Stanford University Urban Studies &
Urban Summer Fellowship
Student perspectives of community-engaged learning and research across the United States
Hello again! This is Kimberly, and this summer I worked at the Alliance for Children’s Rights in the Healthy Teen Families Program of the healthcare department. The week before last week was my last at the Alliance, so I decided to take some time to gather all of my thoughts and reflect on my last 10 weeks at the Alliance, how I have changed and what I have learned.
When crafting my learning plan at the end of spring quarter, I was not sure what to expect of at the Alliance, so I outlined some general goals regarding learning more about the work that happens behind the scenes at nonprofits like the Alliance. I wanted to learn more about the internal dynamics at the Alliance, and I wanted to see where the balance between internal interaction and interaction with clients lies within an organization that constantly has to fight the system of child welfare yet also cooperate with it. In general, I wanted to learn more about the fields of law and social work in the way that operate in public service and at a private organization, and I definitely wanted to learn more about the child welfare system and become more actively conscious of it and the role it plays especially since I had not had any experiences with foster care. Admittedly, I grew up not being aware of the child welfare system because, to my knowledge, I was not surrounded by anyone directly or indirectly connected to the system. My overall experience at the Alliance this summer felt more like a learning experience than work experience, and the timing of it felt so perfect for me. This coming year is one where I feel like I will have to make a lot of decisions for myself and my future, including what to major in, and I feel very lucky that my summer at the Alliance let me experience a lot different fields at the same time. Because I was one of the few undergrad interns, the work that I did was not as law-oriented as the rest of the law students; this let me work in several different programs at the Alliance and expand the duties I was responsible for. I was able to work in different programs in the healthcare department, attending Alliance-wide policy meetings, and even briefly work with the adoption department to facilitate a summer Adoption Day (plus, sometimes I did typical intern stuff like making copies and filing). Working directly with attorneys and social workers, both within the organization and outside of it with other organizations and clients, is what really allowed me to explore the different facets of the Alliance as well as get a deeper understanding of what goes on at the Alliance and how the Alliance collaborates with the community and other organizations in order to improve its services. I was able to meet others at other organizations like Public Counsel, another nonprofit in the area, as well work with the Department of Children and Family Services at PPT meetings with pregnant youth in order to make sure they are getting the services and resources they need. I think the one event that really represents my time as a whole at the Alliance was Adoption Day. Even though I did not get the opportunity to personally work an adoption case with an attorney, I was able to play a role in the summer Adoption Day. Adoption Day is a day where the Children’s Court only holds adoption hearings and hundreds of adoptions are finalized. This was a day where I got to see it all in action; attorneys attending hearings, social workers and interns meeting with the clients of the cases they worked on. Some of the adoptions that were finalized were years in the making; a family I help with translations mentioned to me that their adoption of two girls took almost 3 years after several complications with paperwork. This day in particular allowed me to see a lot of intersectionality in the field of social work and law; I got to see the how different facets of foster care intersected in adoption. A lot of the families that finalized their adoptions on Adoption Day were families that worked with more than one department at the Alliance, dealing with issues regarding housing, poverty, immigration, and other obstacles. I’ve mentioned this before, but this summer at the Alliance has really taught me the value of small steps, of valuing and paying attention to the pace of progress, even if it is slow. The Alliance made a lot of strides in specific client cases, state policy, and especially in its transition period as a new CEO comes in. The Alliance has also gained a lot of press coverage this summer, with California-based newspapers putting out several articles relating to foster care in the state and in the county of Los Angeles; several attorneys from the Alliance worked closely with reporters to provide information. In watching how much progress the Alliance made in the short 10 weeks I was there, I learned to see progress in my own self and how I have grown this summer as well. Personally, I’ve made a lot of progress in learning how to better take care of myself and treat myself more kindly; this may seem irrelevant to my work at the Alliance, but I noticed that in working with families that were in difficult situations, the empathy I expressed with them also translated into more active empathy towards myself and those around me. Overall, it was very eye-opening to see how my experiences at the Alliance translated similar values, though applied differently in my own life, something I did not expect to see. Now that I am ready to head back to campus, I take with me these experiences and these values, keeping in mind what I have learned, the privileges I have compared to others, and the ways that I can become more informed and more involved. Thanks for reading! Kimberly
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My name is Dayonna Tucker and this summer I worked with NeighborScapes, an organization committed to improving neighborhood conditions in the Chicago land area. As I look back over my internship, I would say my work wasn't the most substantial gain from this experience, but the networking opportunities that came along with them. I met with lawyers, marketing executives, community organizers, Englewood residents, and even Jack MacNamara. All of these connections led me to think more about myself and my relationship to the communities that I am a part of. Am I doing my part? Are those that are in positions of power listening to my voice and the voices of my fellow community members? Do we have access to resources to improve out quality of life? All of these questions are essential to ask in community building.
