Social Service Building

Transcription

Carlos Romero: My job here is a fulfilling job. I really enjoy being challenged everyday. Everyday I have new cases. Everyday I have new challenges with the families and the students. It's something that I really enjoy doing. My name is Carlos Romero and I work with Northwest Family Services, in Portland, Oregon. I work here in the school two days a week as a case manager. I work with 20 Latino students and their families. I provide prevention and intervention services, forwarding and referrals. So we are kind of integrating the whole packet with family, with academics. I meet with students in an after school program twice a week. And for 2 hours we do tutoring and mentoring. And then we do prevention in drugs and alcohol, gang, pregnancy prevention. And we do career development and cultural development. And we teach skills, such as, avoiding risky behavior with them. Carlos: Javier, como estas? Carlos: I want that a student feels relaxed before I deal with any of the issues that I need to deal with him. So I walk around hall and just touch base - what's going on, how' life -kind of get to know the student, before I address the issue that I need to address with him. Carlos: So what happened here, Javier. Can you explain to me what's going on here? Javier: Graffiti. Carlos: So if we provide to you a way to do graffiti that is not gang related, would you like to do something like that? Javier: The only kind of graffiti I know how to do is gang related. Carlos: The only one that you know how to do is gang related. What about, if we try to do something different. What if I find a book that has different graffiti that is more artistic than gang related and we can get ideas from that book. Carlos: As I was walking with him in the hallway, I told him, " you don't care about what we just told you, right?" He told me, "I understand and thank you for being honest, Javier. Because this is what we need to know, what is going on with you." And he kind of turned to me and he smiled. So we agreed that we are going to meet on Tuesday. I think he opened a little bit. I think I can grasp something, now. Carlos: "Thank you I appreciate that." My next thing to do is I need to meet with a student. I know that her dad was arrested, but she doesn't know that I know this. I've been working with this particular student for over two years. I've even been in her home, doing home visits. So I will try to explore how I can support the family. One of the things I want to do first is talk about academics, grades and behavior. In this case I'm checking Arianne, her grades. We're comparing the progress report from last term to this term. And I'm really pleased. Arianne is an excellent student. She has straight As. And I'm really proud of her. She's made great progress and making a lot of effort in getting those As. And I'm going to check the goals that Arianne has set for herself for this year and see how we are doing with that. And I'm going to do it in Spanish. Carlos: "e studiare mas salud comer mas saludarle. Como estan".. And then I will ask about family. And when I asked that, she told me everything was fine. I said everything is fine and she said yes. So what about your dad? Is your dad at home? She said, yeah he's at home. So I asked her, if I wanted to meet with him tonight, can I call and meet with him tonight? She kind of hesitated when I asked that. So I saw her emotions. She got teary-eyed. And I asked what's going on. And she told me, my dad, he's going to be deported to Mexico some time. We don't know when. So my intention of getting to that point was to verify what I knew was true. And to understand what's going on at home. What are the dynamics now that the dad is not supporting the family. And I wanted to figure out what are the needs of the family. So we can connect here with the school social worker or with another agency that can support or help them in that area. Social Worker: The best way for me to refer her is to fill out this form, the referral form. An put it in my box. And I will follow up. Okay Social Worker: So what I'm going to need is the name of the student, because that's how we work. Carlos: And I will leave a note to you, saying I spoke with the mom and she agrees. Thank you. Social Worker: Thank you". Carlos: Some of them are newcomers and some of them have been here for many years they were born here some of them have trouble with identity who I am Chicano, Latino, Mexican-American, Latino-Americano, Latina-Americana. So there are challenges that you experience with them. Some of the traits that you need to have is compassion, being open to other cultures and other walks in life. When you're in a school you find people with different points of view about things. And especially the students they are looking to connect with you and you need to be open to find what they believe, what they want to talk about. You need to find that connection with them. Sometimes I go in at lunchtime and they want to do arm wrestle with me. Because I don't want them to see me as the bad guy. We goof around. We do some kind of connection with them. Kids: Come on, come on, come on". Carlos: I'm getting ready with their grades because during the after school program I'm going to be calling some of the kids to a desk and I'm going to review with them their grades from last term to their latest progress report. We met for about 20 minutes and I told her that I needed to do " that we are going to do a plan of missing assignments. And that see needs to give that to me this afternoon. So we can really see where she's at". Teacher: You see, the report cards are next week, so". Carlos: Your social Studies teacher just stopped me in the hall and she told me that you need to take care of business. I told her that we were going to work this afternoon in trying to catch up as much as you need to. Because the reports cards are coming next week. So you have time until next week to take care of business. All right? Part of my job is in the after school program. Get on their cases and really confront them with the reality, if you don't do homework, you are going to get bad grades. You're going to a high school and high school is going to be way different than middle school. And I want these kids go next year to high school ready to face high school. I want that you get going with homework. I don't want to hear, I don't have homework. Because you do have homework. Some of you guys are missing assignments". So this is what's going on. Raffa doesn't have homework. And he's usually right. Usually. Raffa: Aaah! Carlos: So he's going to be doing. He wants to be the clown today. It's fine. But what he's going to be doing, he's going to be helping Monasie with some late assignments that she has. Sometimes you prepare something and you have a big plan for the day and you don't know how the students are coming. They've been sitting in the school since 8 in the morning. So when they come at 3 o clock for the after school program they are tired, they are cranky. They choose to stay, but you need to take into consideration how they are doing emotionally. If there is something going on during the day in the school that's effecting them. As a group and then individually see what's happening with each of them. So with some of them I will pressure them and say we need to do homework. Some will probably play a game and kind of relax then I'll say now is your time to get going with homework. Especially, for example, with the students I met with in the morning, some of them will come to that after school program. And I know that there are things going on in their lives that may be stressful right now. So I don't want to really be tough on them. So I just let them chill, have a social time. Because it's part of having a social time there too. So for me, one of the rewards that I have here working with these students is when I think that I'm a part of the learning process that these kids are having here. I can picture some of them going to school, going to college and one day even being lawyers, nurses or professionals. It's something that really makes me excited about. It's really rewarding for me knowing that they are going to make it one day. "have a lot. Wow (fade out)