Students embody Centre service through Shepherd summer internships

Q: What interested you in SHECP?

A: I liked that there is freedom in what aspect of the internship that we do such as healthcare, education or law. Having the freedom to set those goals for yourself seemed like it was really something that would benefit me.  

Q: What are some of your day-to-day duties?

A: The Bradley Free Clinic mission is to provide free healthcare to people who either do not have insurance or are insured by the Virginia Medicaid program — usually people who don’t have a primary healthcare provider, or healthcare that is hard for them to access. The clinic is their first point of being able to access that care. We also have an in-clinic pharmacy. I do patient intake, measuring vitals and asking them about any medical conditions and a basic physical exam and then take the chart to their provider.

Q: What made you interested in a healthcare internship?

A: I’m deeply interested in going into surgery as a professional career. The science of it and the patient interaction are huge passions for me. I have had healthcare experience in India, prior to coming to Centre. This summer is my first clinical experience in America. It’s a similar skill set, but in a completely different setting. Having the opportunity to do this internship has cemented my interest in healthcare.

Q: What have you learned through your time with the Bradley Free Clinic?

A: In class, you learn about poverty — we have all these stories we tell about poverty, what poverty looks like and how people experience it. But with this internship, it gave me an opportunity to put faces to the stories and see for myself how all these lives we learn about and how the system is actually experienced by people in real life.

That makes change more essential. You understand how real the situation is — it puts pressure on me to get back to Centre and take real action instead of just talking about it in terms of theory or just talking about it in class. The United States, for example, is the only fully industrialized country without national healthcare. There are so many people in America who are in the working class, immigrant families who are working these low-paying jobs with bad working conditions that just put them in a cycle where they need healthcare but do not have the resources to access it. A lot of the patients we see in the clinic […] almost all the conditions they’re presenting are a result of working in these conditions.

Q: What interested you in SHECP?

A: Shepherd is a great place to learn and gain hands-on experience of a big organization.

Q: How has your experience with CWS impacted your thoughts of social work?

A: It has been an amazing experience. I’ve been able to step into more and more responsibility and at this point, I feel like a co-worker. I’m on the logistical side, I am learning a lot about the processes of how you run a non-profit on a national level.

Q: What on-the-job experience you can share?

A: Emotionally I’m getting to see what life is like and how good it is here. I was at a church that was helping displaced people from Burma, the pastor showed me a man who was blind and scarred from a trip-wire bomb. I looked around at other people in the congregation, and all of the older people were hurt or scarred in some way. But that day at church was Children’s Day, where they were celebrating the children who were born in America — they experienced refugee camps and running away to get to America so their kids could be safe. They don’t have to worry about persecution, food, education.  

Q: What are some of your day-to-day duties?

A: I’m part of the team that is responsible for securing housing, finding furniture and getting the house stocked with food, making sure it’s safe and everything works. It’s a small part that takes a lot of time — a lot of it is just communication, sitting with them through an orientation about some basic things like what rent is and how to pay it, finding a job, that kind of stuff.

Q: What is something that you will take from the internship?

A: One thing I’ll take away is that this is not a zero-sum game. We have the resources. We have people who are willing to help, but what we need to do is reach out to all these different people and communicate in a way that brings people together instead of just trying to do everything on your own. For me, this is experience I’ve gained in college — I can learn all the theories you want, but you have to be able to apply them in the real world. Getting to experience this work in non-profits and working through problems is vital.

Q: What interested you in the Shepherd Internship?

A: The great part about it is that it’s focused within your field. Mine is legal work — I’m pre-law and I wanted to work in an office with attorneys. I chose public defenders because we represent people who can’t represent themselves.

Q: What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

A: There are two main things that I do — one is that I learn and observe. A lot. In the mornings, I typically go to court, juvenile, domestic and criminal court. I basically observe all the different cases that the attorneys have that I work with. I also help with discovery, where the prosecutors will print or send the police report. Sometimes they’re misdemeanors, sometimes they’re felonies. Recently I was with an investigator working on a case and he took me to the site, and I got to see what it was like on the investigative side.

Q: What interested you in the law route?

A: They always have something to do — each attorney has about 70 cases open. Within two days of receiving a case, you have to interview the person and fill out a form. Some of these people are incarcerated so you have to go to the jail, so I put in a lot of time at the jail as well. I love it, I love to help people. I know there’s issue or controversy. And some of these people are bad people, but I was talking with my supervisor the other day and he said, ‘there’s so many, there’s a certain percentage who aren’t bad people, they just made one bad decision.’ Everyone has a right to be represented, to actually see this side is really important.

Q: What is something you’ll be able to take from your internship?

A: It’s one of those jobs where you learn to be empathetic about people’s issues and problems, whether or not you agree with them. The way you present yourself professionally to someone who is revealing the most vulnerable side of themselves, that’s something you need to practice. I think that’s something that I could carry to my future internships or in grad school.

Q: What advice would you give to a first-time intern with SCHEP?

A: It's an entirely new process and lifestyle that you live for so many weeks. Sometimes It’s hard to do something new because change is hard. So I think if you fully accept that change, it'll make it a lot easier to take constructive criticism more easily and learn.

Q: What interested you in the work you’re doing with SCHEP?

A: We mostly work with refugees. Most refugee organizations help for the first 90 days to get settled, but CNNC is more long-term community assistance. I wanted to do something important this summer that would help me build my resume. This is what I’m really passionate about and really fulfilling. My sister, Olivia Curtis ’18, knew I was interested in social work and encouraged me to apply. 

Q: What has the SCHEP internship helped you with related to your interest in social work?

A: One thing I was really looking forward to is figuring out what I wanted to do with my life — I feel like this was a good opportunity to see what sorts of communities I feel drawn to. It has definitely helped me understand the different types of social work. There’s community outreach, which is kind of what I’m doing right now, but then I can also work in law and policy, or writing grants. Learning about all of the different jobs has been really helpful.

Q: Who do you primarily work with at CNNC?

A: I deal mostly with kids in the community center. During the days when they are not here, we do community outreach. Just keeping up with what people’s needs are, hoping they get more comfortable with CNNC. For example, this person just had a baby and we know she is going to need diapers and a lot of times they don’t have the resources to get them. It can be a cultural thing too, even if there’s help, they might not ask for it. It’s an independence thing. We try to empower them, show them what resources they have available.

Q: As a sociology major, what have you gained from the experience?

A: Being in a new city. I think that’s part of the point of SCHEP: Even if you want to do social work, it’s trying it in a different setting outside of your community. You can go to a small or rural town. It’s something that I have to remember, if I’m feeling homesick it’s like, ‘OK, let’s be in the moment, appreciate being in this new city and see what it’s about.’ It has been really fun for me.