Well, I have been a Social Worker since before I graduated with a Master's
degree in 1979.
I worked in a shelter for Runaway teens, supervised delinquents, been a full
time parent of a three year old. That was the hardest job I ever had.
Then I got a job working with Native Americans and other persons living with
poverty in an Inner City Health Clinic. Since the fall of 1997, I provided
Vision Loss adjustment Services in a rehabilitation Center. During that
time, I started teaching adaptive technology.
When I was laid off from that job in 2006, I started my own business.
Since nobody would employee me, I became the President, Janitor, and
everything else of my own company.
In 2010, I became the clinical director of a Mental Health and AODA clinic,
again providing services to persons living with poverty. That clinic closed
in the fall of 2012.
I still provide Computer related services in person, over the Internet, and
by phone.
My value system motivated me to create a sliding fee scale for clients,
based on a compromise between my needs to get paid, and the client's ability
to pay. It starts at $10 per hour for people who qualify for Medicaid.
I don't know anybody else who does this.
I never would have gotten My longest job, if the people doing the Interview
hadn't been my colleagues in graduate school. They knew what I could do,
and how I did it. Today that door would never have opened, because of the
impersonal and automated process of the employment recruitment process.
Of all my six children, I am closest with my oldest daughter. I think that
is the reward for the year and a half that I spent taking care of her.
I think she is the only child who associates Mr. Rogers with a tobacco pipe
and a beer. That was our routine before her afternoon nap.
When we went for a walk, she had to have her own cane. She didn't take it
when she went for a walk with her Mom. I dismantled a cane, and put it back
together for her height.
She framed the world this way, and this is a quote from her at age three.
"Mommies can see and Daddies can't.
Today she is an oncology nurse at the Lombardi cancer center.
Yes this is a proud Dad!!!
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