Family Life Education Methodology

Introduction

According to the National Council on Family Relations, “Family Life Education Methodology is an understanding of the general philosophy and broad principles of family life education in conjunction with the ability to plan, implement, and evaluate such educational programs.”

www.ncfr.org

It is important as a professional to be able to plan and implement education programs to fit the needs of the clients. Fitting the needs in the best way possible includes understanding the values and concerns of the clients. A professional is able to plan and provide an effective program that implements educational techniques.

Coursework

• Professional Seminar in Family Life Education– This class taught me the basics of Family Life Education. It helped me to understand what it takes to be a Family Life Educator and has prepared me to start out in a helping profession.
• Working with Parents – I had the opportunity in this class to learn how to prepare a teaching unit for parents. I prepared a parent education class that can be taught over the course of a month.
• The Helping Relationship – This class prepared me to be able to be involved in relationships within the helping profession. It taught me how to balance my career and my own personal life to be as an effective educator as possible.

Experience

• ­Life Choice Ministries – During the course of my internship I was able to construct a one-night class for mothers that have been clients of LCM. I worked around the needs of these clients to best fit my program to them.
• Pregnancy Testing Center – As a consultant of pregnancy testing, I have learned how to be sensitive to individuals in the way that I teach and provide information. This experience helped me grow as a professional in the way that I share information.            

Reflection

Throughout the course of college I have learned all about families, family structures, and the curriculum of a Family Life Educator. I have learned different ways to teach families and individuals in a way that is both sensitive to their needs and also to their values. As a pregnancy testing consultant, I have learned how to put my knowledge into play. I have gotten the chance to meet with many different clients from a wide array of backgrounds. With each one of these clients came both a learning opportunity and a time to display my knowledge as a Family Life Educator. It is especially important in these situations to be able to implement my education and also be sensitive to what the client is telling me and wanting to hear.

During my internship at Life Choice Ministries I had the opportunity to research the link between smoking and infertility. I had a client that was wanting to become pregnant but couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t happening. After the consultation I began to research this issue. If it weren’t for my knowledge from my previous college courses, I wouldn’t have thought to start researching the link between these two. I had the opportunity to learn about this and then implement the information into an upcoming meeting with the client. Through my observations and learning at my internship I found the best way possible to expand my education, share the information, and still be sensitive to the client.

Educating parents is a normal part of a doula’s job. As a Family Life Educator I will be able to continue my learning within the findings in the health profession and the birth doula profession. Sharing my knowledge with parents and then providing the best help based on my teachings is what is going to make me the best doula that I can be. I believe that I have to be involved with life-long learning as a doula to be able to plan, implement, and evaluate educational programs.

Professional Philosophy

WHO I AM AS A PROFESSIONAL

• As a professional in the helping field I strive to practice empathy, patience, honesty, courage, and respect. I do not intervene my personal life with my career. I respect diversity and encourage uniqueness in my clients and those in the workplace. I approach clients with compassion and an open heart. I handle situations based on ethics and responsibility.

 

PERSONAL GOALS

• I plan to be a life-long learner as a Family Life Educator to gain as much knowledge and skill possible to best serve my clients.

• I plan to continue to search and explore opportunities that will shape and broaden my career.

• I plan to step outside of my comfort zone in experiences and learning to be able to provide help to a wide variety of clients.

 

FAMILY

• The definition of family can be twisted and changed by each person. My own perception of family is two or more people that are related by blood, marriage, or adoption. I also believe that family can be defined by the love between people. There are so many cases were people, who are not bonded by blood, marriage, or adoption, still consider each other as family. Personally I have seen cases where a person who is not legally the parent, will act as a mother or father of a child. In these cases, that person is still considered family whether they are legally considered that or not. As a professional I have to be observant when working with families because every family structure is different. I will remember that every person has a different perception and idea of what is means to be a family.
• Family is very important in so many ways. A person’s family shows the history of who they are and can describe why they are the way that they are. For a child, family is where the life begins. It includes who is there for them, who loves and supports them, and who their care is coming from. Family is the basis for the child’s future. In a good family structure, they are the people who are going to be there for you and who will support you in what you do. They are there to help celebrate the ups of life and to comfort you during the downs of life.

