Clara, a practitioner, makes an initial home visit with a mother and describes how to begin a family-professional partnership, especially working with families from different cultural backgrounds. (running time: 2 min. 37 sec.)
View Transcript
Clara:
Hello Ms. Gonzales. Thank you for letting me come. You have a beautiful house!
Ms. Gonzales:
I have a lot of things around, but I like decoration.
Clara:
I can see the care you put into what you do—it’s lovely.
Clara:
The first visit is one of the most important pieces of this process, because that is when we’re gonna engage the parent and they’re gonna embark with us. And if we don’t take that time we can jeopardize the process. It’s you know, very intimidating to let somebody that they don’t know come into their own home. So, I always look around and if I see a family picture “Wow”, you know whammy for me, because then I can move into it and say “Oh, what a beautiful portrait . Who is in this picture?” And there is not one parent that will not melt to talk about their family, if that is what we are talking about. So, as they start describing who is in the picture you know, I am already collecting information. Each family is very unique and the information that I am going to gather from them also will be different from one family to another one. I have had meetings or home visits, where we cry. I think that it’s because the connection of the language. They just feel like we can share that kind of thing. That I will understand and will have empathy.
How do you feel when your daughter says that?
Ms. Gonzales:
Oh it tears my soul! It’s horrible. I feel really bad. But I tell you if can help my daughter to help her speak more, or read books, or play games– let’s do it.
Clara:
They parents are embark. The parents are leading. The parents are giving me the information and I know from that moment on the next steps will be right there.