Personal Narrative: My Behavioral Change Project

At the age of nine, I watched my uncles lowering my father into the ground and what took his life was addiction. All my life I have watched addiction take over the lives of people, I love. My father's side of the family, besides my grandparents, has always faced addiction. Although, addiction runs through my blood, I will not take the same path I have watched people take all my life. I will be the one to end the cycle. Watching the majority of my family waste their life has motivated me to change the direction and better myself from living a life of addiction and misery.

The agency that I visited for my placement is called Positive Change Academy. This academy is located in Wilmington Delaware. Wilmington Delaware is a city where about 17,000 of its residents are living below the poverty level. Positive Change is an alternative school for children in 1st through 8th grade. Children are enrolled in this school usually due to behavioral issues. The goal is to equip the children with the appropriate resources to help reintegrate them all back into public, or private schooling systems. I had the pleasure of interviewing with Mr. Miller: Director of Education. Mr. Miller stated that he is basically the assistant principal at the school.

From my first engagement with John until now, I maintained the MI spirit by honoring and accepting his autonomy, providing support, evoking hope, and by recognizing my crucial role in supporting a client's journey of change. I also provided a supportive and welcoming environment, while maintaining a sense of neutrality and equipoise, and being cognizant of my role as a clinician (as opposed to a teacher, confronter, or mentor), and the effect it has on the establishment of our collaborative therapeutic relationship. Throughout most of my interactions with John, I used the cardinal OARS (Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflective listening, Summarizations) techniques commonly used in MI (Miller

As a one year old child when my parents first moved to Stump Tavern Road in 1959 when my father was stationed at McGuire AFB, I have seen the metamorphous of Jackson from a sleepy rural township into a suburban bedroom community. After college, I chose to return to Jackson and raise my Jewish family here for the same reasons so many choose it today; the quality of life, public school system, and aesthetics of the countryside. It is with this background I am writing to you today to applaud your courage and foresight and voice my full support of Ordinances #03-17 and #04-17 for a complete ban of dormitories in all residential and commercial zones. Unrestrained development is environmentally unsustainable and as the caretakers of this town

Although I had a tough week, I am proud of myself for accomplishing three important steps to begin this change, making a commitment contract and finding people to talk to about my behavior change.

For my modification program, I chose to modify the amount of food I ate past 9pm. I am currently in a lot of activities and events that usually end late at night. For example, I am currently on a dance team. Practices are from 6-8:30pm. Also, my study group for my biology class does not end until 8pm. This makes it hard to eat because the dining hall closes at 8pm. Therefore, I usually find something to eat in my dorm. However, most of the food in my dorm is snacks instead of actually meals. My goal is to make sure I eat before I actually attend my events because it is unhealthy to eat food late at night. The earlier you eat before bed, the more food can properly digest before going to sleep. In order to decrease eating after 9pm, I will

For my Make a Difference Project, I decided to donate 2 large boxes of unused toys to Goodwill. I also wanted to donate $50 to Riley Hospital. I exceeded my goal as I donated two boxes of gently used toys and a full desk set to Goodwill. I also met my goal to donate $50 to Riley Hospital. I earned the $50 by lawn mowing. Something I could have done differently was to maybe focus on one organization rather than two. This would have helped because I could have helped that one organization more. This inspires me to do more service projects because I would like to help the community. I really enjoyed doing my Make a Difference

It has been years since I have had to write a paper, so writing the reflection paper made me nervous. Since having my reflection paper handed back to me, I noticed some skills that I had improved. On the other hand, I also realized I had more skills I need to work on still such as comma splices, using more transitions and the use of better word choices.

The Change-Readiness Assessment was right on point on most of the scores. After adding my scores, I started asking questions. In fact, I thought I was going to score high in all but for optimism, but I was wrong. The resourceful, confidence, and passion/drive score reminded me of my first job as a sales associate. It was mandatory for all to make monthly sales goals and it was tough associate in my location since our location was a dead shopping center. Even though I was not doing badly, I was bored stiff. Something terrible happened in one of our busy high volume stores and due to that, our District Manager fired everybody in that store. He reached out to all the other store locations close by for Spanish speaking volunteers to work in that

The saying goes “Change is what makes the world go round”. Well, my world would move much smoother if I got rid of a few things. Table condiments, meatloaf and roller chairs have got to go! My world would be a better place if these items didn’t exist!

In this week’s discussion forum, the topic is dealing with change. Consequently, the older I have become, I have learned to accept the facts that changes will come and it's often necessary for growth, healing notwithstanding, for forthcoming success. When the demand for changes arrives in the professional world, I really don’t have any problems dealing with changes, because of my earlier, educational background in Human Services, I have identified and accepted my core purpose as being an agent of change. Accordingly, upon graduation, I was empowered with the vision and drive that lead me to believe that ‘I MUST BE THE CHANGE’ that I wish to see in this world, per Gandhi. Nevertheless, when I work in the corporate world, giving an order, or following one, is a mandate, and compliance of my work practices and responsibly.

High school. The place where your supposed to find yourself, determine who you are and who you want to be. Some people take this opportunity for good and some take it for granted. Those who abuse this opportunity end up broken and lost and they never find their true self’s till they have lost everything they ever thought they had.

I personally have strong beliefs in change for the better. In the couples of years that I've matured I realized what was going on in the world around me, life has taught me so much. The right and wrongs, the left and rights, and even the ups and downs. Being that there's so much more to look forward to, i'm curious to see where life takes

Early on I realized that I would need to modify my walking goal due to the unbearable outside temperatures. Instead walking during late afternoon hours, I decided to walk in the mornings. However, as my inability to fall asleep early enough to get up earlier increased, I completely relinquished this goal. Later on I developed sinusitis for which I sought a medical care from my primary care physician. The accompanying symptoms of daily headaches and fatigue made my resolutions harder to follow. I was barely able to keep up with my academic responsibilities and I felt that there was not enough time in the day to allocate to any other tasks. For example, taking a detour from my commute to and from school to go shopping for fruits and vegetables. Additionally, because the produce is perishable, I found myself throwing away a good portion of fruits and vegetables I bought a week before. I felt that I was wasting both money and time. I wished that there would be a ‘drive-through window’ for a single serving of packaged fruits and vegetables ready to use in the blender. The only goal that I was able to be somewhat successfully keep up with was to not skipping breakfast, mainly because the grocery items needed to make breakfast did not perish so

“Our culture, our traditions, our language are the foundations upon which we build our identity (-unknown.)” No one should be labeled as a “slow learner” or “culturally disadvantaged.” Moreover, I believe diversity and expectations from others change someone's point of view of people and the world. No one should be labeled as anything, but should be treated like a human being.