Lake Browne

During my time as a full-time program coordinator, I ran the after school program at two different elementary schools. For three summers, myself, along with two other PCs, ran summer camp in the East district; four schools combined with up to 130 kids.

This was an amazing opportunity that allowed me to get to know children from three other schools, along with the children from my after school site.

I gained knowledge and experience with foster children suffering from recent trauma and a variety of behaviors. I was also able to apply my knowledge about children with ASD/ADHD/ODD, as I managed challenging behaviors and encouraged growth for atypical children in our programs.

After school job description:

-Running the program for a three-group site with 55-58 children.

-Checking each child in and out of program each day.

-Weekly planning, curriculum, special events, ordering materials/centers/craft supplies for all children monthly, weekly schedules for each group of children, making rosters, maintaining licensing protocol.

-Daily communication with parents and the youth mentors I supervised.

-Conflict resolution and problem solving amongst small and large groups groups of children.

-Creating and implementing behavior plans as needed and communication with therapists, teachers, and parents about consistency of behavior plans.

-Training youth mentors on positive reinforcement, redirecting behaviors, and group management.

-Daily administrative work.

-Regular communication and planning with other program coordinators in my district and out of my district.

-Providing care to the three-year-old room's children alongside another teacher.

-Supervising and entertaining up to 12 three-year-old children at a time.

-Logging data for parents using an app throughout the day for each child. (Details about lunch, snack, potty-training progress, and any behaviors to report)

-Leading circle time, group games, movement and music, arts and crafts, and story time/dramatic play.

-Working to meet the needs of individual potty-training goals and progress.

-Parent communication.

-Implementing the development of three-year-old skills such as letters, numbers, colors, shapes, site words, pretend play, song singing, self-soothing, and emotional awareness.

*I never planned to work as a preschool teacher. I decided to give it a try when a friend assisted in opening PCD in Johns Island, SC, before I followed through with my plan to move to Asheville, NC a year later.

Over the course of seven years, I worked with multiple clients privately, offering a wide variety of therapeutic care.

*One-on-one care for a client with ODD, "shadowing" her for the entire day while she was in preschool.

*Reading and writing tutoring for two clients with dyslexia and dysgraphia, using the Orton-Gillingham approach.

*Music therapy for multiple clients, teaching ukulele, singing, drums, tambourine, shakers, etc. while addressing emotional regulation and working on each child's targets throughout.

*Art therapy for a client on the spectrum, helping her move past her fear of getting messy by slowly integrating painting, along with various other forms of art.

*Behavioral therapy, working with a client with challenging anger control: using exercises to address emotional control, emotional recognition, calming strategies, treating siblings appropriately, and journaling thoughts and emotions.

I worked as a private caregiver for young woman on the autism spectrum from the time she was 18 years old until 24 years old.

Over the course of six years, we spent at least 20 hours a week together.

We worked on vocational skills around her house, such as hanging up clothing, rinsing dishes, bathing and brushing teeth properly, and various tasks her mother needed help teaching her.

We went into the community often to work on social skills, waiting in line, trying new things, and going new places.

I taught her how to bead necklaces, which eventually lead to her being able to sell some of her jewelry.

I accompanied her to a day program with other adults on the spectrum to encourage socializing appropriately and making new friends.

We also worked constantly on fixations, obsessions, rituals, recognizing and understanding emotions, and any other issue that her mother felt interfered with their lives.

This company was Carolina Autism, and changed to SOS Healthcare in 2014. I was already employed with Carolina Autism and stayed with the company for the transition.

*I did in-home, community, preschool, after school, and clinc therapy sessions with my clients.

*I was a lead therapist, which meant that I went in and supervised the line therapists providing support, training, modeling, and feedback.

*I was up-keeping the targets in programs, adding new targets when needed, introducing new skills, making behavior plans, recording mastered targets, and running targets from the retention folder so that they could be mastered.

*Creating and maintaining positive and thriving relationships with parents.

*Communicating with non-verbal and deaf children.

*Visual schedules, token boards/systems/, visual stories.

*Social interaction and appropriate play.

*In-home vocational skills.

*Natural environment teaching.

*ABC data and recording problem behaviors.

*I worked under two BCBAs who encouraged collaboration and gave me the autonomy to use my creativity and add new targets to programs, which I really enjoyed.

Charleston Autism Academy was a private, therapeutic academy serving children ages 4-18. We collaborated and co-treated with our client's other therapists, such as physical and occupational, and offered up our space as a full-time ABA center/clinical setting. This center was a replacement for school, and the clients we served went there full time.

I worked with each participant throughout my time there.

Through ABA, we covered age-appropriate academics, social interaction, peer-play, exercise, meditation, fine and gross motor skills, communication skills, and emotional recognition and regulation.

Each child had their own individualized program and targets, but we spent a lof of time together as a group.

I took children out into the community to places like the library and grocery stores, and worked on things like making grocery lists and finding the things in the grocery store.

We worked on vocational skills, such as cooking, setting a table, doing dishes, vacuuming, hanging up clothes, organizing and sorting, and various other activities, with the goal of each child becoming as independent as possible.

I was a big part of the gardening program and worked with each child, individually, on gardening skills and concepts.

I also did in-home therapy with multiple clients from Charleston Autism Academy.

This was the first ABA company I worked for and I received training, guidance and support from my team.

I did in-home ABA therapy with the support of a lead therapist and a BCBA.

One-on-one therapy with up to five clients at a time.

Creating communication systems with non-verbal and deaf clients.

Sing language.

Addressing aggressive behaviors.

Natural environment teaching.

Social interaction.

Gross and fine motor.

Potty-training.

Assisting with picky eating.

Evening routine in-home goals involving dinner, bath and bed time.

Going to our headquarters for supplies and meetings.

Making behavior plans and token systems for clients.

Taking data and keeping the targets updated and organized.

Graphing data.

Working on challenges with children and their parents in the community.

Appropriate play with siblings.

Addressing problem behaviors.

Redirecting behaviors.

Positively reinforcing behaviors.

Creating and maintaining positive relationships with parents.