Educational Background
The videos above are just a couple to show a little insight. The first one is me playing in the grey shirt, going down the field, ending with a cross by me. The other video isn't really an example of my coaching, but just showing that kids can start young, and can start learning right away. I was joking with him in this video. Enjoy, and hope to book a lesson with you, and see you soon.
There was a struggle in 2009, but after working through things i able to overcome, and succeeded in my education. With much more education to come
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Eric Santana
Social Work-Personal Statement When your life drives you to the feeling of despair, you have two options... One: you give up and let the feeling of hopelessness take over, two: you prevail. When I was born, in 1988, things were tough for me instantly. The first tragic life event happened before I could even remember, my father died. He died when I was two, from a fairly foolish mistake. He fell asleep in a car and fumes from the car got inside, and that lead to his death. I was too young to remember, but to believe something as foolish as that left me with no father is pretty disappointing. After that, I lived with my sister and my mom, in a small house, where we were left struggling. That wasn't the bad part, when I was eight years old my next major life event happened. It was around Christmas, we were with my family, and out of no where my Mother died from an asthma attack. At eight years old, and left with nothing but memories I felt alone. Things didn't get better after that. I was left to aunts and uncles, who didn't understand the first thing about my situation. I was living with one of my aunts and uncles, and they told me, “if you are not going to act like part of this family, you will not be part of this family.” I stayed in my room for most of the time between eight years old and 14 years old. Of course that lead me to being in youth homes after that. I am 26 now, and I want you to ask me, did I let the feeling of hopelessness disparity take over? Or did I prevail? I have a six year old son now, and he means more to me than any type of pity party memory. He looks up to me so much, and it is the best feeling in the world. I undoubtedly prevailed over what could have been. I am currently a head-start teacher, and love working with children. I live in Bloomfield Michigan, and I have a very caring girlfriend, who is also a teacher. When you are set forth in life in a situation that you feel there is no way out, I believe there is always a way to over come the obstacles and make the best out of life’s situations. My life experiences have gave me motivation to want to be there to positively support children, who may have various risk-factors. I specifically want to fulfill a position in social work, where I can work with children. I don't want any child, who is going through a tough time, to feel alone. It doesn't matter if they are children who are in a nice foster home or a juvenile detention center. These children just need positive support, and to be guided down a good path. There was a study done, that I read about online, where there was a group of children, who all had different backgrounds that negatively effected their lives. Once they grew up, the difference between the ones that did OK in life, and the ones who struggled more, were the ones who did OK had at least one person in their life, who loved them. (this was an article I vaguely remembered reading about, so it is not meant to be quoted, or stated as fact. This is just extra motivation for me to be a positive influence for children and young adults.) Children, who may appear to be doing “bad” may look like just another problem to the common eye, but I believe these are children who just need some extra guidance in their lives, based upon, they probably have a lot of risk-factors effecting their behavior. I currently stand in a position, where I can definitely have empathy for these children, and I can be understanding of their backgrounds, based upon my personal past experiences. I feel like I can be a huge asset in the social work world, because I understand that many of these children think that adults who are trying to help them have no idea what it's like being in their shoes. I can completely relate to children who may feel like the world is against them. There are so many children, who believe that it's over, but yet they are still young, and they have no idea how they can change things around for the better. Some children even feel a sense of entitlement for all the bad things that have happen to them. I believe in tough love, I want them to know that based upon their bad experiences in life it is no excuse to choose to do bad things, that will put them in bad situations. This is because the law is not set up to care about the reasoning in why you are making bad choices. I want to be able to show them empathy, but give them the drive to choose better choices in life. In the social work program I want to learn how to deliver my messages to children in an effective way. I know that I am in a good position to reach out to children, who may be struggling, but I want to be able to deliver my messages in an effective way. I want to learn how to present myself to children, in a professional manner. I know I have a lot of good messages and experiences to be able to be a major support system for children, and with the education I can maximize the opportunity for me to really be able make a positive impact on children. In the Detroit area, and many other areas, I see so many struggling people. There is a very high crime rate, and Detroit is in the top three for highest crime rates. I believe in starting from the ground up. This means that if you see there is a problem in the crime rate in your city, it starts with the children. I believe that you have to start positively impacting the children to make a better tomorrow. I have many relationships with people, based upon my past, I know a lot of people who are struggling. I have many old friends, who I still socialize with, and I am always trying to help inspire them to do better things. I encourage them to go to school, educate themselves, cut back drinking, and try to just better their lives any way they can. My old friends see me now, and they are very proud of me, and I want to be able to keep on positively impacting people around me. I feel I have a purpose, and that is to make, myself, and the people around me better people. I want to work with children, who have risk factors, and I have many aspirations that have me extremely ambitious to make a huge mark in the social work world. I am very excited to get more education in the social work field. I feel time is short, and there is a lot of things I want to do in this world to help. I don't think it matters who you are, or where you come from, rather it is race, culture, religion, poverty level, etc.... I feel we all have hope, and can make a better tomorrow. Different circumstances can make it harder, but there is always a way to prevail and overcome disparity. |
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