STRONGEST CFLE CONTENT AREAS

• Two of my strongest content areas are “Interpersonal Relationships” and “Human Growth and Development across the Lifespan”. I believe that in my career, working on interpersonal relationships is what will develop my connections with clients and others who I will work with. It is the basis for what I build on. Having the knowledge of human growth and development is what helps me and will help me to be able to work with people of all ages. These content areas would not be my strongest if it weren’t for my strengths of communication, authenticity, and the thirst for continual learning.

 

CFLE CONTENT AREAS TO IMPROVE

• Two content areas that I continue to improve in are “Family Law and Public Policy” and “Family Life Education Methodology”. I plan to improve these through my continual education. Laws and policies continue to have changes made which requires continual growth as a professional to better serve clients. Improvement and growth of these content areas will continue as I advance in my career.

SHORT-TERM and LONG-TERM GOALS

• My short-term goal as a doula is to finish my certification to become a birth doula through DONA. I will continue to go to trainings and workshops as they come up. These trainings will include new findings in the birthing, laboring, and health world. As a long-term goal I plan to begin my certification to become a midwife. I plan to get involved with the hospital personnel and the health organizations within the community.

Parenting Reflection

Parenting Reflection

What kind of parent do I hope to be? This is a question that I have thought about before but one that I have never gone into depth with. Of course everyone wants to say that they are going to be or hope to be a “perfect” parent but there is so much more that goes into it than just hoping to be a good parent. I don’t think there is any hope that is too high when you’re learning about parenting because I think that there is always something that parents can still learn or get better at. My parents have a set a great example for what I want to be and how I want to parent when I have children of my own.

When I think about the type of parent I want to be, I think about how my friends’ parents treated them. Some of my friends had parents who wanted to be their best friend and treated their friends as their own friends. Other friends had parents who were very strict with them and never really wanted much to do with their friends. I hope to be in the middle of those two spectrums because I find it necessary to be a child’s parent rather than their friend, but I also want my child to be able to come to me with their problems and thoughts. I want my children to know that I am in charge and that they can’t run all over me but at the same time be comfortable around me and their father. It is important for me to have my husband and me on the same page when it comes to parenting because I want us to be on the same level with our children. I know I am going to have to work on selfishness when it comes to this. Right now I have my own thoughts and ideas on how I want to treat my children and how I want them to behave, so I am going to have to work on listening to other strategies for children when I get married.

According to “Raising a Responsible Child”, the democratic parenting style respects children and accepts them as they are, respects all rights, allows children to be responsible for their own problems, gives choices within limits, involves children in decisions, and permits children to experiences consequences of their decisions. This parenting style, to me, would make an awesome parent, if it were possible to follow all of those. I want to follow along the lines of being a democratic parent but I know that there are always going to be road blocks that test my parenting skills. When I become a parent I want the democratic parenting style to be my guideline for how I treat my children. Even though I know that I have many things to work on before I become a parent, I think having the goal to have the democratic parenting style as my style will help me become the parent that I want to be.

One area of the democratic parenting style that I am going to have to work on is the response to misbehavior. The democratic parenting style responds to misbehavior by permitting the child to experience consequences. The other two parenting styles, according to “Raising a Responsible Child”, are autocratic and permissive. The autocratic style responses to misbehavior by punishing them with withdrawing privileges and spanking, and the permissive style reasons with misbehavior. I grew up with my parents spanking me and withdrawing privileges when I misbehaved and that is how I learned. I think when I become a parent I will have those same thoughts when my child misbehaves without even thinking about them. I think my first response might be to punish them but that is going to have to be something I work on. I want to work on this because I remember what is was like to have punishments. I almost wanted to misbehave more when my parents responded that way, rather than actually thinking about what I did wrong. I definitely see the positive side of treating misbehavior with permitting the child to experience consequences but I know that I am going to have to work on that when I have children.

