Lessons from a CFY Week 13 and 14
Lessons from a CFY talk about how you can get your voice heard as a CF. This is so important because we do have a good perspective and can make great changes wher we work.
Lessons from a CFY 13.1: Getting Your Voice Heard
As CFs, we are early career professionals, but everyone has a unique perspective or experience that others on the team may not. These are things you absolutely should emphasize and talk about at work. For example, I have a client who has literacy challenges, but hasn’t been assessed. I took the time to really push for us to get her evaluated given that she has not been in school due to the pandemic and is already falling behind. My supervisor agreed and started the process that week. Being a person of color, I was concerned that this student would be overlooked by the system and doing class fully virtually, but now will hopefully have more support to succeed in school.
CFY Lesson 14.1: Educating Others
This week, I participated in a meeting with the Office of Student Conduct to advocate for one of my students. My role in the meeting was to support my student, but also educate the staff member on autism and stuttering. The challenges that come with autism are not well known and go beyond what is typically shared in media. In this situation I was able to explain the difficulty some autistic people face with requiring direct explanation of rules and may actually enjoy social engagement but have different ways of showing it. This explanation truly made a difference in the meeting and hopefully can result in a good outcome for my student. I really did not realize how important these explanations are and how much I do know about neurodiversity, as well as the lack of knowledge in other offices across the board.
