Alexandra Schwartz – Port Washington Children’s Center

Emily Silver - Young Adult Institution

Before I made any commitments I met with my supervisor Ellen and took a tour of the building, meeting some of the staff and some of the consumers who attend the program. I learned more about the organization and how it was run. Y.A.I is a day rehabilitation center. The staff members that are working with the consumers try to help them to become more independent and self sufficient despite their disabilities. Upon taking the tour and sitting in on a group I felt more and more comfortable and decided to take my Dad’s advice and volunteer there.

Y.A.I is one building with many separate rooms. The schedule is set up where there is a morning activity and an afternoon activity as well as a few all day activities where the staff takes the consumers out into the community. I was not properly trained so I was only allowed to help in the activities that remained in the building. I sat through some training videos and learned how to react and handle certain situations such as if a consumer if refusing to listen or if they are about to act out physically against another consumer or staff member. Luckily I was never put in that situation.

I would arrive there around 8:30, which was the same time the consumers were expected to get there. They would go directly into their first activity. On my first day at YA.I I was still nervous and unsure of where my place would be. I was put into a group called “Smile in a Bag” to help the consumers complete the activity. Smile in a bag was a group where the consumers would draw cards for the sick children in the hospital that would be put into little bags of toys and games. That is just one specific example however. For the most part I would sit in on the groups, helping the consumers to read, write, count or assist in whatever the main activity was. I felt that although I may not have been “needed” there that I was a good addition and that I helped make the staff’s jobs a little easier.

It is hard to pick one specific example of something that I learned from the experience. I feel as if they whole summer was one long learning experience. I went into this program uncomfortable and not knowing how to handle the consumers or how to act around them. I was afraid of offending somebody or acting inappropriately unintentionally. It did not take long however for me to realize that these adults were not much different, The consumers may need extra help with basic activities however they still had their own feelings and opinions, likes and dislikes, and they are their own people. Not that I didn’t know this before but I was never put face to face with an experience like this where I had to work with them directly. I would absolutely say that I did not just help to teach them skills and such but they most definitely helped to teach me a thing or two as well.

The experience I had a Y.A.I this summer definitely allowed me to practice and fulfill the U.U. principles by which I was raised. I learned whole-heartedly about the inherent worth and dignity of each human despite what cards they may have been dealt in life, such as physical or mental handicaps. I was encouraged to see these people for who they truly were and hot for what they were seen as on the outside. The consumers were given the freedom to choose what activities they wanted to participate in or whether or not they wanted to participate in them at all. I was able to speak to many of them as equals, which I was nervous about at first but became very comfortable with very soon. My experience at Y.A.I absolutely strengthened my Unitarian Universalist values and beliefs and gave me an excellent opportunity to practice them and help myself feel as if I made a difference in the community.