About a year ago, I began doing my internship at the Juvenile Services Department. Thinking back over my field experience, it was truly not what I was expecting the field of social work to be. When I first started as a social work intern, I was both excited and terrified. I needed to learn a great deal off new information and procedures while also adjusting to a new environment. As an intern at the Juvenile Services Department, I had a caseload of youth that were participating in the program. I was responsible for conducting intake assessments with the child as well as their parent(s) and recording the information of what occurred in the system. My responsibilities include reporting the progress of the youth in the program, developing treatment plans, maintaining weekly/monthly progress reports, managing caseloads, answering phones, scheduling appointments, and evaluating clients. As I moved forward in my field practicum, I had the opportunity to also conduct …show more content…
I often find myself relating to individuals who have similar experiences as mine. At the age of eight, my mother went to the United States and left me in the care of my aunt in Haiti. Unfortunately, it was my worst experience. I went through emotional, mental, and physical abuse by the individuals who I thought would provide me with love, guidance, and security. I honestly feel like my adolescence was taken from me. But, then again, I am very aware that people from the Haitian culture believes in tough love. By this I mean, they believe that if they do not show their children any love that it would make them strong and independent individuals. My overall cultural competence has helped me understand this concept because this is the method that my family members were raised with. Resultantly, they believe that if they raise me in a similar way that I become an independent and strong woman that has no necessity to seek out