Hi Willowcrest community! It was such a pleasure to be asked to do the staff spotlight this month. I am so grateful to be a part of this team, and I thought I would use this opportunity to tell the community a little bit more about the journey that led me here.
My first job ever was as a camp counselor at Encino Presbyterian Children’s Center (EPCC). I worked there for five summers, and was eventually hired as a preschool teacher while I completed my undergraduate degrees in Child Development and Psychology. At the time, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, but I knew that working with children was definitely a passion of mine. While at EPCC, I constantly found myself drawn towards the little ones with some learning differences - behaviors, sensory regulation, social interactions, play - I was fascinated by all of it! After graduating with a double bachelors from California State University Northridge, I decided to transition into a one-on‐one setting with a focus on behavioral intervention. I worked for the regional center for a few months, and then the director from EPCC eventually connected me with Willowcrest’s very own lead behaviorist, Sara Kaufman! Sara set me up with a family who needed a one-on-one support to attend school with their daughter, who was born very prematurely and with many complications. The child was an eight year old girl with a glowing personality, but virtually zero speech and language to allow her to connect with the people around her.
Almost immediately, I started attending her private speech therapy sessions to learn some of the strategies and language-building activities I could implement into her daily routines at school. Who were the lovely speech therapists that allowed me to sit in on her sessions? If you guessed Willowcrest team members Roberta Poster and Leeanne Mallel, you would be correct!
