SOCIAL WORK NEWS
Student Practicum Stories Dani CARES: Expanding Homeless Services during COVID
A Capitol Time It’s not common for interns or fellows in the national Office of the Surgeon General to come from a social work program, but BSW student Jessie Welch-Stockton’s understanding of mental health, substance misuse, and the opioid crisis were part of the reason she was selected for the internship, and expanded the breadth of her responsibilities. “Social work gives such a great perspective of people’s actual needs. It’s a perspective that gives you a base from which you are able to create deep, meaningful relationships with people,” she said. Because of her background, Ms. WelchStockton was asked to do significant draft work for then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams. “A lot of the presentations Dr. Adams does are meant for mental health workers,” she said, “so I was asked to help shape those remarks.” Jessie couldn’t say enough about encouraging other social work students to get involved with macro practice opportunities like this. “The social work perspective is so needed in discussions of health,” she said. “I think it’s important to realize that, early on in your career, you can start to be an advocate, even as a budding social worker.” 4
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The Road Home hadn’t done Housing First street outreach before this last year. However, when CARES Act dollars came through, it made sense to direct funding to meet clients where they were—on the streets. MSW student Dani Nives started the program from the ground up during her practicum—writing policy and procedure that met both the administrative guidelines of the grant and the needs of the clients, implementing policy, running the program, and now supervising case managers within the program. Ms. Nives recognizes the boon her education has been in this process. “Having the foundation of always using evidence-based practice and understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing has been a huge transformation for me,” she said. “Before, I would just do whatever plan was in place. To be in the supervisor role now, and to start implementing evidence-based best practices I’ve learned from my MSW Program has been invaluable. It’s been a really humbling and beautiful experience to be able to acknowledge there’s always more learning to do and always better practice to be utilizing.”
A Tale of Two Prisons MSW students Lu Smith and Rhiannon McDaniel spent their 2020-2021 practicum placements helping men and women incarcerated at the Utah State Prison access treatment, learn new skills, and think differently about themselves. Working on the women’s side of the prison, Ms. Smith ran a skills-based program for women with a substance use-related charge. The men’s side of the prison, where Ms. McDaniel worked, was more heavily impacted by COVID-19, so her work with the mental health team meant donning masks, goggles, and gloves for brief visits with clients. On days Ms. McDaniel couldn’t visit, she worked on developing a training for officers on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Though the pandemic presented different practicum challenges for these two women, both found their experiences strengthened their perception of the importance of social work within the criminal justice system. “For me,” said Ms. McDaniel, “one of the main takeaways of this experience is asking myself, ‘How can I call people in, instead of calling people out in every part of this?’”
