Personal Interview

Personal Interview

Christine Garrison

BSHS\355

April 13, 2015

University of Phoenix

Personal Interview

For my personal interview, I interviewed Jessica Cowan she works with children with special needs within the Sharon-mutual schools. She performs the testing as well as support for the families who have needs children. Miss Cowan shows testing as well as the intake for the individuals. Her days vary with what client’s needs. Many days she will make house calls and teach the children at their homes if they cannot go to schools due to their personal issues. She also works with the whole family to help build a stronger bond, as well as a better understanding of the client’s needs. She informed me that she has no real focus her client is the main one. She works as a counselor manages their cases as well as being their personal advocate. But she would say the most important thing that she does is problem-solving for her clients. Many of her clients cannot function in normal society. She works on educating her clients in regular studies as well as what they will need to be able to perform daily tasks. She also works with other organizations to help her clients. Many of her clients have multiple needs mental and physical many of them educational needs.

A typical day for Miss Cowan, she visits the schools to help her clients who are in the school system. Many of her days are spent testing individuals with lower income to see what services if any that they may require. After the initial intake of her clients, she will start doing her rounds as she calls them. She will first work with the students within the schools as well as working with the teachers to her client’s needs. On some days, this will take her until the end of the school day. She informed me that the particular school had a higher number of students who need her assistance than others. She has noticed that the schools in lower income areas need more support than others. After she finishes in the schools, she begins her route to client’s homes who are needing help. According to her is the most dangerous part of her job. Some of her clients are not mentally stable and can cause physical harm. When she performs a home intake into the program, they have to figure out if the client will be violent or not. When doing the initial input she has someone to come with her to see what to expect. Normally this individual is a mental help specialist. She will work with the family how to resolve some of the issues that the family is having so she can see what programs that the client needs and their educational needs. She will assign helpers to work with the client on their personal needs while she works with the educational needs others will be with her to work with psychological needs as well a physical. She will work with ten clients a day sometimes there are less some days are more just matters on the progress that the client makes. She will cover their basic educational needs while also working on behavior issues that arise.