E-Term 2021: Internships in Community and Social Change

With my internship at CCDN, I have gotten to talk to many different clients about the situation they are in. A majority of my clients needed food and financial assistance, but I had a few that would say “I need anything, I can get.” When I was getting told these words, I would say to myself “well they came to the right place” because CCDN has so many resources available for people who need them. CCDN offers employment help, food/financial assistance, therapy, education programs/youth mentoring, parent support and so much more. And if CCDN can not help them with something at that time, they are always able to give a referral to another organization that could help them. I have really enjoyed how CCDN tackles anything that comes their way. As they constantly are connecting people with resources. This is a very important part of what they do and I’ve witnessed that they do everything they can. 

In regards to the book, where it talks about unequal distribution and the fact that change is necessary are just two points that have been emphasized throughout this month while working with CCDN.  Working with so many clients, I was able to see this unequal distribution first hand and seeing how CCDN is helping make a difference was very impactful. With all of the people that live in poverty in the Birmingham area, change really needs to happen and CCDN is trying to be a part of it. Providing people with the necessary resources is just one of many ways to begin change, but there is still so much to be done in order to fully get these people out of poverty.

After college, I want to continue on the path to become a social worker. I actually have been thinking of doing this for a while, but I was a bit unsure about it. I think now, it is something I can clearly see myself doing in the future. I also definitely want to volunteer more, as it is something that I haven’t done a lot. I am excited to see what the next chapter holds for me!

This organization confronts a large number of issues including the following: hunger, homelessness, lack of access to medical care, utility payment assistance, educational needs etc. The causes of these issues are numerous. Some people don't have cars, some people don't have jobs (laid off, no transportation, too old), others rely on government assistance that is minimal. The motto of CCDN is to heal the whole family so they are committed to these specific causes because they understand that to really be a change agent they have to address the situation as tenfold. There is no one solution for making a situation better for our clients. There are likely multiple areas in their life that are interconnected and feed off one another.

The strategies that they use now are working in their favor. Covid has caused there to be slight communication issues but considering the conditions the clients are under the only other way to help would be showing up to their homes, which with Covid would not be safe. 

Personally, this month in this internship has nudged me to want to work even harder in the community. I have dedicated my time to continuing on with this internship. I have also found other programs like CCDN within the city of Birmingham and have made plans to include community engagement more into my programming.

This organization is aware of the problems that people face and tries to be the solution to those problems. If they was not aware, CCDN would not be an organization. Knowing that we have these problems in the world, we try to work as fast as we can to get information from our clients so we can move forward and getting them the help that they need. 

I think for CCDN, they need more people. My supervisor is always busy and there aren't many employees, so some workers can become overwhelmed by their work load. I've watched Youtube videos about social workers and they have said that the work can be overwhelming at times. So there may not be a lot of social workers out there and many organizations probably face this problem. 

I enjoyed the month of January and being able to work with CCDN again. I will continue working with them and my supervisor will give me more work and I will be able to dig deeper into social work. I think social work is what I want to do. I know you do not get paid a lot of money, but its not about the money. I always knew whatever career I wanted to go in, it would involve helping others and being able to change their life. A career such as social work or case management will allow me to change people's lives. I will feel complete. I will fill as if my purpose here on earth has been served. 

Community Care Development Network is an essential organization for under-privileged individuals and families in Birmingham as a whole. There are many needs that the non-profit serves from food scarcity, to job searching, to student tutoring. My internship specifically helps with the latter need. Children that come to tutoring at CCDN are often found to be greatly behind in core subjects such as math and reading. The issues are due to the overwhelming ratio of students to teachers, lack of resources for children who fall behind, and an absence of early intervention practices to identify children with special needs. I believe the strategy from Getting to Maybe that involves taking a step back to view potential channels of influence and reflecting on the wants and needs of students could be very beneficial. My internship is greatly focused on reflecting and analyzing where weaknesses are in the Birmingham City and Jefferson County school systems. Another approach that could be beneficial can be taken from the major theme of the book: looking at problems from a complex aspect rather than a complicated or simple point of view. There is no one answer for why the school system is failing children. This month has given me so much more direction in situations that call for critical thinking and problem solving. Non-profit work can be incredibly intimidating, but breaking it down in our weekly discussions and having Getting to Maybe as a guide has helped to shape a whole new, fresh perspective to non-profit work. Pre-pandemic I volunteered at the Exceptional Foundation here in Birmingham and have always had a passion for being a friend to our exceptional, special peers. But my work with CCDN has left me with a different passion for learning how to be an aid to underprivileged individuals in Birmingham. I love this city so dearly and want to broaden the range of ages, races, abilities, and socioeconomic statuses that I can have an impact on.

