Informational Interview and Presentation

By: Angelica Chavez

Terry Shines Sunnyside High School He has intervened with adolescents that

display violent behavior.

He is an intervention counselor for the Sunnyside High School. When there are students with major problems or conflicts, he will be the one to work with them. He will also have family sessions with students who have major problems. In addition he will teach parenting skills to parents that need the assistance.

What are your duties?What are your duties?

Teachers and/or administration refer the students that he works with. He will immediately have a conference with the students that are having problems. When students are referred to him because of a conflict with another student, he will hold a peer mediation session for the students so that they can try and resolve the conflict in a mature manner.

What does a typical day consist What does a typical day consist of?of?

Behavior plans are also routine for Shines. When students display problematic behavior that has been referred to him, he will work on a behavior plan for the student, which he feels usually improves the behavior over time.

What do like most/ least about your job?

LIKES

Shines likes working with high school kids

DISLIKESShines stated that so

many kids don’t take school seriously and it bothers him. Because there was the Civil Rights Movement and they don’t take advantage of the free services. People died for them to go to school.

If you could change one thing about your job what would it

be?

For children to be more involved in school and change the attitudes of the teachers about not wanting to help out the youth.

Shines says that he deals with violent students almost on a daily basis.

What type of violent behavior do you What type of violent behavior do you witness here in the high school?witness here in the high school?

Usually it is fights between students, or fights that are about to happen because there is a lot of “cyber bullying.” With MySpace used by almost all the students, they begin to post things about others online and it becomes a problem in school.

In 2008-2009 school year he felt that about 90% of boys display violent behavior. They are the ones that would get in to a fight more so than girls. But he’s seen a change in the 2009-2010 school year 90% of girls have displayed violent behavior. Girls are worse at “cyber bullying” such as: Myspace and Facebook.

What is your opinion on the current trend in What is your opinion on the current trend in violent behavior among adolescents? Is it violent behavior among adolescents? Is it

getting better or worse?getting better or worse?

Compared to last year, he feels that the trend in violent behavior has gotten worse in Sunnyside High School. A lot of it has to do with the gang problems and “cyber bullying” on MySpace.

Most of the risk factors that Shines focused on pertained to parenting issues. He believes that many parents are not careful about how they confront their children about problems. A lot of times they will belittle them by the way that they talk to their children. Also parents usually don’t know why their children are behaving in the manner that they are, and they don’t try to understand. Instead they want to punish the behavior instead of trying to figure out why they are behaving in such a negative way.

According to Shines, the most critical risk factors are not knowing their father and lacking a positive role model in their life.

How does knowledge about the risk How does knowledge about the risk factors affect the intervention process?factors affect the intervention process?

Knowledge about the risk factors affects the intervention process in a very positive way. The majority of times, the students themselves don’t know why they are behaving in violent ways. When he has conversations with the students, he will help them to realize why they are acting that way because they will try to get to the root of the problem.

After their conversation, he will work with the parent(s) and teach them parenting skills that will help modify the adolescent’s behavior. Social skills are also something that he will teach the students because many of them don’t have the social skills because they were never taught by a positive role model.

The biggest and most important element of an intervention program is to figure out why the behavior exists, so he will usually do the following:The first step is the interview, which he

conducts with the student.Next he will have a conference with the

parent(s) to talk about the issues.Also talking with teachers about the particular student is important in the process.

Intervention ProgramIntervention Program

It is very critical that the parents get involved in the process.

Once the intervention begins, Shines sees tension lift off from the students because a lot of the problems are too much for a lot of the students. So when they are able to talk about them and work on the issues, the build up of stress is slowly able to be relieved.

The most important part of the intervention is the interview, but the student has to be truthful in order for it to work. If students are not comfortable with opening up to him, he will try a few things to get them talking.

Effective Method Effective Method

Hypothesizing Interview: This can be either powerful or dumb, because you can hypothesize something about the student and be right or wrong. When you are right, the student is more willing to share things because you are able to see what they are going through. Whereas if you are wrong about the problems, then they are going to thing that you don’t know anything and that you are just making assumptions about them.

Effective MethodEffective Method

Using an appropriate life experience that is similar to theirs (students): When a student is able to see that they can relate to something that happened in your life, then they will want to open up. They will feel more comfortable talking to you and sharing things about themselves that will help with the intervention process.

What do you think future social workers need to know about child abuse and neglect?

Shines states that child abuse is there. If a child is getting A’s in school but it’s always quiet, there might be signs of child abuse. Be aware of the signs on these children.

Shines sees a very high success rate in the interventions that he has implemented with students. Last year he worked with 12 students that were gang affiliated, and intervention was implemented with these students. Of the 12 students that he worked with regularly, he said around 70% were successful and changed their bad behaviors. Their lives were turned around and there was a big difference in the way that these students looked at life.

Interventions SuccessInterventions Success

A big part of what makes it so successful is the way that he interacts with the students in the hallway. He has made it a point that when he walks down the hallway, that he makes eye contact with students. He will not walk around like he is on mission or that he is oblivious to the students walking in the halls with him. He will make eye contact and greet the students and ask how things are going. When these students see this, they are more likely to come to him when they have problems and if something isn’t working out, he will be able to help them.

InterventionIntervention

The intervention process is never done! Once the students have modified their behavior, he doesn’t stop working with them. He will continue to talk with them to see how things are going, check on their progress in school, and constantly give them praise for their accomplishments.