My Experience Working at PASS

I started working at PASS Adult Services Society in September 2021 as an Educational Instructor Assistant. As part of my job, I had to assist and support classes given by different instructors while working with adults on the spectrum. I had such a great experience in this job and I decided to prepare a presentation to showcase my learning experience and future plans.

You can view the full presentation and speaker notes here: Co-op Presentation

I started the presentation with a brief introduction about myself.

I decided to choose 3 words that best describe me and explain them.

1. Creative: I am a very creative person overall. I enjoy hobbies such as painting and reading and writing. I use my passion for creativity in and outside of workplace environments too (for instance, when problem-solving). I have found that my creativity has helped me achieve different goals in different parts of my life and it is one of my favourite traits.
2. Open-Minded: I consider this a very important trait of mine because it means that I am always willing to listen to others and I am also willing to accept that my own ideas and beliefs may be wrong or may need to change. This is important to me because I believe we are always learning throughout our lives and being open to new possibilities and learning opportunities will make us better coworkers.
3. Organized: I have always heard that I am a very organized person. At work, I often received quite a lot of praise for my efficiency and organized way of working and I try to bring this skill anywhere I go.

Making this slide helped me reflect on myself and what are the things that make me a valuable worker.

 

I then talked about 'What makes PASS different'.  I considered that talking about PASS in comparison to my other workplaces would be a great way to look back on my previous work experience prior to coming to PASS.

The two main things that, in my opinion, make PASS different from other places I have worked at were teamwork and focus on clients/members.

I had never felt such a sense of team spirit in another workplace. PASS works as a team and it is such an essential part of the job. Throughout my time at PASS I have been able to work on my teamwork and communication skills. I have had the opportunity to talk to y supervisors with comfort because I knew that my voice would be heard.

Another thing I noticed was that PAS really cared for the well-being of our clients. Often while working with individuals on the spectrum, it can be easy to get too overwhelmed or stressed ta the job. At PASS we were constantly reminded why things were done and how would it benefit our program members. It showed me that I would love to continue working at a place that puts so much focus on the clients and their needs.

 

 

After this slide, I talked about the challenges I faced when starting to work at PASS.

I think the biggest challenge for me was my lack of knowledge about behaviour analysis in individuals on the spectrum. I often found myself wondering why certain program plans were set and I failed to understand the reason for certain instructions This comes to tell me that I am yet to learn a lot about individuals on the spectrum and it showed me that this is something I would like to expand my knowledge on to better support such individuals. I now know that I would like to further study this area in my future learning path at UBC or during my post-graduate time.

Another challenge I faced was re-learning how to teach and support individuals. Throughout my life, I have had different paid and volunteer experiences as a tutor or teaching assistant. However, I have never faced the same challenge I faced here at PASS. Whenever I wanted to explain a concept I had to stop and think of new creative ways to explain the same thing but for different levels of understanding.

 

Lastly, I wanted to share a bit about my future plans and how PASS has helped me think about my future career and aspirations.

 

I am not yet sure what my future will look like but thanks to PASS I know that I would love to continue teaching and supporting individuals in need and I would love to take my knowledge and experience to other parts of the world. Coming from Mexico I know that there is a huge lack of support for individuals with ASD and my ideal dream work path would be to take a similar program such as PASS to countries such as Mexico and help others in need. Thanks to PASS I was able to continue building on the skills I already had and also acquire new ones. I had a great experience working there as a Co-op student.

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