I know there are going to be many things that I have to work on when I become a parent, but I know one thing I will have to work on is discouragement. I know that I am good at encouraging children since I work in a day care, but there are many different ways that you can discourage a child without even knowing. According to “Raising a Responsible Child” there are three forces that can happy within the family atmosphere. These three are high standards, sibling competition, and over ambition. I can remember all three of these happening when I was younger and I don’t think my parents ever knew or meant to have them become discouraging. Getting good grades was always something that was expected in my family. I would always feel discouraged when I wouldn’t get a high grade on something because I knew my parents expected good grades from me. I hope that when I become a parent I will find a way to encourage my child to do well in school without discouraging them by expecting certain grades from them. I also want to work on ways to help my children so that when they want to do something they will try rather than quitting because they don’t feel like they’re good enough. Even though I am good at encouraging children I know that I need to work on not discouraging them with how I present things and how I talk to them.

In the book “Raising a Responsible Child” it talks about having family meetings so that children can feel like participants in the family. When I was growing up we never had family meetings so I never got to experience what these are like. “Raising a Responsible Child” said that to develop a new and democratic relationship in the family you need to take the time and give opportunities to communicate ideas, give feedback and reactions to family members, and commit to invest time in communicating together with feedback on a regular basis. I think this is very important in a child’s life to get time that is set aside to just talk to their parents and siblings. This is definitely something that my someday husband and I are going to have to work on and talk about since I have never experienced this. I think that some topics that can be talked about at these meetings can be what the next week will look like, any activities that the children want to participate in, and what has happened in the last week. I find it important for children to have a schedule for their week, even if it is a little bit flexible. During these meetings we could give the children opportunities to plan a family night and just give them time to be with the whole family. I don’t think that I would necessarily want set rules for these meetings but rather just give everyone time to talk to and be with each other.

As excited as I am to become a parent someday, I also am a little scared because I know that there are so many different things to remember when parenting. I know that my love for children will definitely help but I know that there is always room for improvement. I hope to work on my patience, selfishness, and my discouragement to children so that I can become the best parent for my children. I know what type of parent that I want to be and have learned so much about what it takes to become that type of parent. I think my next step is to continue to learn about children and parenting so that I can share with my future husband so that my children can get the best parents that they can have.

Citations

Dinkmeyer, D., & McKay, G. D. (1996) Raising a Responsible Child: How to Prepare Your Child for Today’s Complex World. New York: Fireside.

Professional Ethics and Practice

Introduction

According to the National Council on Family Relations, “Professional Ethics and Practice is an understanding of the character and quality of human social conduct, and the ability to critically examine ethical questions and issues as they relate to professional practice.”

http://www.ncfr.org

Ethics includes your own personal values and the social consequences of the actions of value choices. As a professional, ethics is what drives you make the decisions that you do and also for the actions and attitudes you show to others. Not only is professional ethics deciding between what is right and wrong, but it is being able to identify actions within the workplace.

Coursework

• Professional Seminar in Family Life Education– This class helped me understand the true definition of ethics. I learned about the different ethical principles and practiced making ethical decisions.
• Family Violence – This class taught me about the different types of violence within the family system. I learned how situations should be handled and how to do so in the right way. This class brought in ethics because it described one’s personal values and how that is handled.
• Families and Diversities – Families and Diversities helped me to understand families in multiple contexts who all have different values. I learned about many different cultures and oppression that can help to understand the reasoning behind the actions made based on personal and family values.

Experience

• ­Life Choice Ministries – My internship taught me how ethics work within an organization. I learned and observed on a daily basis what it meant to have personal and professional ethics through the work that I did and through the work that others did within the organization.
• San Marcos Mission Trip– I got the chance to spend a week in San Marcos, Texas working on homes of people who were less fortunate. This experience enhanced my own personal values and opened my eyes up to new situations.
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• LEOS – I had the opportunity to serve on the board as both the president and the treasurer for our LEOS club in high school. This experience taught me many lessons about the values of a community and of our LEOS club.

