This is a specialized after school program that mainly just for the children who attend this charter school. The homework help is aimed towards the classes offered at this school. The last group program that I do is called Sunday Funday. This is a socialization group for children with Autism or who are on the spectrum.
My internship also includes two individual clients, a mother and her son. I have been working with the son since November. I just started working with his mother in January. The son just got an IEP at school and is going to begin services at school. Since I don't want him to become confused with all the different services he is receiving I have decided that its best to stop counseling with him and to continue counseling with his mother. I started working with the mother initially because she would come in and talk to me about everything looking for help when I was only counseling her son. Also her son is five years old and behavior modification therapy is only going to be effective if the parents are also involved. After beginning to discuss all of this with his mother I realized that there were deeper issues in the home then just her son's behavior problems.
The client that I am going to be using for my project this semester is the mother. She has attitudes and behaviors that I would like to change. We are going to have to work through her issues with having a son with behavioral problems as well as her actions towards her son in the house. We have to work through the ideas that behavior and intellect are not connected. There are many different things that the mother and I will be working though this semester. I will have a chance to see this client at least 8 times before the semester ends. Hopefully I will have the chance to see the client more then that before having to terminate with her.
This is a very interesting blog posting. Perhaps you could clarify where the Y is located as this may shed some light on the community a bit more. It sounds as if you have a lot of responsibility within your field placement, which is a good educational opportunity for you. As you begin to think about this project with the mother, think about "starting where the client is." That is, you say that there are behaviors and attitudes in the mother that you would like to change. What about the client? Also, if you are working with her in regard to her son's IEP/special needs, you should think about describing his issues in detail. This will help you conceptualize some of the specific issues mom is facing. Please proofread your work before posting as it will make your blog look more professional. I am looking forward to seeing where this project goes!
ReplyDelete