On Friday, July 23rd, 2021, AYLUS Pearland held their second volunteer training for the Special Needs Day Camp. There were around 45 volunteers that showed up for the training at the Pearland Westside Library Conference Room. At the beginning of the training, Sandy Le, a Speech Pathologist at BACH (Brazoria Association for Citizens of Handicaps), laid some ground rules and introduced the purpose of the training. A few other guest speakers, including Carla Castillo, the director of BACH ECI (Early Childhood Intervention), also stood up and shared their experiences with special needs kids and how volunteers should interact with the kids. The high school and college student panelists at the front of the room took turns introducing themselves and their experiences taking care of special needs kids. They also talked about a few basic tips and things to keep in mind when volunteering. They described the importance of being patient and staying calm when interacting with the kids. They also mentioned a few common circumstances that may occur during the volunteer session, and how to properly respond to the kids.
Afterwards, the panelists set up a few basic scenarios with adults acting as the special needs kids and called on various attendees from the audience to figure out how to handle the situation. The guest speakers also pitched in a few times to demonstrate how to properly control the situation. Due to everything moving smoothly throughout the session, the training ended about an hour earlier than expected. Many thanks to AYLUS Pearland for providing tacos from Taco Cabana.
Panelists: Amy Hardcastle, Serena Lee, Thomas Liang, Edwin Ling, Christina Nguyen, Matthew Nguyen, and Hanna Schoellkopf
Moderators: Andy Jiang and Eric Qi
Scenario Planning Leaders: Madison Nguyen and Elaine Pham.
Trainees (5-7 pm): Iris Chen, Alex Dai, Grace Dai, Tina Dong, Erica Gao, Xiaoyu Geng, Andy Gu, Yurui He, Elizabeth Hu, Ray Huang, Aila Jiang, Leo Jiang, Winnie Jiang, Amanda Liu, Kate Liu, Zide Liu, Zixuan Liu, William Lu, Ziyuan (Ella) Lu, Jonathan Niu, Matthew Niu, Richa Paliwal, Jiaqi Ren, Alexander Sun, William Sun, Annie Vu, Chen Wang, Julia Xiao, Prince Xiao, Karen Xu, Wendy Yin, Derek Zhu; Joshua Le, Jason Nguyen, Justin Le, Hien Pham, Jordan Zheng, Eric Qi.
Flyer Design (1 hr): Alexander Sun
Google Form, Sign-in Sheet and Waiver (1 hr): William Sun, Thomas Liang
Set Up Crew (0.5 hr) Edwin Ling, Alexander Sun, William Sun, Chen Wang, Wendy Yin,
Alvin Zheng
Clean Up Crew (0.5 hr): Elizabeth Hu, Edwin Ling, Zide Liu, Jiaqi Ren, Alexander Sun, William Sun, Chen Wang, Julia Xiao, Wendy Yin
Reported By: Elizabeth Hu
