[humanser] Why did you choose your particular Human services profession?

[Ashley Bramlett]

Cheryl,

Your story and passion struck me.
First, I can identify with those blind people who are college grads with 
little experience at work or in the world for that matter. I grew up with 
few friends and while my parents took me to typical kid outings and cultural 
attractions including parks, amusement parks, and Disney World,
I did not have a typical childhood. Then, while my teenage friends were 
dating, driving their first car, and of course working part time, I did not. 
So, again my world was limited and my experience atypical.
I never saw much of the real world till way into college when I finally got 
an internship.

So, your passion to  help people like I was, those 22 plus with little work 
experience, struck me.
Did you finish rehab counseling degree?
Its true regular rehab counselors do not counsel and IMO they should be 
called case workers because they are truly just managing a case, not 
counseling. But, Cheryl, there is a huge need for what you describe!
Why not go into private practice helping blind clients? Found a nonprofit 
perhaps.
You know the issues, you have the passion, and you have the skills for it 
all.

You could fill a void in which  regular rehab does not do. Part of the issue 
is what you said, many referrals and lack of funding for programs that will 
actually work.

Something to think about. Your dream may not be viable as a regular rehab 
counselor in the state agencies for the blind, but I see no reason why it 
cannot work as a private entity.

As for me, I'm still job hunting and wish to work in some sort of 
communications or human service area.
A huge barrier for me is the requirement to drive. I come across part time 
ads all the time for activity leaders at senior centers, teen centers and 
community centers.
As you all may know, this job combines your recreation skills and your 
empathetic communication skills to interact with the clients or 
participants.
It only requires a high school degree, plus some experience with that 
population among other skills such as good oral and written communication 
skills. I'm therefore overqualified in most respects.
However, the job ad requires you to have a driver's license and ability to 
drive their vans. In other words, you have to actually drive in the job to 
transport your participants.
Therefore, they will not consider me.

I don't know if you like what you are doing now Cheryl, but if you have  a 
passion to help young blind adults or simply adults who have not been given 
opportunities, I say go for it.

Ashley


-----Original Message----- 
From: Cheryl Wade via HumanSer
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 9:43 AM
To: Jonathan Franks via HumanSer
Cc: Cheryl Wade
Subject: Re: [humanser] Why did you choose your particular Human services 
profession?

Dear Jonathan and List,


Boy, am I glad you asked this question! I think I actually could use
some therapy just to make  sense of my decision and clean up the fallout.


I chose to leave journalism and become a rehabilitation counselor
because I knew so many people who were blind and who pretty much stayed
in their apartments or lived with their parents. They hardly ever got
around in their communities, had tiny nuclear groups of friends and,
most of all, seemed to have no expectation at all that they ever would
go to work.


This problem grieved me for years. I decided I wanted to specialize in a
practice with blind individuals at least 22 years old who never had
worked for pay, and perhaps were overprotected by their parents. I
actually wrote an outline of a program to deal with these problems.


About two-thirds of the way through my program, I realized the system
was not, not ever, going to support me in this goal. Whereas I wanted to
search out these people on my own, the system is based on referrals and
selection of service and, oh, my, there's no money to do that.. I also
learned that I never would be an employment therapist. I would be a
gopher, a case manager, pushing papers to get people into services but
never, ever helping them deal with the root causes of their difficult
lives. In my first job, I did indeed work as an employment therapist,
but we had no technology or assessments in place to determine function
or skills. It was just, do it, however you want. It was wonderful but I
now have very little feedback to report from clients.


So now I'm purely on the therapeutic side, licking my wounds that by now
have festered and grown old. I am so sad, so disappointed, so terribly
frustrated with my naive behavior. Now I have to answer questions like,
"so, if we hire you, can we bill for your work?" I once was flatly
turned down to even be looked at for a position in therapeutic work
because, "you're just rehab." All my social work buddies were diagnosing
folks and familiar with all kinds of disorders. My professor in the DSM
class in the rehab program told us, "you won't have to make any
diagnoses; the psych folks do that." While I was terribly relieved to
know I wouldn't have to label people with disorders I'd not become
familiar enough with, I quickly understood I would need to be one of the
"psych folks."


Please forgive my rant. I want to let college students understand that
the two forms of counseling are very different and that, in Michigan at
least, rehab counselors don't have much time for counseling.


Cheryl Wade, MA, LLPC, CRC


On 10/18/2017 7:05 AM, Jonathan Franks via HumanSer wrote:
> Fellow Federationists,
> Many of us know that Human Services carries a vast range of different
> types of professions. Also, many of us chose this field for a certain
> reason. Whether you are working in your academic career or are already
> an  established human services professional, we are all working to
> serve our fellow human being. The question is why did you choose your
> particular field and what drove you to make that decision?
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Jonathan Franks BSW
> 1st Vice President
> National Federation of the Blind Human Services Division
> Graduate Student
> MSW Program
> Texas State University
>
>


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