Photograph by Jacqueline Ramesyer
Gina Cavalini is a counselor at the Adult and Child Guidance Center in San Jose. Cavalani works in the DEAF Program ( Dealing Effectively with Abuse in Families), a counseling and child abuse prevention service for deaf children and their families. She is herself hearing-impaired.
Helping Hands
Counseling service provides support deaf families
By Melissa Matchak
Gina Cavallini came from a loving, musical family; one that had the means of making sure her potential was realized. Born the only deaf child in a family of four children, she said she was lucky to have such a supportive and caring family environment.
Cavallini, 28, now works with deaf children and their families, as well as deaf parents with hearing children, to help ensure these children have the opportunity to learn, grow and succeed as she did. Cavallini is a mental health therapist with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program at the Adult and Child Guidance Center in San Jose. She also works in the Dealing Effectively with Abuse in Families (DEAF) program, that is a counseling and preventive service for deaf children and their families, and the only program of its kind in Santa Clara County, that also is run through the Adult and Child Guidance Center.
Cavallini, who has master's degrees in mental health counseling and school and guidance counseling, has worked at the center since 1996, and is one of three counselors with the DEAF program. She visits four schools in the San Jose School District on a weekly basis, including Leigh High School and Union Middle School, and works with deaf students in group counseling.
"We cork on social skills, self-esteem building, identity issues, problem-solving and decision-making processes," Cavallini said. "They really do benefit from it, they connect together in the group, they have an identity."
The on-campus counseling is part of the DEAF program, a community program funded by grant. Funding comes primarily fromthe Child Abuse Council and Smythe European car dealership.
At the center, Cavallini and other therapists work with families that have deafness in their family, whether it is a child or a parent, as well as working with late-deafened adults. Cavallini said most of the children who come for counseling come from families that don't know how to communicate with them, and don't know sign language.
"Self-esteem is one of the major problems. A lot of these kids come from families that don't put in the time to learn how to communicate with their children, and that don't accept their deafness," Cavallini said.
Through the DEAF program grant, therapists also are able to go on home visits six times a year to provide support in the homes of families with deaf children. Cavallini said the therapists act as a shadow or a coach to the parents, teaching them how to communicate with their children and deal with day-to-day life.
"The home visits have a big impact on the families, the parents are amazed to see that their child can communicate when we come into their homes," Cavallini said. "The real environment is at home, the real opportunity to do intervention."
Some services available through the Adult and Child Guidance Center include counseling and support groups for deaf children who are at-risk or victims of child abuse, groups for hearing siblings, educational services for parents of deaf infants, and parenting of deaf children.
For more information about the center, call 408.287.3104, or the TDD number at 408.292.2777.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
