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(woman)
I got into this field
after working
at a developmental
disabilities summer camp.
After that, it changed
the way I looked at life
and changed what I wanted
to do with life.
Developmental disabilities
are a range of disabilities
that an individual would have
that can be either
mental and/or physical.
Those may include
different diagnosis,
such as Down syndrome,
cerebral palsy,
intellectual disabilities,
autism.
Wood Lane assists individuals
from birth to adulthood
in different program areas.
We start out with
early intervention,
and then we have
school-aid services,
and then we have
transition services for youth
that are preparing to make
that transition into adulthood,
and then we work
with adults also.
What I do for this agency is
I work with the individuals
that are in the community
employment program,
and we assist them in
working out in the community.
On different job sites,
I may be there to see
how things are going.
I communicate with
the supervisors of that site.
I could also communicate with
individuals that we serve,
communicate with the job coach,
see if there's any areas
that are becoming difficulties
and help them
problem-solve those areas
to come up with different
solutions that may work better.
Anna, I'm working
on next week's schedule.
Could you help me figure out
which sites are working?
(Pruett)
Some key responsibilities as
a community training supervisor
would be supervising
the job coaches
who work with individuals
at the different job sites.
I manage and arrange
their schedules.
We do a lot of checking
and answering emails,
fielding phone calls,
providing support
to the job coaches
in whatever they may need.
My educational background is
I have a bachelor's degree,
and it's a Bachelor's of Science
in Psychology.
My degree helps simply because
I was able to understand
the developmental part
of what individuals go through
throughout their life process.
You can start out with
a high school diploma,
but if you go into
supervisory roles,
there are
different supervisor roles
that require a bachelor's,
if not a master's degree.
How are you guys?
Good.
Was wondering if you were going
to come over about 10:30
to check out Joe
and his food prep skills.
That's right.
It's on my calendar.
(Pruett)
Classes that would be helpful
in middle school or high school
would be any classes
that would relate
to different computer software,
like Microsoft Office.
Another one is tech ed,
to be able to help
design different things
to assist individuals
in the field.
Creative writing
or business writing
because communication is
going to be very important,
whether or not that is
verbal communication
or written communication,
so English would be
very good in there.
And any type of class
that's going to help
develop your creativity
would be really good.
Everybody we work with
has different needs.
What works for one person won't
necessarily work for others.
We need to be creative
in how we're going to work
with each individual.
It's going to be important
in this field
not to completely rely
on technical devices
because you're interacting with
individuals with disabilities
as part of a large team.
It's going to be essential
that you're able
to communicate well
with the individuals,
the individual's families,
different team members,
and the employers.
What attracted me to this field,
knowing it wouldn't be easy,
is I really enjoy
being able to make a difference
in somebody else's life.
Funding to purchase and make
this educational production
accessible was provided by the
U.S. Department of Education:
PH: 1-800-USA-LEARN (V)
or WEB: www.ed.gov.
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