Reflection

Our own personal ethics are what guide us to live our lives the way that we do. I was blessed to grow up in a family where positive values were instilled in me. I didn’t know it then, but as a young child I was being taught what ethics were and was practicing them on a daily basis. As a professional in the workplace it is very important to have guidelines set for ethics so that everything can run as smoothly as possible. I find it very important for everyone to be practicing the same principles of ethics as professionals. I have observed this during my internship at Life Choice Ministries and by being involved with other organizations. Confidentiality is just one of the many ethical practices that I practiced on a daily basis. It was and still is my job as a professional following the ethic codes to maintain the privacy and protect the confidentiality of my clients, those who I work with, and others within my career.

In my Pre-Professional Seminar class, we learned about ethical principles and how they connected to a career as a Family Life Educator. Ethical principles serve as a foundation for when problems occur. They help to guide solutions in challenging situations that may occur within a workplace or even within personal situations. As a Certified Family Life Educator, the guidelines of ethics are going to guide my helping hands and the thought processes that go on while helping others.

As like any profession, the Birth Doula’s from “Doulas of North America” have their code of ethics that they follow for their line of work. As a doula from DONA, I will be practicing those ethics with integrity by clearly defining my ethical responsibilities to clients, colleagues, the profession and society. As a doula I will not only have to be practicing my own ethics for myself and my career, but observing and learning how my clients respond to my ethics and what ethics they have set for themselves. The very first rule of conduct for DONA’s Code of Ethics is propriety. As a birth doula it is very important to maintain high standards of personal conduct both as the role of the doula and as an individual. As a doula I plan on practicing professional ethics both in my personal life and as a professional.

Resume

C:\Users\Erika\Desktop\INTERNSHIP\FINISHED RESUME.mht

 

Family Law and Public Policy

Introduction

According to the National Council on Family Relations, “Family Law and Pubic Policy is an understanding of legal issues, policies, and laws influencing the well-being of families.” As a certified family life educator, it is very important to have the knowledge of the law and policies that revolve around families.  Everyday, families are involved with laws and policies that affect them in both large and small impacts. It is my job as a certified family life educator to be able to help families have the knowledge of the laws and polices and for them to be able to work through that.

http://www.ncfr.org

Coursework

• The Family – This class prepared me to be able to view families through the family life cycle. It taught me how family law and public policy takes place within families lives.
• Family Violence – This class taught me about the different types of violence within the family system. We got to connect the violence to real life situations to see what the possible outcomes could be. These cases involved family law and public policy.
• Families and Diversities – Families and Diversities helped me to understand families in multiple contexts. I learned about many different cultures and oppression, and how the laws and policies affect those individuals and their families.

Experience

• Life Choice Ministries – I have learned and observed how families are affected by the laws and policies. I have seen the effects of finances, protection of children, and medicare on clients. As an intern, I was able to watch the process of an adoption. I also saw first hand how women’s rights and family laws affected individuals and families within the community.
• Center for Child Development – I have observed many different family situations as an aide in the classroom. I have seen how different child laws and also financial laws affect children and their families.
• Via Christi Hospital – As a volunteer in the birth and women’s center, I got to observe the different practices and policies that took place. I also observed the confidentiality of families during this time of their lives.

Reflection

As a certified family life educator is it very important to know what the family laws and policies are. These affect families every day and impact how people are helped. I have personally been impacted by family laws and policies even as a worker in the human services area. I have gone through background checks for jobs and have signed many confidentiality papers. Working at the KSU Center for Child Development and also being an intern at Life Choice Ministries means that I am also a mandated reporter. This impacts how I interact with clients and also families that I come into contact with. It is the law for me to report situations that are not right. I personally have not had to be faced with this situation, but I have had the training for what it takes to be able to make a report.

As an intern at Life Choice Ministries I have seen how law works within the organization business from beginning to end. The law impacts the organization in ways such as funding, taxes, medical referrals, social security, adoption, insurance, and many other ways. Another way that the law impacts LCM is through the confidentiality. I have signed many papers saying that any information that I handle or hear will remain confidential unless necessary to break that. This also requires me to have clients sign these forms after performing a pregnancy test that allows me to send their information to a specific medical business or any other business that they need it be sent to. Confidentiality also affects phone calls and having that reassurance from the caller for who is calling and asking for information.

