Michelle is a 34 year old youth social worker that works with youth on a regular basis. She carries out workshops for teens by teens talking about bullying, healthy relationships and youth violence.
She works very well with the youth she does the workshops with. It is really clever how she made the teens operate the workshops, because teens are most likely to relate to someone who are in their age group and open up more than they would with someone older tah they are.
These workshops are very educative and infomative. This helps young people to get involved in what is going on in their community. Michelle has special meetings for the RISE reps where they go through traing to make the workshops more interesting and accurate in information.
Michelle is a very interpersonal person who deals with people on a regular basis. She cares very much for her community and she worked in a womens shelter before she started working at East Metro Youth Services (EMYS)
Workshops are performed at Thomson and Cedabrae, and the team that runs these workshops are called RISE reps. RISE stands for respect in schools everywhere. Michelle's next task is to
make the RISE project wider throughout the school board and not only in these two schools.
Interview questions
Q: Did you ever picture yourself working with troubled youth?
A: I always had a passion for helping people in their time of need. I am not surprised that i am here today working with people in need, but it did surprise me that i am apart of an organization that helps teens. I pictured myself working as a flight intendent because i really enjoy travelling, but being a scoial worker makes me very happy and i don't regret being apart of (EMYS)
Q: What is your most outsatnding acheivement?
A: My most outstanding acheivement was being elected validictorian. This made my parents and I very proud and that really helped my confidence throughout my school days.
Q: Where you on any school team?
A: I joind the debate team in high school where I gained valuable skills like persuation and team work skills. These skills helped me greatly throught my evrery day life and most jobs out there require these skills.
Q: What were your school days like for you?
A: Going to school for me was very difficult because there was a lot of bullying going on around the school and nothing was done about it. This probably helped shaped the direction I went in as being a scocial worker. Overall my school work was fairly easy because i studied hard and i will encourage everyone to do the same to achieve good things in life.
Q: How long do you see yourself working for EMYS?
A: I plan on staying in this job for a long time to come, it makes a difference in many lives and thats all the pay i need. Well I do get paid for my job to support myself, but if i had to volunteer i would do it in a heart beat.
Q: How was it for you working in the womens shelter?
A: It is not very easy to talk about what i saw going on in these womens lives, why they had to come to the shelter. Some were in abusive realtionships and have to flee with their children. In many cases these womens self esteem were lowered to the point where some wanted to commit suicide. We do outreach programs to help these women. I am very happy i was apart of helping these women.
Q: Is there any advice you would like to share for anyone who are having problems in their life?
A: I have to say to anyone who has any problems in their life to just stay strong although that phrase as been used a lot. Just have faith in yourself and you can do anything you put ypur mind to. Dont let your problems weigh you down just stay strong and believe in yourself.
Well thank you for your time and I relly appreciate you having this interview with me.
By: Tenisa
