Graduate School Resume

I needed to create a resume of my personal and professional accomplishments for graduate school. I created something that felt like me. I am sure it won't format the same way in the blog, but, I am certain you will get the gist ;)

Jenna Marie Stout

Professional Experience: The way I am getting closer to finding my role

Brighter Futures, Inc.

Family Consultant August 2008-present

· Work with children, primarily adolescents, who are in state’s custody and are placed at higher levels of care due to their specific needs and presenting issues (e.g. severe aggression, mental illness, sexual perpetration or victimization, autism).

· Provide in-home support, training and counseling for the foster parents and the children as needed, with a minimum of three hours a month.

· Interact with the children in a variety of environments including: school, home, court, and therapy.

· Create ways to assist the children to effectively realize the authentic and productive parts of them.

· Connect those that are involved in the child’s life together through communication, activities, and a sense of purpose regarding the child’s well-being and future.

· Create opportunities to engage and develop the child and build connection with each of them as an individual.

· Participate in developing treatment plans, educational plans, safety plans and personal goals for the children.

Achievements: Things that make me grin and feel more purpose 2007-present

· Building individual relationships of respect and caring with children who have been conditioned to mistrust, to disregard, and to shut down in difficult situations.

· Bringing teams of adults together and reigniting in them a fire and a passion for the work they are doing.

· Creating an environment where my own children have begun to heal and repair from their long-term exposure to their father’s instability and chaos.

· Removing my children from an environment that was unsafe to them physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Knowing that I may not be able to change the genetics they have inherited, but that I can influence and develop the environment they are in and the stimuli they receive. Experiencing and promoting the development of their personalities and passions.

· Not allowing a scarred and broken system (government foster care) to remove my passion for feeling things completely and for developing the authenticity in others’ to feel completely.

· Watching a deeply wounded and neglected young girl bond with the animals at the animal shelter and knowing that she is thriving in school for the first time in her life.

Hobbies, Interests, Volunteering: Discovering how to be engaged in time

· Running 2008-present

Pursuing a lifelong goal of being more physically fit and allowing my body to be the accurate communicator that it naturally is. I am currently involved in a six month training program to run my first marathon.

· Playing/Imagining 1979-present

There was quite a break in this, while I allowed the distractions of adulthood and others’ struggles to detract from this natural part of myself. However, it has taken the forefront again in the form of pursuing creativity with myself, with my children, with the children I work with, and with as many adults as will come bearing the key (or the desire to find the key) to their own imaginations.

· Traveling 1995-present This is a quest to see things that I have not seen, feel things I have not felt, be exposed to people I haven’t uncovered yet, and know that there are multiple perspectives to every scene and experience. I believe that we can develop better our empathy and connection with others through being involved in their world and the way they experience things. There is education and knowledge that we can gain through each other that is untapped any other way. There is a whole world for me to view and a whole world of people who have something to showcase. This pursuit has allowed me to connect with people, inspire people, and more fully know myself.

· Photography 1994-present Photography has given me the opportunity to capture memories and journal my life, as well as volunteer this passion in ways that can enhance others. I delight in the idea that a camera can capture a moment, as well as provide insights and variations that were not immediately visible. I have been able to use this for others by photographing events or moments in their lives that are epochal to them, e.g. family memories, maternity, swing dancing.