My internship is working with Highlands UMC, doing research on LGBTQ+ inclusivity. There is an obvious social issue here, that of LGBTQ+ rights, but if we look a little bit deeper, there are many other social issues connected to the church.

I have collected stories from a variety of LGBTQ+ christains as part of the project for my internship, and one of the most common threads throughout these stories is that these people really did not feel accepted in a church setting. I am religious, and I can attest to this. More often than not, if someone is in a minority group, they will feel out of place, or even isolated, when they are around others. This does not strictly have to be in a church, but I have observed this during my church work.

Whether it’s race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, people that do not belong to these minority groups tend to isolate those that do belong to them, even if they do not mean to. As I was reading the stories I had collected, the thing I kept thinking of was the scene from Mean Girls, where Jannis and Damian were showing Cady the groups in the cafeteria. Janis pointed out all of the cliques and groups that had formed, and Cady made the observation that it was nearly impossible to get involved with any of these groups. I admit this is a weird connection, but it proves the point that I had been pondering throughout my internship.

We, as humans, have a habit of breaking off into small groups of people that are similar to us, and it is extremely difficult for someone to enter one of these groups. People will isolate themselves and not allow themselves to meet anyone different. It is not a bad thing to want friends that are similar to us, not at all; however, when we refuse to accept anyone who does not look like, talk like, or get around like us, it becomes an issue.

Whether it’s a church, a business, or even a group at a lunch table, we need to be more open to meeting and learning about different people. This type of group isolation is extremely harmful, and we cannot keep it up.

My organization, as well as my specific project, need to exist because they bridge the gap between the majority groups and the minority group. In this case, the minority group is the LGBTQ+ community. The novel “Getting to Maybe” discusses the ideas of creating your own door in the last chapter. This applies almost perfectly with what the church has done. They noticed a problem within the church, and there was not a direct way to fix it. Instead of admitting defeat, they found their own path to walk down. This path is allowing for previously excluded members of the church to know that they are welcomed with open arms.

After college, I want to go into some form of advocacy, so this internship was perfect for me. My experience this month has only increased my desire to bridge the gap between majority groups and minority groups. I do not want to change anything about these groups, far from it,I want to do work that helps people see and respect the differences among them, and understand that these differences are vital and one of the best parts of ourselves.

One reason that I believe it is important for my organization exist because without it lower income families will not have anywhere to send their loved ones. I interviewed a caregiver and one of the reasons that she enrolled her mom was that in her family, they don’t believe in sending their family members into nursing homes. I think one of the reasons that my particular internship was important to McCoy Adult Day Care was so that they increased their audience and client bases. The issues that my organization are focusing on is adults who are struggling with dementia and Alzheimer’s. I think that one of the strategies from Getting to Maybe would be the resilience. I think this would be important in their marketing plan, because they would start to reorganize their posts and flyers. This month it has shaped my interest in volunteering more because I want to be able to help more people. Now that I have volunteered more closely with an organization, I want to learn more about how to create and run a nonprofit organization. 

   During my internship, I have been finding better and more efficient ways to spread the word about this organization by developing engaging images to be posted on their social media platforms to help integrate the arts into local school districts and programs. The GBAEC primarily focuses on researching and applying for grant opportunities so that they may be properly funded to provide for artists, musicians, teachers, and any other titles that they hire to send into local schools to provide art education. My supervisor and other directors who work for this organization are dedicated to the arts and providing the best education they can to underprivileged children because they all have a strong personal relationship to the arts. 

   Strategies that I have noticed from the book that also play a part in my internship have been to leave a positive impact, and how to be a social innovator. This organization does its best not to just integrate the arts into schools but to really teach the kids what the arts are. This opportunity has taught me how to be a social innovator for the rest of the community. This month has shown me another way that I can give back to the community while also leaving an impact on the younger generation. It has allowed me to see what it's like from a different perspective. Meeting with my supervisor online every day has allowed me to make connections with her, and she has taught me valuable skills as well as work skills. 

Throughout my internship at Highlands UMC as an inclusion intern, I have been able to connect my experience to broader social issues. Rea and I have been working on "The Open Table Project" which is our adviser's newest project to raise awareness in the LGBTQIAP+ community. 

While our adviser made this project before the pandemic, I believe that this program will impact this community more now than ever. This program and church as a whole have a multitude of reasons to be in existence. After many zoom calls with the staff and surrounding ministries, it is obvious that this church is ministering to many people who have previously felt unwelcome at other churches. This specific project assigned to Rea and I was to raise awareness but I believe that it is the start of more LGBTQ+ people finding connection and finding more resources to feel apart of a community, especially in the time of a pandemic; it will address isolation, lack of education on this community, and increasing overall awareness.

