42yrs

female

Speaks English, Sign Language (ASL)

In the summer of my sophomore/junior year of high school (1997), I volunteered at my local disabled person's recreational center. There, I worked with children, teens, and young adults with a myriad of physical, mental, and developmental differences. My duties included helping the staff keep track of clients on field trips, playing games (both active and less active) with clients, wheelchair pushing, reading, coloring, singing, and helping to prepare meals with special diets in mind. In my senior year of high school (1999), I was a teacher's aide in my school's severely handicapped physical education class. My duties as a TA were pushing wheelchairs, assisting students with balance, being involved in PE, American Sign Language (ASL), and just generally being a friend to all of the students in the class. I also have a very good friend who has moderate to severe spastic cerebral palsy and is confined to an electric wheelchair. Some of the things I have done with and for her are helping her to bathe and wash her hair while in her chair, dressing, changing clothing, toileting; and, when her electric chair was out of service, pushing her around in a manual chair at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. I am currently studying to become an EMT/Paramedic. I have finished my EMT Basic class and I am currently taking an Anatomy and Physiology class.