My Field Experience Analysis

This week during my field experience, I got the amazing opportunity to go to Fort Yates and visit the shelter down there. I went down there with an advocate who has her license in social work. That was an amazing opportunity because I learned a lot from being able to talk to her about social work. I found it interesting that when discussing what we learned during college, that there was overlap despite going to different colleges. In addressing the activities, I was very excited to get the chance to travel to Fort Yates. I have never been there, however, I learned several new things, thanks to the advocate who was very knowledgeable and answered a great deal of my questions. I was a little nervous this week because for the first time I answered the phone and talked to a client. I was nervous because …show more content…
I learned new things about the Native Americans and about the Sioux reservation. Before Wednesday I did not know what the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I learned that they have two officers working at a time for the whole reservation. I also learned about a policy that I found very upsetting and think should be changed. In the reservation they do not share information with the state and other reservations. So someone could have three offenses for driving under the influence on the Sioux reservation and if they moved to Bismarck or another reservation, no one would know because of lack of information sharing. It was also a very emotional experience to go down there. In all honesty, it was a very sad place. Several of the buildings were boarded up, trash everywhere, stray dogs running around, and abandoned cars everywhere. It was like we entered a whole different country. The advocate told me about how there are no jobs on the reservation. She showed me a couple of businesses that had opened, but then closed. The Taco John's had closed because they could not meet health codes and the employees were dealing drugs during