 I see strategies from Getting to Maybe being enacted in the way that there are multiple ways to solve a problem. In the earlier chapters, we read about how a community addressed the horrible HIV/ AIDS issue by using humor. The commercials on television started to be about people dressed as condoms, lying on a condom shaped bed, with the overall plot being that women find condoms attractive. By using humor, the community slowly tackled this issue. There are many ways to address the issue of isolation in the queer community but I really admire the methods my advisor is choosing. This month has shaped my interest in future civic involvement by increasing my desire to change the way that members of the LGBTQIAP+ community are treated in churches and helped me realize that you do not have to be fully educated on every term and definition to be a great ally. Being an ally looks like being a good listener and creating relationships.

My internship focuses on the social concepts associated with the properties of space and time. Space affords society as does time but time allows for history and is more frequently focused on for social issues than space. This is the reason community awareness and education are important in cities such as Birmingham where development comes largely with a cost of minority displacement.  One cause for community dispersement is political actions such as redlining and gentrification, the church for which I interned is located very centrally in Avondale and is more or less at the mercy of the neighborhood. Beloved is focused on all issues surrounding community and justice including religion, ability, and race. Getting to maybe overall taught me what to expect, which is nothing. This strategy allows the depressive realism to ground us in reality while our ideals guide us to a future we could maybe get to. I allowed many solutions to come to me passively through research and then also waited to compound opportunity and intention (i.e. always listening for non-profits that could be good partners, and then following up later). This month has informed me that there is such a need for brain power in these underfunded nonprofits and that is something I would love to contribute to whatever community I may one day invest in.  

There's a need for PEER to exist because society makes it almost impossible to live a normal life on parole/probation or as an ex-convict or recovering addict. When such people want to start their lives anew but get constant rejections and reminders of their pasts is when PEER comes in. They take in these people and try their best to promote healthy living, learning, and working. My specific project needed to happen because the organization needs funding in order to continue pursuing their mission.

A common cause of the issues that the organization is trying to address is a lack of skill to maintain stability. People find it hard to reconnect with their families because there's still so much anger and hurt feelings, and, as a result, they revert to old habits of drug use or drinking their problems away. PEER is doing a great job at addressing this recidivism. They are focused on trying to find solutions to improve the quality of life for the recovering community because they recognize the essential role of recovery support in maintaining overall health and wellness that encourages individuals to choose a new way of thinking and living.

Some strategies I noticed from 'Getting to Maybe' that are being enacted by PEER are from the organization called Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN) which is discussed in chapter 3. Plan focused on financial security, a home that is a sanctuary, family and friends, and the ability to have one's wishes and choices respected (p. 35 E-book) which are all similar to what PEER is doing.

This month's experiences has definitely made me interested in civic involvement. However, I wouldn't like to pursue a career in such fields because it's been a journey packed with a rollercoaster of emotions for me; today I'm happy because somebody is fully recovered and reconnected with family and got a good job, and tomorrow I'm sad because somebody relapsed after doing so well. I've been unexplainably anxious most of the time which would make me unintentionally cold and bitter towards people around me. For this reason, I wouldn't like to pursue a career in such. I would, however, love to volunteer for such organizations some time in the future because I have gained so much knowledge and growth in all aspects.

When I think about issues within our society today, the one that sticks out to me most is the division between people. Beloved is a community that works to dissolve some of this disunity. Beloved takes the command of loving our neighbors seriously, as they make constant efforts to educate themselves on issues and find ways for their congregation to help. Along with this, there is a strict understanding across the Beloved community that people will be treated with anything other than love and respect. 

Yet, for Beloved’s efforts to be successful, there must be willing participants who are dedicated to doing this work. Getting people to participate is an issue many communities across the world, but this issue is especially prevalent in a society where time is viewed as money and there is a sometimes-natural expectation of reward from an investment of this time. When studying volunteer participation in Beloved, the focus point became getting community members at Beloved to not only want to become engaged in volunteer work, but strategies to keep them connected and engaged for years to come. To do this, I have focused on the design of volunteer gatherings in Beloved, the language in these gatherings, and the leadership in these gatherings. 

In brainstorming ideas for Beloved, I have been able to find a lot of connections through Getting to Maybe. One concept that has been particularly useful is the idea of a complex problem rather than a complicated. This has helped me think deeper into what the real issues in encouraging volunteer engagement may be. Another concept that has been particularly useful in approaching these issues is the Stockdale paradox. Knowing that I am not expected to find perfect solutions to these problems gave me a lot of peace for this project. It also motivated me to see that there is always room to grow. These lessons are undoubtedly going to be helpful in whatever career I land in for the future. Doing this research for Beloved has helped validate my feelings that I want to fight for whatever community I am in, whether it’s through lobbying or the types of cases I take on if I end up being a lawyer.