Ever since I was a child I have been passionate about partnering with the Disabled community. This passion of mine only grew larger as I began pursuing my degree in Disability Studies at the University of Washington. I felt I was gaining the knowledge I needed around this topic in the classroom but felt I was lacking the hands on experience with this community that I yearned for. This was when I decided to begin seeking out families with children who have disabilities and asking to care-take for these children any time the parents needed a break. I now have a network of over fifteen families and am feeling more fulfilled with the moments I get to directly partner with this community.
Quote by Charise Yarbrough, a mother of children that I caretake for.
This experience has taught me useful organizational skills by scheduling over fifteen families and keeping dates, addresses, and phone numbers in order. I have also learned that I wish to commit my time and energy in my future to providing resources for this community and therefore have the goal in my future of developing a non-profit or agency that would allow me to assist children with disabilities. This experience has also taught me how much inequity exists within our society and how society constantly creates barriers for people with disabilities. As for the impact on others, I have been able to assist families during difficult times, reassure parents when they are nervous about leaving their high-risk child with someone other than themselves, and I have been able to be a friend to all the children I serve.
I have taken my experiences from working with these families and have then used them in other situations to help educate others. For example, I use my first hand experience to validate my standpoint that people with disabilities are no different than anyone else besides the fact that they function a little differently. I have also used my experiences to empower myself to fight for those who do not have full equality in our society.
All of the families I work with come from diverse backgrounds. I have learned how to understand diverse backgrounds as well as diversity of circumstances. Whether that looks like several seizures a day, or difficulty finding affordable services, they all have different lifestyle from one another. This understanding of diversity has allowed me to empathize with difference better, and has opened my eyes to inequities that exist within our society. This understanding has also helped me be more effective in my work and has allowed me to better serve my entire network of families.
I have learned what it means to empower other individuals and what this sense of empowerment can do for them. I constantly strive to empower the children I work with through positive reinforcement as well as reminders that they are no less than any other human regardless of what society and people constantly tell them. I show this to them through my words, actions, expectations, and norms when I am around them. I have also had the opportunity to empower the parents and families I work for by connecting them to resources and community assistance. This grants them a sense of ownership and understanding that allows them to thrive even more.
I’ve learned that helping with a task is not always tangible. Sometimes coming in, and sitting with these children while they rest or experience a seizure is more than a parent could ask for. Even if I am not helping complete a specific task, I am helping to relieve the parents of a responsibility for a short while in order for them to take some time to themselves. I often will voluntarily find tasks to help with if the child is sleeping, such as household work or catching up on medication logging in order to simply check one thing off of the parents to-do lists. It is my goal to make their lives easier, less time consuming, and a little more relaxing by simply helping out in any way that I can.
This experience has allowed me to learn in ways that I never could have within the classroom. I was looking for an experience to further my knowledge and my network has provided me with exactly this. Day in and day out I am faced with unpredictable measures and am constantly learning something new about the community of families and children that I am working with. This experience has allowed me to reach more of my potential and has not only benefited others but myself as well.
I always keep an asset based approach when working with this community and focus on person first intervention. This means that I highlight the strengths of the individual in all situations and I keep a “can do” attitude when cooperating with children. While working with them, I also foster independence and constantly remind them and myself that they are wildly capable of doing all things on their own with due accommodation. By keeping this mindset, it is benefiting the welfare of the child and fostering healthy communities. These attitudes are also shaping the family members approaches towards their children by helping them realize what their child is capable of.
I am able to use my experience and different strategies that I have used in the past in order to assist the child I am working with. Often times, children don’t know certain strategies or mechanisms that I have seen other kids use to overcome struggles similar to there’s. Therefore, I am able to mentor the families and children through these techniques in order to help them grow.
There are multiple times when working with my network of families where I can recall bouncing back and growing from challenging situations. Whether I have been caught in the middle of an aggressive anxiety outburst or have managed a child vomiting while they have a seizure, I have been able to better face adversity and come out from them stronger.
The insights I have gained from this experience have taught me that I wish to work with the disabled community in my future. I wish to develop a non-profit of my own or an agency that would provide services in order to assist families and children living with serious illness and/or disability, specifically this class minority within the foster care system. I believe that all the learning competencies I have gained from forming my network will serve me well in various ways throughout my future. Another huge insight I gained from this experience is that I am an entrepreneur and if something I dream of does not exist I can create it myself. I looked for various ways to work with families who have a child with a disability and until I created a network of my own I never found exactly what I wanted. Moving forward, I will always remember that the sky is the limit and no hopes are too far fetched.