I am going to be working at St. John of God Dublin Southeast. It is a community-based service that provides support services to children and adults with intellectual disabilities all throughout the Dublin southeast community. There are approximately 750 children and adults that are currently supported in some way by the organization. The industry is all about providing services to people with intellectual disabilities, and in my work environment, specifically people affected by down syndrome.

In order to be successful in an environment where you provide services to others, you must have compassion and empathy. Understanding what struggles and hardships people have faced to get where they are is a necessary skill to be able to work as a service provider. Without this skill, you are unable to connect with the service users. Another skill or strength that is important for a service providing job like mine is patience. There are many times when you must be patient with service users in order to build mutual trust, lower their anxiety, and form stronger connections with them. It is also very important to make service users comfortable. This can be accomplished by treating them as you would any other person. Meaning that they aren’t given any more special treatment than any other person. This allows you to communicate with them on an even level, and gives them the necessary comfort to communicate back with you. The main objective with providing service to service users is to make sure they have everything they need, but also to create a comftorable and happy environment for them to live in. To achieve this, a provider must be able to create equal treatment. True comfort is established when we treat people with intellectual disabilities just as we would anyone else, meaning that we avoid “babying” or giving too much “special treatment” that in reality isolates them more. Communicating on an even level gives a sense of normalcy and mutual respect, giving them the confidence to communicate back openly. An early difficulty in working in this new environment will be communication. Even though the language we speak is mutual, there are a lot of cultural and societal differences rooted in their speech. This will take time to get used to, but hopefully it won’t be a huge struggle. One of the biggest skillsets required to be a good service provider is to balance being gentle and firm. Often times, it is crucial to establish when something is okay and when something isn’t. And in order to get through to the service users, sometimes a sense of firmness in your speech is necessary for them to learn important lessons.

It is also very important to set boundaries with the service users. Because of the nature of certain intellectual disabilities, there are some moments where a service user might unintentionally cross a line. As an example, invading personal physical space, asking very personal questions, or becoming overly dependent on a specific staff member. Being prepared for these moments means having a high emotional intelligence. Instead of thinking of setting up a boundary as a bad thing or as a rejection, it is an important skill for safety, structure, and teaching social norms. When a service user invades personal space, responding with a calm, gentle, yet firm reminder about personal boundaries helps them understand social environments on a deeper level. It allows for the the relationship to remain professional, sustainable, and healthy for both sides.

Working in Ireland, a completely different work environment, means that there are unique cultural and regulatory competencies that are very different from the ones back home. Over the last few decades, Ireland has steadily moved more towards community-based healthcare, rather than the standardized institutionalized care that we might see more of in the States. In order to be successful in this new environment, I must understand how this system works differently from the one I am more familiar with back home. A primary competency unique to the Irish is an understanding of the National Standards for Residential Services for Children and Adults with Disabilities. This system places a very heavy emphasis on the individual, human rights, and advocacy. In Ireland, service providers do not just care for someone, they rather advocate with them. In addition, navigating the different cultural nuances of Irish language and communication is vital. Irish folks include a lot of humor and playfulness in their talk. On occasion, this talk can be teasing which can be offensive to some people, but it is important to look past it and understand that it is their standard way of communication.