As a doula is will be important for me to know the laws and polices that revolve around pregnancy and childbirth, and also around new families. A few of these laws include insurance, birth certificates, social security, and medical referrals. All of these are going to affect new parents and I have to be aware of all of them.  I have learned many of these laws from my personal experiences and also as the intern at Life Choice Ministries – The Pregnancy Center. Many clients who come in have troubles with these specific policies and I have given many resources and help to these clients.

 

 

Interpersonal Relationships

Introduction

According to the National Council on Family Relations, “Interpersonal Relationships is an understanding of the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships.” Interpersonal relationships include the relationships that you have with your self and also with others. As a Family Life Educator it is very important to establish these relationships and to understand how to maintain them. With the main goal of helping others, these interpersonal relationships become key to caring for others. I think that forming these relationships with clients and others helps to set that first foundation for the work that will be done.

http://www.ncfr.org

Coursework

• The Helping Relationship – I learned the characteristics of what a healthy helping relationship looks like. It prepared me to be able to recognize the needs of individuals and families and what steps to take to be able to attend to those needs.
• Developing Intimate Relationships– This class prepared me to develop intimate relationships by exploring attraction, communication, casual encounters, cohabitation, and conflict. It taught me not only how to establish these relationships for myself, but how to help others develop these relationships.
• Working with Parents – This class prepared me to have the knowledge of parent education. It taught me techniques for working with parents and for working within a family context and how those relationships should look like to gain a relationship.

Experience

• Big Brothers Big Sisters – I had the opportunity to have a little sister for three years. We developed a loving and trusting relationship together. I had to chance to be able to visit her at least once a week during lunch hours to sit and talk with her and enjoy activities together.
• Pregnancy Testing Center – I developed many interpersonal relationships with clients who came in for pregnancy tests. Developing trusting and open relationships with clients was a major part of my internship. I enjoyed learning how to develop and maintain these relationships.
• Center for Child Development – I was able to work with many different parents as children as an aide. I developed working relationships and also interpersonal relationships within the setting. I also worked with different teachers and aides which allowed me to develop relationships within the work setting.

Reflection

Interpersonal relationships have an impact on my everyday life. My class work, internship, work, and personal life all revolve around these relationships that I have made. It affects what I do and who I interact with. Being able to maintain these relationships also impact many different situations. Through all of my experience, I have the knowledge to be a Family Life Educator who can have relationships that include listening, empathy, problem-solving, and conflict resolution. These are all important skills to be able to develop relationships where clients will feel open and trusted.

I work at building interpersonal relationships daily. As a consultant of pregnancy tests at Life Choice Ministries, it is necessary to be able to form a relationship with clients so that they feel welcome and comfortable. Getting a pregnancy test isn’t always easy and most of the time, their situations are difficult to handle. These times are when the relationship skills come into play. I think that there is always a time when interpersonal relationships should and shouldn’t be made, but when you are trying to connect with someone on a personal level, it is definitely a necessary time. I think that in any helping occupation it is necessary to be able to build interpersonal relationships because it takes more than just business relationship to really be able to have a deep conversation.

Working with children also requires a lot of interpersonal relationship. They require communication, problem-solving, trust, openness, and many other skills to allow them to be able to thrive and feel comfortable. Not only do I have to have those relationships with the children, but also with the parents. It is something that is worked on everyday to be able to talk about the events from the day and to be personal about that child.

As a doula it will be very important to build those interpersonal relationships with clients. Communication is a major factor in these relationships, especially in the time before delivery. A doula should be able to listen to all of the wants and needs of the couple, especially the mother. If that communication is there, then the couple is going to feel more open to me and will be able to build that trust. Many couples have a specific birth plan that they want, and others haven’t even thought about what that can and will look like. With a good relationship I can help them to create that plan and also listen for what specifics are wanted during childbirth.