Meet Jasmine Labana, ABA Therapist and MPED Candidate!
This month, we are delighted to introduce and profile Jasmine Labana, a member of our autism services team.
Jasmine attended York University and graduated with an Honours BA in Psychology before completing a post-graduate advanced diploma in Behaviour Science and Technology from George Brown. She is now nearing completion of a Masters in Professional Education with a specialization in Applied Behaviour Analysis.
Jasmine is among many at Lumenus who have experienced significant change due to COVID. Like some on our team, her role moved from providing centre-based service to virtual practice. According to Jasmine, “some of the challenges that came with this were: modifying client goals to adapt to the virtual service, creating teaching material that could be presented in a fun and fulfilling manner, limited collaboration with team members, time management, and adjustment to current job responsibilities (e.g., graphing by hand vs. graphing electronically).” These challenges were overcome by attending trainings to become better acquainted with online platforms such as GoToMeeting and Zoom, becoming proficient in Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel (e.g., incorporating different animations and transitions in presentations), debriefing with team members regarding successful strategies, and a number of other strategies.
Happily, Jasmine has been able to identify a few positives that have come from the pandemic — learning to work from home, attending trainings and webinars, being able to continue acquiring clinical hours towards her BCBA certification, strengthening her parent-mediation skills by using the behaviour skills and training method (BST), and by being provided the opportunity to expand her role to be more consultative in nature.
Jasmine and her colleagues have supported each other by sharing strategies of how to maximize engagement virtually with clients, and by attending wellness meetings where they’ve played games. Among the things she enjoys most about working at Lumenus are the positive feedback and gratitude received from the families to whom service is provided, as well as working directly with children. Specifically, she appreciates the intrinsic reward of seeing her clients progress and make gains.
Jasmine values the support and encouragement of her colleagues through this pandemic, acknowledging the perseverance and dedication her team has demonstrated through this challenging time.
