Internship Experience In Social Work

My internship experience has been phenomenal; I am an intern at Eggleston Family Services, a foster care and adoption agency. The first week at my internship they had me review files of different children that are a part of the foster care system. These children have different background and all have experienced trauma due to abuse. Each file is organized in different section detailing the child’s personal information and court orders. It is extremely devastating to read what these children have been through. I have also been working closely with a foster care social worker that has allowed me to go with him on monitor visitation with his client. These visitations take place in a park with her father, mother and four siblings. The visitations …show more content…
This experienced has allowed me to physically see the errors in our child welfare system. The client’s family was separated because their parents were involved in domestic violence. The father was the perpetrator and the mother was charged with failure to protect. The family has been separated for four years, due to the fact that the parents are not able to meet the courts requirements. All the children were put into different foster homes because no home could accommodate for all the children. This separation has made some of children have behavior issues resulting in criminal activity. Now several of the children have been sent to emergency shelters because no foster parent will accept a child with a bad background. One of the children has moved more than 15 times. This has made me realize that in this case separating the children has caused more harm than good. It is unfortunate that the courts set unrealistic objectives for the parents to …show more content…
I have never worked in an office setting, so using a phone to transfer calls or putting people on hold is very difficult for me to do. Sometime people speak to low or too loud, which makes it difficult for me to understand what they are saying. This is a learning experience; I plan to solve my problem by listening more carefully and getting to know the different button and their functions.
My overall experience at Eggleston has been great. My only concern is the days that I have to file paper work. I do not mind doing it but it is not part of being a social worker. I would tell my field instructor about my concern during my learning agreement meeting. I would tell her that I feel that I could use my time more productively by shadowing a social worker and learning about procedures and course of action they have to take when dealing with clients. I will also bring this up to my field liaison to get her