Task 9: Reflective Letter-15 pts.

In the fall semester, I learned how to conduct an evaluation of a human services organization. Once I gained the proper knowledge, I conducted a nonofficial evaluation of the day support program at the Rappahannock area community services board.  I applied the knowledge learned in this course to conduct a productive evaluation. In this course, I learned ways to collect information which helped me organize my evaluation. The way I chose to collect information for my evaluation was interviews and a in person observation. For the interview portion of the evaluation, the course material helped me come up with proper question. The open-ended questions I came up with helped get the information I needed out of the interview. As for the observation part of the evaluation, I also used knowledge that I learned from the class. I was able to use my observation time wisely by observing the people’s interactions and the environment. I still have much to learn in my future courses, but this course taught me a lot about the human service profession.

Even though this class taught me a lot, there is some areas that I must improve on. One of these areas is my communication skills. Sometimes, I was too shy to get the necessary information for my evaluation. I was able to get all the information needed but being shy and awkward made it take longer. Hopefully with more experience and knowledge, my personal communication skills will improve in the near future. Another area I need to improve on is planning. When planning, I sometimes I forget to add stuff to my schedule. This made me forget some important appointments and again made the evaluation process longer.

There was a lot of assignments in the course that helped with my evaluation. The annotated bibliography was important because it helped me understand the population being served. I also got a deeper understanding of the problems facing people with disabilities. Another assignment that helped me understand the evaluation was the timeline assignment.  This assignment helped me understand what assignments I must complete in the future.

This course content and the evaluation have a direct connection to my career path. I am planning on working with people with special needs in the future. Evaluating a day support program helped me understand the services that are needed for this community. The skills learned in this course will help me connect with my special needs clients and their families. Being able to connect with clients is important in the human services field.