For my community service, I had the opportunity to volunteer with Programs Employing People located in South Philadelphia. Programs Employing People (PEP) is a non-profit organization that recruits a wide range of services to people who are disabled or disadvantage. PEP holds a strong mission of supporting individuals living with a disability, including Autism, Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Noonan’s Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and so on. But PEP mostly has clients participate with intellectual disability. PEP core values and mission is to provide guidance, vocational training, job placement resources and help educate people with intellectual abilities. In addition, the age of eligibility in the organization ranges from 20 to 70 years old. In fact, every year PEP serves nearly 300 adults with intellectual disabilities in Philadelphia! Programs Employing People also strongly believes in strengthening and building strong relationships with their local community while providing different educational classes (eg; arts, basic literacy) and finding what activities and employment opportunities best suits the individual needs and interests.
During my service within the organization (PEP), I was able to volunteer Mondays afternoon for 2 hours while the art program is taken place. As someone who is loves art and has a great passion for creativity, I felt super ecstatic, knowing I am being able to witness but help others with their own creations. There were at least 15 clients in the room that had some types of disabilities and 2-3 instructors who are responsible for integrating arts into lesson plans. In addition, the room did not take place in a general education classroom, but in a huge cafeteria with wide open windows. Since the space environment is relatively big, individuals were able to express themselves freely such as walking around, building relationship bonds, shouting, and sharing laughs in the middle of class. The art program is a place to express themselves freely, and my role is to help with any tasks that may arise. During the time, I would organize different materials that are provided, helping individuals with their arts (eg; cutting, gluing, coloring) and most importantly, be fully engaged with others in relevant ways.
I remember my first day coming into the cafeteria, there was one client sitting with his friends and was so quick to offer me a seat by pulling up a chair. As I sat down, I began to feel very welcomed and prepared. Before I get the chance to put my belongings down, the client was quick to strike a conversation with me. He once said, “What’s your name? I’m Greg. Nice to meet you.” From that moment on, I knew not only am I am going to witness and help around, but have high levels of interactions with the people there. However, at first, I felt nervous approaching a new person and asking, “do you need help with anything?” because I wasn’t sure if they were going to respond back to me or how they would react. I think the fact of feeling unsure has minimized the level of interactions since I did not want to manifest anything within the client. As time progresses, I’ve noticed they became more talkative on furthering conversations with me as it concluded the same way for myself. Some of the client would openly tell me the severity of his/her disability, and I was happy to be able to learn but also getting to know them more. I no longer felt like an outsider instead I was an “insider”.
Furthermore, Nuru is one of the clients that I was helping who was struggling drawing a picture of a mockingbird. I remember this particular moment where Nuru was very unhappy with his artistic skills and eventually asked me if I can show him how a mocking bird looks like. However, it turned out to be a very difficult task trying to understand his speech when being asked. I’ve learned that Nuru has difficulty with his vocal cords. The affects on his vocal cords did NOT have an impact with his language but it did affected his speech mechanism. During the process, involuntary repetition has played a big role in our social interactions. Sometimes, it gets to the point where Kuru use written communication, an act transferring information through written words instead of verbally speaking. This connects to the idea of identifying a speech disorder which involves using verbal expression to send or deliver a message (week 6 lecture, page 59, 2018). Because of the quality of the voice is affected, a sense of feeling frustration has resulted in Nuru’s social environment. This also connects to one of the possible effects to a Speech disorder (week 6 lecture, page 64, 2018).
According to the class powerpoint slide, it states, “42% of students with speech and language impairments do not have this as their primary disability label” (week 6 lecture, slide 31, 2018). Nuru is within the moderate range of intellectual disability, instead of being labeled with Speech and language impairments, but SLI (Speech and Language Impairments) is quite similar to what he is facing. The warning signs of SLI consists of difficulty processing/understanding and expressing themselves (week 6 lecture, slide 61, 2018). But in relations of these factors in SLI, I was able to identify repetition and stuttering quite frequently when Kuru asked to demonstrate a mockingbird (week 6 lecture, slide 62, 2018).
During my service experiences, I also was able to witness different forms of direct instructions (DI) between the art instructor and clients. For instance, I’ve noticed the instructor reinforcing positive feedbacks on the individuals work saying, “I love what you did with the colors. That looks beautiful Russell! Can I see more?” It was heartwarming to witness natural interaction as if it was a teacher and one of the students in a classroom. I see the instructor keeping Russell engaged by having the opportunity to create more paintings! This observation connects to one of the teacher-student interaction components in the DI program, which is “motivation.” According to the DI program, motivation is the “naturally-occurring rewards of success, learning, and recognition are often sufficient” (week 6 recitation, slide 41, 2018). There are three different placements based on the type of motivation given to ensure success. This includes the placements of too easy, too hot and just right (week 6 recitation, slide 39, 2018). In this case, Russell is receiving the right motivation to ensure his success behind his artwork and beyond.
In conclusion, before serving my experience with Programs Employing People, I honestly did not know what to expect. Not too long ago, I’ve been told working with people including the youth who has a disability requires a lot of patience. I was able to understand since some people get discourage interacting with others who aren’t similar to them. But after meeting new, warm hearted people in my community, I certainly did not find that entirely true. My experience at PEP and working with people with disabilities has been a service of learning in many shapes and form. For instance, I was able to recognise the difference I was making in someone’s life by simply seeing them smile. Being able to have random conversations while making charm bracelets or even painting multiple leafs that’s waiting to be hagged has definitely taught me the smallest things can really have an impact on someone’s else day. I think every client has learned to express themselves more freely and feel more confident within their own abilities and innovations. Therefore, their experiences have impacted their belief that chances are, anything is possible to become successful.
Based on different social interactions with others, I also believe they have learned more about their strengths and weaknesses while being able to accept their limitations. Because of service experience, I went from thinking people with disabilities lack public awareness due to having certain limitations to realizing they know much more than I expected. I vividly remember this one moment where I was making a bracelet with one of the clients, Meg. Returning back from the following week with the same bracelet, Meg remembered the bracelet in my hand, little do she know, it was a holiday gift to her. Once before, Meg explained to me that she was diagnosed with an intellectual disability which stemmed away from learning in a classroom with other students. The fact she was able to retain information while working on a task was shocking to me but at the same time, very amazed. Throughout my service experience, I will continue furthering my knowledge about people with disabilities and supporting my core values that everybody has a chance in succeeding in the real world. I believe what started as an opportunity to complete my service hours, ended as a gift to myself from meeting new people.
