As a child, I was stricken with an exotic disease that resulted in my being paralyzed, from the waist down, for several months.  Over approximately four to five months in a hospital room, I saw and heard a lot of things that directed my interests toward careers in child care.  Over the past 43 years, I've worked with kids on the street, ten years as a probation/parole officer, thirteen years as a full-time group home parent for teen male delinquents and seven years as a counselor for inmates in a local county jail.