Marina Heidar

IvyMount School Internship

22 July 2016
Narrative Report
For my narrative report, I interviewed a staff member named Erica Ranade. Erica Ranade
and I met on the second day of my internship. Erica is one of the few program coordinators in the
school and she is also the Multiple Learning Needs High School consultant. Erica mainly works
with the elementary school students. Being a program coordinator, Erica possess many
responsibilities and obligations. For example, Erica is responsible for all the adaptive,
behavioral, and academic programming. Erica also has the responsibility of training new staff
members, communicating with students parents, creating behavior plans, and dealing with
individualized education plans ( IDE).
Ericas background is quite impressive. Erica majored in theater and psychology. She also
acquires board certifications such as the Board Certified Behavior Analyst certification. Therefor,
Erica is an independent practitioner who provides behavior-analytic services. Before Erica began
working at Ivymount School, she lived in a different state and was a school psychologist.
Previously, Erica was also a music teacher, a Spanish teacher, and a preschool teacher. Erica's
expedition is truly remarkable. At the age of twenty-two, Erica had gotten into a horrible car
accident. She suffered from head trauma and had a traumatic brain injury. Due to her injuries,
Erica was in and out of the hospital and she was constantly analyzed. Traumatic head trauma can
often lead someone to develop a disability. Ericas frequent visits to the hospital and her journey
to recovery lead her to discover the field that she is in today. You could say that her accident was
a mixed blessing.

Later, Erica moved to Maryland with her husband for his doctoral internship. Before
working at IvyMount School, Erica worked for a private practice. If Erica never moved to
Maryland, she never would have discovered IvyMount. Erica discovered IvyMount through
friends of friends who knew Lauren Lestremau. Lauren is the program director of the Multiple
Learning Needs Program and she is also my supervisor. Throughout her years at IvyMount, Erica
developed a strong bond with Lauren as well as the other teachers and students.
Erica always knew that she wanted to work with children. She loves IvyMount and her
career. She has no intention on leaving IvyMount unless her husband had to move for his career.
Erica loves the parent communication that comes along with her job. She feels like a principle,
having to talk to all of the students parents once a week. Erica also enjoys training other staff
members and assisting them along the beginning of their course at IvyMount. In addition, Erica
also takes pleasure in providing clinical supervision. IvyMount, being a research focused
organization, is an ideal setting for a scientist. Erica says that she feels like she is learning more
from the students than they are learning from her. IvyMount has also caused Erica to do things
quicker. She says, Im firing cylinders at all times. At Ivymount, she is always busy and she is
always problem solving.
The only thing that Erica does not like about her position at IvyMount is the stress. Some
parts of her job are more complicated than others. IvyMount is a private school. However, public
schools fund Ivymount because they cannot not meet the needs of the students. Therefor, it takes
a big legal process to get students to IvyMount. Erica deals with the majority of the legal aspects
which brings a lot of stress upon her.
Erica has a strong passion for assisting and guiding children who are not able assist
themselves properly. Erica, along with other teachers and consultants in the school, help the

students develop strong academic skills, community skills, and daily life skills. Ericas
contribution to the advancement in children's life is impressive. Her work at IvyMount allows
students to have a chance at a normal life. Her work has positively affected numerous students
and her work at IvyMount has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.