Melanie G. Fisher
Degrees: B.A., 1986
Majors: Applied Sociology
Organization: St. Cloud Children's Home
Title: Cottage Supervisor
E-mail Address:
Job History and Responsibilities:
I work at the St Cloud Children's Home in the Assessment Unit and my position
title is Cottage Supervisor. I have worked at the Children's Home for fifteen
years. Prior to my current position at the Children's Home, I worked as a
youth counselor in a unit specifically dealing with educable, mentally handicapped
teens.
In my current job my major responsibilities include hiring, training and
supervision of the youth counselors in the Assessment Unit. The other part
of my job is to assist the other supervisors in doing orientation training
for all new staff. I am a certified instructor through the Crisis Prevention
Institute, Inc. I teach Non-violent physical crisis intervention. I am also
certified by Boy's Town Nebraska to teach the Boy's Town Model of behavior
management.
I have worked at the Children's Home since completing my internship there
in November 1986. I've not worked professionally at any other job.
How I use sociology in my job:
I use sociology in my current job on a daily basis with the students in
assessment by observing behavior, interpreting how that behavior impacts
the individual and how it impacts their family as well as their peers in
the unit. I assist staff in understanding the group dynamics among the students
as well as their dynamics with co-workers. Using what I observe I teach the
students social skills and I train the staff how to modify negative behavior
with individual students and the group as a whole. Some specific skills I
learned in the sociology program were observation and interpretation skills.
I learned theories on why humans interact as they do and how those theories
can help professionals modify undesirable behavior. It's been a very long
time since I was in school so its pretty hard for me to remember specific
courses. Although, I do remember taking a Marriage and Family course that
probably reflects closely what I do on a daily basis at my job in regards
to dealing with families and their dysfunctional ways of interacting and
communicating.
