If you don’t know how you will get your children engaged and active in discovering their life careers, ask Los Angeles County Deputy Probation Officer Robby Robinson—he has a lot of answers. Robinson was a featured speaker at the L.A. County Department of Probation’s “Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day” event. This national program helps girls and boys discover the power and possibilities associated with a balanced work and family life; it involves children in the process of thinking imaginatively about their family, work and contribution to the communities they live in. Robinson spoke to a group of approximately 40 children of Probation Department staff members. This event provided students the opportunity to learn more about the work their parents, guardians or mentors do to protect Los Angeles County families.
Robinson shared some of his life experiences with the children: “I did not meet my mother until I was 20 years old. I had grown up in the foster care system, so more than anything, I know how fortunate a child is to grow up in a caring home with their parents,” Robinson explained. The youngsters had several questions concerning how Robinson chose probation as a career. “After graduating from Southern Illinois University, I went to work at a Native American Reservation in Utah, through a program at Southern Utah State called Upward Bound,” stated Robinson. “I worked with the youth of the Navajo, Apache and Hopie Tribes, then I got a job with the YMCA in Los Angeles through a joint program with the Los Angeles County Crenshaw Probation District office. One day as I was taking paperwork to the office an officer came to me and encouraged me to consider working with the probation department; she had seen me work with youth and felt I would be good officer, and the rest is history.”
The suggested participant age range for the program is eight to 18, and takes place on the fourth Thursday of April, with more than 37 million employees at more than 3.5 million U.S. workplaces participating. This year marked the program’s 21st anniversary.
First Lady Michelle Obama participated by taking questions from the children of White House staffers in celebration of this event.
“Education leads to many rewards—not just in pay—but rewards in terms of satisfaction and making a difference in the Los Angeles community, the better educated we become, the more empowered and successful we can be, probation officers work with young people daily in our probation halls and camps, helping bring children into the workplace in order to explore the many life choices they have as teachers, mentors and of course, probation officers,” explained Ralph Miller, president of Los Angeles County Probation Officer Union, AFSCME Local 685.
This annual event has a lengthy history. Originally called the “Take Our Daughters to Work” program, founded by Gloria Steinem and the Ms. Foundation for Women in 1993, the concept was created in response to research that found many girls lacked confidence and were dropping out of school by the eighth grade. Ten years later the name was changed to “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” so that boys, who are subject to many of the same problems, could also participate.
