The Human Services professional

Melissa Brown, '09

Melissa Brown completed four internships before she graduated from MBU in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Services.
Brown attributes the practical nature of her academic program-like her internships-as a primary factor behind her now-budding profession.

Her academic discipline trains students to gain employment in a wide range of helping professions, from a career as a caseworker for a social welfare agency to a job in the mental health industry.

Brown is an employment consultant with Life Skills, a not-for-profit agency in St. Louis that assists people with developmental disabilities such as Autism, Down Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy to live and work in the community. Brown daily coaches participants of the Life Skills program who are employed at organizations across the bi-state region. As an employment coach, she aims to help her clients do their jobs well. Sometimes that means visiting places of employment. Other times, it means offering strategies to help curb negative behavior and creating a plan to make sure such strategies are executed.

"Life Skills is important because it provides the people we serve the opportunity to be productive members of society like everyone else," Brown said. "Their jobs many times gives them purpose. The difference we see in the lives of our clients because of this program is really profound."

Recently, Brown helped a client who was at risk of losing her job because of issues related to her attitude.

"Together we made a list of positive attitudes and began charting how she can change her attitude to be more positive," Brown explained. "I have been getting calls from her almost every day telling me how great she's doing. We're seeing great progress."

Brown took advantage of many internship opportunities during her time at MBU-from working at a homeless shelter in downtown St. Louis to helping vulnerable teenagers at an agency in St. Charles, Mo.

She believes that component helped her score a job in an industry that many say has been badly bruised due to an unnerving economy. Couple that with instructors who have and continue to work in the field, and, Brown believes, MBU's human services program gave her the tools needed to enter her profession.

She knows her time at Life Skills, while not only fulfilling, is also acting as a platform that will allow her to help dividends of people during her career in the human services industry.

Case in point: Janet Puls, the chairperson of MBU's Social and Behavioral Sciences Division, started her career at Life Skills after she graduated with an undergraduate degree.