Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

             This week we have been exploring Communities of Practice, the ways in which we can become involved with them, and agencies that we would be interested in joining.  In doing my research, I found three agencies that I would be interested in being a part of in some way or another. 

The first agency that I located in my county that I would be interested in was McKean County Children and Youth Services Agency (http://www.mckeancountypa.org/Departments/CYS/Index.aspx).  This agency is responsible for providing services to children and their families within McKean county.  This organization is responsible for investigating incidents of child abuse or neglect, providing children with protective services such as foster care, and helping families who have children who are truant or uncontrollable.  The main reason that I would be interested in being involved in this agency is because recently situations have occurred within our county with children and this agency has been involved and has not done an adequate job in making sure the safety of the children came first.  I would like the opportunity to work with this agency to advocate for the children.  It is my belief that these agencies should be there to ensure the safety of the children at all costs and if this is not being done and I could help to change that, then I would like to try. Currently I could not find any jobs available within this agency but one of the positions that I would be interested in would be a caseworker because then I would be directly involved with the children and I could help to make sure that they are being kept safe and that everything that is possible is being done to protect them.  I believe that in being a teacher I would possess the skills necessary to be a caseworker in this agency but there is the possibility that I would need a human services degree which I would be willing to obtain if I needed to. 

The second agency in my county that I found is called Care for Children or Safe Kids (http://www.careforchildren.info/SAFE-Kids/Safe-Kids-McKean-County.html).  The goal of this agency is to provide services that offer education, advocacy, and collaborations to prevent childhood injuries.  Some of the services that they provide are community safety fairs, providing safe cribs for families, infant car seat safety checks, workshops for parents and professionals, classroom presentations, and free smoke detectors for families.  They also have a preschool program that they offer.  The reason that I was interested in this agency is because of all of the services that they provide to aid in the prevention of injuries to children.  This agency is all about the protection of children and that is also something that I am interested in.  As a teacher part of my job is to protect children and I believe that I could help at some of these workshops that this agency provides and educate parents and families about the school system and the importance of the educational process.  Currently the positions that they have is for a physical therapist and for substitute teachers or aides.  I would not qualify for the physical therapist and although I would qualify for the substitute teacher, I would not want to leave my full-time job to take a part-time one.  They did offer however, volunteer work that you could become a part of and the one thing I liked about this was that they had a volunteer handbook.  This book tells exactly what is expected of the volunteers and what volunteer opportunities are available.  It also gives an agreement form that the volunteers have to sign.  This is possibly something that I would be interested in pursuing in the future. 

                             

The third agency that I found interesting and one that I would be interested in being a part of is the Office of Children and Families in the Court (http://www.ocfcpacourts.us/about-ocfc/county-information/mckean-county).  This is an agency that works within the court system and provides services for the children and families that have to be in the court system.  The main goal of this agency is to provide protection for children and to ensure that they are placed in the stable environments where they will be physically and emotionally secure.   I am also interested in this agency because of the fact that they are first and foremost dedicated to the protection of children.  I would want to work with this agency as an advocate for the children.  I would want to be the one person who is there to stand up for the children and make sure that they are receiving all of the services they need to keep them in the most secure place they can be.  I could not find any job opportunities available in this agency and I think that if I wanted to work with them I would need to have some type of law background.  I also think there may be some sort of human service degree that I would need to have.  I also think that getting the experience or education that I would need would be worth it to become a part of this organization that is dedicated to helping children.