Working in the human services field can be hard. You will meet people who hate you. You will meet people who spit in your face and tell you to get lost. You will meet people who will be unappreciative of the help you are offering them. However, you will also meet people who can change your life or at least make it a hell of a lot better.

Building a relationship with your clients or patients isn't easy. Especially if you only have a few hours a week to do so. I currently work as a Career Resource Specialist(basically a job coach) for Work Opportunities Unlimited. My job requires me to meet people at their job sites and support them in whatever way possible. Sometimes it is as simple as sitting off to the side and watching from distance or as difficult as having to be no more than eight feet away from the person at all times. Throughout my six months at WOU I have met with 20 different people. Our schedules are constantly changing and we are being thrown around to new clients on a monthly basis. However, sometimes we are fortunate enough to stay with some clients for an extended period of time.

Rapport, which is defined as "a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well ", is one of the most important pieces of working with clients and patients. To gain rapport with a client is not an easy process. It's having long conversations every work shift, it's telling jokes, it's making mistakes and letting your client laugh, it's solving problems that make work difficult for clients.

I've recently had a big breakthrough with a client that I've been working with for almost six months now. This client has down syndrome as well as dysarthria (a condition that can cause speech to be slow and slurred). This client doesn't speak at all unless they really need help. A lot of working with this client is me knowing my way around their job at a bakery where they set up cookies to be baked, price and bag cookies and even dip cookies in chocolate at times. It is remembering how long several different types of cookies go in the oven and at what temperature they need to cook at. It is finding the right colored sprinkles for the sugar cookies on a shelf that is way over my head. It is also deciphering hand signals to figure out what my client needs.

Before I took on this client, they had been with the same job coach for two years. I was walking into a relationship that was built on trust, dependability, and knowledge. At first, the old job coach and I were splitting the week and then suddenly she was just no longer there. There was a lot of discomfort for both my client and me in the first few weeks together. We were encountering many new situations such as a new work schedule, new tasks, new rules(such as having to weigh popcorn bags out to 5 ozs), difficulties punching in and difficulties with their ride home after work.

I pushed harder and harder each day to make sure the problems were fixed for my client. These problems have resolved now. Just last week, I noticed my client would start to speak to me, very quietly and often only the first syllable of a word. They would say oops when one of us made a mistake. They would ask for my help picking something up. They would laugh louder and smile at me. I had finally gotten to where I needed to be with them. I had built a relationship on trust and respect.

But why is this important? Without rapport, you can never form a relationship with your client. You and they will simply be two people who are stuck together for two to four hours a day. Building rapport means having conversations that make work go by faster. It means them trusting you to help them voice any concerns to their employer or their case manager. It means them being sad when you take a day off or when the weather is bad and they can't work. It means them telling you when something is wrong at home or if they are having a bad day or if they just have some exciting news to share.

A couple days ago another client of mine had their yearly review. They asked me to voice that they would like to try something new at work. Today they were asked to collect carts for a half an hour instead of just being a greeter all day. Building rapport was having that client look at me and say "we did it!" and be happy as a clam going out into the parking lot to get carts.

Working with people isn't easy. But it's what I love to do.