I, Janae Moses, was born on April 17th, 1990 in New York City’s Kings County Hospital. I currently reside in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn NY. I attend the New York City College of Technology, and I am for now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Human Services. I would love to get a Master’s Degree in this field. Eventually I think I will be going for that as well.

When I was younger all I remember I used to say was “I want to become a lawyer when I get older”. I never once thought that I would be interested in human services. As I got older I began to see different situations that I absolutely didn’t agree with happening all around me. Such as a lot of gang violence and young teenagers losing their own lives and they even lost loved ones and having such tragic events happen can change the whole dynamic of someone’s life and how they used to live. I just used to wonder, where is the help for the people who needs help not only for themselves but for the people that they brought into this world as well. Where is the help for the little girl who everyone calls “emo” and makes fun of in the back of the cafeteria? A lot of these things used to happen around me and unless these people reached out for help they never received any help. Sometimes even when they have reached out there was no communication, no follow-ups, and no genuine involvement in these people’s lives. I can truly speak from experience because some of my friends have gone through this.
It was situations like that, that really grabbed my attention and that’s when I began to just go with my curiosity. I read books, watched TV shows and movies. The drama’s within the foster care system caught my attention even more, so I’m looking to educate myself a little further now. Finally, I
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Found out that there was a career for people who helped others. I decided to jump right into that field because I realized that helping people was a part of my nature. So, here I am pursuing a degree in human services. To be quite frank, I had no idea what the term human services meant until I took my introductory course to human services my first semester of college. Intrigued would be an understatement, I had no idea that human services was so broad. In my mind I thought it was, just foster care, and helping people in poverty. I quickly realized there was more to it. Human service workers also deal with the homeless, mentally ill, chemically dependent people, among others. There was just so much to learn and I wanted to learn about everything.
My parents are the ones who have had the biggest impact on me. I watch how they interact with people on an everyday basis and all I can do is smile and show my admiration for the two of them. My mom would go above and beyond for some of my friends because she knew not many of my friends had the same stability and family structure as our family. She gave encouraging advice every time my friends would come to her. If they couldn’t afford a pair of winter shoes and if she had the money, then she would buy them a pair. She just over extended herself so much she even played somewhat of a mom to my friends everyone always referred to her as “mom” anyway. She is an amazing role model to all young and old, whoever she meets she always leaves them with a piece of her. My father is the kindest man I know. He is the outgoing one, always saying hello to people he doesn’t even know on the streets. He always goes out of his way for people and puts most people ahead of himself. My dad is truly selfless; Besides the fact that he’s the most respectable man in the neighborhood my father has a big heart. I was the only child in the neighborhood who had both parents married under one roof. So that definitely made him play the father role in many of my friends life, and he had no problem with them

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Referring to him as “dad”. It was because of my parent’s ways that I wanted to be a replica for what they stood for.
In Crown Heights I was raised in, everyone used to get together and have block associations. When these meetings were held, they would come up with ways to improve our neighborhood and plan block parties and after school activities for the younger ones that was growing up. These little events always kept the younger ones out of trouble and off the streets. My community as a whole is very diverse. If you were to ask three people on my street where they were from, all of them will tell you their nationality and most times you would have never even guessed it. The adults would always try to teach us about things they learned growing up and the difference between society then and now and we always had to remain respectful and listen, even though we did not want to be there at the time we were kids all that was on our mind was elsewhere. Now that I’m older I see that they were only trying to help us. I realize that now as I notice a huge difference between my generation and the upcoming one.

The client population that I would most like to work with is teenagers who have family members who are incarcerated and have been incarcerated themselves due to the negative influences around them. I have been a witness to what happened when teenagers had no role models and positive individuals around them. Most people know that it affects them negatively mentally, physically, and emotionally. I think I will learn to interact with them more on a personal level since I have had experience with family members and friends who have gone through this exact phase. I’ve seen teenagers who had the potential to become drug users and eventually turn to prostitution to feed their habits just overall heading towards a downwards spiral. Some beat the odds, but my goal will be to have
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Them all beating the odds. Some of the more unique things that interest me is the fact that not many people are aware of what happens to these teenagers. You have the handful of people who knew and tried to help. Then again, most people forget about the children that have been affected by the incarceration of their loved ones.
To work with this population you need to have the most basic skill of all and that’s learning how to empathize with the individual rather than being judgmental. My reasons for helping this population is to show them that they don’t have only one choice; they have several outlets they can choose from. Sometimes they don’t even know their resources. Counseling amongst peers who are going through similar situations can be as helpful. It’s always good to talk about it because if they have their peers around them they will feel more comfortable to talk. To work with these individuals, confidentiality is very important. We would not want the individual to feel that we are revealing what they have shared unless they are talking about harming themselves. This applies specifically to my population because a lot of teenagers are embarrassed to have that conversation with others because it’s not easy to deal with it’s an extremely touchy subject especially if it involves their parents. Most people don’t like to talk about situations but it is proven that working and talking through your problems helps a lot.
Immediately following my graduation, I plan to find the job that’s best suited to me and while doing so, I will also continue my education. In a 10 year span I plan to have finished my Master’s degree program and, I don’t want to be a counselor who works only in the field. I would like to become a supervisor. I know I’m going to love what I do and I just want to see if I will be able to push what I know and was taught to its limits. I have confidence within myself and an amazing support system behind me that I will be able to achieve my goals. My support system is all my loved ones. I plan to make my career in human services and enjoyable one.
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Overall, I am happy and extremely excited about the choice I made of becoming Human Service worker. I feel like this was a job that was meant for me, and this job has my name written all over it. I will excel in all of my future endeavors, it is what my client’s deserve and I owe them that to say the least and me as a future Counselor I will do just that.