Interview with a Human Services Worker Essay

I chose to interview my mother. Her name is Barbara Lee and she works for the Riverside County Office of Education. She is an infant teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing. She has been working in her position for about 30 years and she still loves it! The human problems she works with are working with hearing impaired children and their families. There are both parent-child classroom settings and in-home settings. Some of the technologies used are hearing aids and auditory trainers. An auditory trainer is an electronic device that allow a person to focus attention on a speaker and reduce the interference of back round noise. I believe the model my mom’s position would exemplify would be Human Services, since she does teaching and parent support. A person involved with the agency by newborn hearing screenings, which refers newborn babies that have not passed his or her audiological screenings. Another way to be involved is by parent referral through Regional Center or other referrals from other infant programs. The rewarding part of Leslie’s job is that she can increase parent child communication, bonding, understanding and, overall developmental growth. She is also involved in making sure the child is placed in the appropriate program after the child turns 3. If Barbarba had the option to make a change in the program it would be to add a second class during the week. At the present time, there is only one class a week. The second class would be added after the child turned 2. Overall, she would like to provide more services for the children, but there unfortunately is not enough funding. The initial reason my mother started to work in the human services profession was because she felt there were not enough people that represented the deaf and hard of hearing. The college my mother went to which was Lewis and Clark University in Oregon had a well-known program for training teachers of the deaf. After all this time my mother still chooses  to work in the Human Services field because she feels that â€Å"working with young children provides increased family understanding in the development of the brain and communication abilities at an optimal time for both brain development and social connectedness† (B. Lee, personal communication, October 15,2010). Barbara Lee’s personal values impact on her performance because she believes in the positive spirit within individuals. She believes that the positivity can be used to promote positive human relationships within family situations. When my mother started the position years ago, she was unaware of the wide range of individual differences within families and cultures. Also how these differences affect family dynamics and how the role of cultural differences affect human interactions. Conclusion In conclusion, my mother loves her job and this is something that I am actually interested in doing. In these times, knowing sign language and specializing in deaf handicaps can in fact set one apart from the rest. Knowing that by seeing the babies once a week can really make a difference in their development is a big job that not everyone can handle. References Lee.B Personal Communication, October 15, 2010