(En Español) Mayelin Escobar, a family educator with Show Me Strong Families in St. Louis, MO, shares her story of how a chance meeting with a friend turned into a successful and rewarding career working with families, and all of the joys and challenges she's met along the way. (Translation in English below. --- Erinn Miller: [00:00:01] Parent educators are the beating heart of our organization. And as people who work with families and children as closely as we do, we know that sharing stories and experiences offers some of the strongest ways to connect, reflect, and enrich our growing community. Today, our guest is Mayelin Escobar. She's a parent educator at Show Me Strong Families here in St Louis. She's going to tell us, in her own words, in Spanish, her experience as a parent educator. For those of you who may not speak Spanish. The transcript in English will be in the description. Mayelin Escobar: [00:00:35] My name is Mayelin Escobar. I am a family educator for Show Me Strong Families at Parents as Teachers in St. Louis. I have worked at this program for four years. I am very happy to work at Parents as Teachers. I started working at Parents as Teachers by destiny. I went out with a friend and she asked me why I wasn’t looking for a job. I didn’t want to keep working where I was working, I was working at Early Head Start for eleven years. I wanted to go to the next step in my life and wanted there to be a change to my life and I decided to start looking for something else. So, I was with a friend, an old friend, she told me “Why don’t you apply at Parents as Teachers?” and I told her they never really have positions available. She told me to go get my computer, you will see something. So, I searched for my computer and open my computer on the Parents as Teachers website and by chance there was a position of home visitor in St Louis and immediately put in my application and my resume and well, here I am today. I was always, when I worked at Early Head Start, working on my certificates to take to Parents as Teachers because we had the Parents as Teachers curriculum. One day I was at the Parents as Teachers office and I thought the people here are so professional, I would love to work here. And well, here I am, the dream came true! One of the advantages when I started working as a Parent Educator at Show Me Strong [Families] was that I could bring the families I knew from Early Head Start because I when applied for it, Early Head Start was zero to three, and with Parents as Teachers it’s from zero to five. Mayelin Escobar: [00:03:19] So they, the families, were also very happy when I proposed it, “Look, I'm no longer working for Early Head Start, I am now working at Parents as Teachers”, they were very happy. I came with all of my families so I did not go out and recruit. When I started, I started with my complete caseload and it was a great advantage to both me and the families. I love working with children because it has a significant impact on the lives of not only the family, but on the children as well. To support the parents as the first teachers of their children is very, very important. It's incredible and rewarding, the example that you give to them. I enjoy guiding the families in early development by providing the tools and resources that they need to form growth and learning and the strong relationships they have. For me, to see the children achieve those successes, goals, and all that is very rewarding to me. I can share about a family that deeply impacted me was a young mother that I worked with. She had many difficulties acknowledging her abilities as a mother. It was her first child and had very little help at first and often doubted if she was raising her baby the right way. Mayelin Escobar: [00:05:06] So, over time during our visits through the activities and orientations I offered she was becoming more confident, more capable and she began to get more involved with her son and ask questions to apply the strategies that we had discussed. One of the most memorable moments was when one day she was really excited and she told me, “My baby is already talking! He is already saying words!”. I felt very proud to know I had been a fundamental part of that achievement. This experience reaffirmed a lot for me. How you can help parents recognize their own strength and support them in building positive relationships with their children for me is also very important. I have some challenges that I have faced. For example, the differences in culture and parenting practices. For example, we speak the same Spanish language but we have differences in the family and their methods of raising children. So I implement the methods that we use, the [family’s] perspective and promote an evidence-based approach to suggest positive discipline strategies without imposing my point of view on their methods, I did the work without giving my own [side]. Another challenge is supporting ...
