Senior Year Field Internship

During this time, I expect to learn and gain hands-on social work experience in the field. Also, I want to learn how to use and apply social theory into my practice. I want to build and gain the relationship with my field/task supervisors and colleagues. Moreover, I want to gain the opportunity to develop the personal and professional identity. Lastly, I will learn how to use my experience from my practicum setting to practice in the social work field in the future.

The benefit of service learning for the student and community is again a better inform civic minded individual who may use his experience from service learning as a launching pad for career opportunities to better serve within that community. In an article published in the College Student Journal its author noted that with service learning “students gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility" (Strange,

In order to gain the necessary skills needed for social work, service learning is necessary due to the fact that it serves as an introduction to skills that may be utilized later in the field. Completing my service learning hours at Harvest Hope Food Bank provided me with the necessary experiences to ensure I am able to impact clients positively and in a more professional and ethical manner. Values and ethics, connections to generalist practice, and experiences with the organization all shared important roles in helping me comprehend the importance of interactions with others in communities, resulting in being able to better understand the various clients I may encounter.

For the Service Learning Assignment, I decided to volunteer at Northwind Rehabilitation and Health Care Center. My current interest is working in the medical field that deals with babies. The service learning placement that best fit my schedule was Northwind Rehabilitation and Health Care Center. This organization works with mostly senior citizens that need special care at all times. There were times where individuals that were not senior citizens that came there because it is not strictly a nursing home. The residents are not able to care for themselves and need constant supervision to ensure their safety. Some of the resident may require physical therapy. My responsibilities was to interact with the different residents on each visit and complete

If I am a Service Learning project coordinator, I would pick taking care of elderly. When people willing to invest a lot of time in taking care of elderly, they receive unimaginable knowledge in return. For college students who participate, this project will help them developing patience, seeing things differently, and learning another's perspective. When I was taking care of my grandma, she taught me principles that I couldn't learn it myself. Because they lived longer and experienced things we never experience which take their whole life to learn, and saved me many time to learn so. The purpose of Service Learning is to combine learning with community service activities that get students involved and applying the experiences to their academic.

My most impactful service experience happened this last summer. I have been lucky to have been a part of various youth groups throughout my adolescence. With Memorial Baptist Church, I was happy to attend PASSPORT Camps. Like other camps I have participated in, PASSPORT is a camp where youth spend a week in the summer to enthusiastically worship and serve the community surrounding their site. PASSPORT sent us to Danville, Virginia, and despite being on Averett University’s cozy campus, we were surrounded by a dying, deprived community. Social exposure is exponentially increased when your mission groups are melting pot assignments from various churches. PASSPORT did not hold back in showing us the poorest of the community, and the sheer lack

For a start, having the opportunity to be part of the SOCW 6371 Community and Administrative Practices class has broadened my mind-set when viewing social work practices through a macro lens. In addition, I have learned the skill of assessing the community as the target population/concentrated area via a needs assessment. Equally important, realizing the magnitude of work/planning it takes to formulate a program or redesigning one has made me understand the importance of why we should acquire the proper training and administrative practices to be able to lead organizations/agencies.

Be Knowledgeable of interventions applicable to one’s specialty, depending on your specialty there might be a variety of different interventions that are extremely important to not only understand in theoretical terms, but also in practical application. Developing a sense of empathy is extremely important as a Social Worker for without it you will have an unending series of difficulties as you attempt help others work through their problems without fully being able to understand their point of view on a given

My freshman year service work consisted of volunteering through Project LOL at the Toussaint Academy and fundraising with the Andy Paul Sanchez Foundation. I completed a total of 16.5 direct service hours at the Toussaint Academy and 10 indirect hours fundraising with the Andy Paul Sanchez Foundation. I began volunteering at the Toussaint Academy at the start of the year and completed a series of visits in May. I have been involved with the Andy Paul Sanchez Foundation since it began, but I volunteered at multiple golf tournaments in effort to fundraise. Being able to volunteer at both the Toussaint Academy and the Andy Paul Sanchez Foundation was a blessing and brought me closer to many new people.

This semester I chose to do my service learning at Volunteers of America, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing and other assistance services to low-income citizens. Within this organization I took care of the elderly, both the one’s with disabilities and the one’s without; I helped the staff with daily activities necessary to the organization which affect the residents’ health. Not only did I help with the organizations’ responsibilities but I also decorated the facility for different celebrations and shared time with the residents in the foundation. Some activities included table games, physical exercises, beauty treatments and reading.

“Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities” (Learn and Serve America National Service-Learning Clearinghouse). This assignment gave students the opportunity to go outside of their comfort zone, which is typically the classroom and see what the “real world” is like. As Gandhi would say “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” (Gandhi). I believe that this project really allowed us to appreciate what we have because many people are not as fortunate. During this service learning project I had certain expectations going into the project, but in the end, my results were not exactly as I expected.

For my service learning project I volunteered my time at the Oregon Food Bank and at the National Day of Service sponsored by the Office of Service Learning (OSL.) By doing these events it made me thankful that I live a life that doesn't require immediate assistance and/or urgent care. It taught me to not take my life for granted and to always count my blessing because one day they might disappear. Without me doing these service events I wouldn't be aware of how blessed my life really is. Doing these service events was definitely a big wake up call for me!

It is important to help give back to the community you’re able to learn through a different experience that helps enhance your knowledge. Service learning allows students to make a connection from the course and apply it in the classroom making their experience more engaging. I think is important to take what you learn in class and apply it. I am looking forward to starting placement to help enhance my learning and improve my skills. This type of experience gives you a whole different meaning when you can apply what you learn in a real life setting.

Furthermore, it’s a practice that furnished factual hands on than the theoretical classroom work. Consequently, with the internship, I felt competitive in the job market. However, through an internship, as a social work student, I was reassured that my future career will satisfy me. Also, different opportunities spawned by being an intern were the contact knowing people, which would aid in placement pinnacle in the job market. In addition, I would have a chance to implement the skills grasped in the internship to the physical

I have completed my service learning as of March 18, 2017, and I can say it was a lot of fun. Me and five other friends enjoyed our spring break the same way other college kids did, but in the process, we cleaned up our environment. With the beaches crowded with spring breakers, the beach also became littered with trash that would have harmfully impacted our ecosystem. Our group spent about two hours walking along the beach picking up garbage, while avoiding the overly intoxicated. Along the way, we listened to good music, met interesting people and felt as though we were doing society and Earth a great service. Two weeks prior my sister, cousin, mother, and I took a trip down to South Beach where we also performed a trash cleanup on the beach.