Jenna Garvey, M.Ed., BCBA

May Center School for Autism and Developmental Disabilities
West Springfield, Massachusetts

Employee Spotlight Award Winner, Winter/Spring 2017

Jenna is an exemplary staff member who always goes above and beyond in her position. Over the past few months, staff turnover and the addition of new students and staff into the West Springfield School have resulted in many changes in Jenna’s classroom. Throughout this time, she has done an amazing job, taking the time to learn everything about her new students and training her new staff.

She made sure that interventions and programming were not compromised during this transition, and offered clinically significant suggestions to address some very challenging situations. She has a classroom of students with some very difficult target behaviors, and through this time she worked hard with the clinical team to come up with excellent interventions to decrease disruptive behaviors, while at the same time keeping staff morale high. Because of her support, positive attitude, and ability to identify solutions, staff are invested and follow her model by supporting each other during difficult times.

During this time, she not only continued to provide a high level of service to her classroom, support and guidance to her staff, she also collaborated with others in the school to streamline or improve existing systems. She is always available to contribute to the team, and continues to strive to make the program stronger.

Jenna is a critical member of our West Springfield team. Her hard work continues to make the West Springfield program better. She has more than earned the opportunity to be awarded an employee spotlight award.

“I've been working at May Institute since 2010. I started as an instructor, worked as a lead teacher for several years, and am currently transitioning to a new role as the Coordinator of Clinical and Educational Services here in West Springfield. I'm eager to work in this new capacity on behalf of our students, families, and staff. Our school is currently expanding and moving to a new location, and it's been extremely rewarding to help prepare our students for this upcoming transition. I witness the impact we make in the lives of our students every day and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it!”