I also got a sense of what career paths I would enjoys and those that I wouldn't. This summer experience has lead me to realize that community organization isn't the career path that I want to go down, but I learned so much about the hard work that goes into getting a non-profit off the ground. Seeing so many leaders talk about how they left their regular 9-5 jobs to follow their passions to work with people in communities made me think about my own passions. After giving my own passions some thought, I realized the performing arts are what I'm passionate about, and there are many different ways to advocate for people during those mediums. I personally don't think I grew much over the summer with the tasks that I was assigned (meaning I grew in other ways. I definitely saw leaps of personal growth this summer!). I did a lot of reading initially to get familiar with the topics we were tackling, and it was difficult not having any tangible ways to measure my work progress. I had to find ways to deal with wanting instant change and instant progress. This internship made me really look at community work as a journey, and change doesn't happen over night. There are several meetings, emails, write-ups, and grant applications in between before the final target is hit. Later in the internship, I started working on marketing for the organization. So, I revamped the website, and put them back in touch with social media. I also created a social media plan for them to follow when they hit particular milestones throughout the next few months. In the future, I plan to find ways to apply the things that I've learned working in Englewood to the communities that I am a part of. I'm from Harvey, IL, and the city is facing very similar obstacles to Englewood. I hope that with post college success, I'll be able to give time and money to the issues in that area. I will also be attending an Echoing Green Conference in October, which will expose me to the many organizations finding innovative ways to help people across the world. I am extremely grateful to have been given this opportunity by the HAAS center and I truly did have a good time over the summer with my internship! Hello all, Momo here! Just as a refresher, this summer I have had the privilege of working for the Hip Hop Therapy Global Institute (HHTGI). In my first blog post, I introduced HHTGI as something that is very much still in process. While we are still working hard to grow our network in order to amplify the impact that hip hop can have on global youth wellbeing, I am pleased to report that we have officially launched three new online tools that help us with this mission! We have developed a Network Map, a Directory, and a Resource Library. All of these tools make it easy for people in the greater HHT (hip hop therapy) community to add themselves and their HHT work to a global network. We are now working to get the word out to as many HHT related people and organizations as possible, all around the world. It is our hope that by centralizing this information, it will increase our collective capacity to inspire positivity in the lives of youth through hip hop culture.
I have a couple weeks left for this summer, and I have learned so much from being able to work with my supervisor. It was really meaningful for me to help with building some of the foundations of HHTGI’s network. I learned a lot about being flexible with ideas, not getting too attached to one idea, being able to reorganize thoughts, and drawing inspiration from successful orgs and cases around us. It gave me the chance to familiarize myself with many online tools that help organizations maximize their resources. Especially for non-profit work, this becomes very important. I have been applying this knowledge to other things in my life, and thinking about ways that I can put this experience to use in the communities I am involved in. I have struggled in past years to visualize my role in the world of social justice—I’m not one to stand in the front of a rally, so I thought maybe visual art and/or music making could be my voice. Although art could still be a channel for me, I am now starting to think that maybe my diverse set of skills and experiences is my strength. In that way, I hope that I will be able to fill in where I am needed, and although I may not be an expert in any one thing, my many perspectives will hopefully come into use, especially in the collection and allocation of resources in community-driven organizations. I hope to continue to contribute to HHTGI in whatever ways I can. During the next academic year, I am currently planning to receive course units towards one of my majors (Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity) for dedicating several hours each week towards work for HHTGI. This plan is exciting to me for many reasons. For one, I was looking for good ways to earn some of my last credits in my major. Two, since HHTGI is in such a critical period of growth, it is important to me that I help with the more mundane tasks that are required for upkeep. Three, I feel that I have always struggled with reciprocity in my community engaged learning projects. This summer, I feel that I am finally able to give back to the organization, not just taking the experience for my own learning and then running away. I hope to continue to foster a relationship with HHTGI, advocate for culturally sensitive work in youth wellbeing, and stay in touch with my supervisor as a mentor |
AuthorThis blog is authored by Stanford University students engaged in summer fellowships through the Cardinal Quarter and the Program on Urban Studies. All writings and thoughts belong to the Fellows and do not represent the opinion of the sponsoring programs. Archives
September 2018
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