Published May 2016
by Janae Kinn, MSW Candidate
University of Michigan
On my first day as a first year MSW graduate student, a faculty speaker told the story of how she was “bitten” by a case experience and fell in love with social work not long after she began her career. My field advisor calls driving events like these “aha!” moments. The same week, I had the opportunity to hear an MSW graduate attempt to prove that “social workers are not made; they’re born.” These two thoughts began to tumble around in my brain, and I wondered anxiously when I would come to experience both of these notions. I was standing on the brink of a wonderful adventure as I began my first field placement two short weeks later.
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Published May 2016
by Kelly Palmquist, MSW Candidate
University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Thomas Merton once said, “Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony.” So often in the hustle and bustle of life, we lose sight of our happiness in favor of intensity; the intensity of our schedules, the demands placed upon us, our expectations of ourselves, and our constant drive towards our ambitions. Never has this been truer for me as it is right now, in the very throes of my last semester of graduate school.
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Published April 2015
by Justin Marotta, MSW Candidate
Simmons School of Social Work
- January 24, 2004. Timothy Stansbury, 24. Brooklyn, New York. Unarmed.
- November 25, 2006. Sean Bell, 23. Queens, NY. Unarmed.
- January 1, 2009. Oscar Grant, 22. Oakland, California. Unarmed.
- March 20, 2010. Steve Eugene Washington, 27. Los Angeles, California. Unarmed.
- February 2, 2012. Ramarley Graham, 18. Bronx, New York. Unarmed.
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Published April 2015
by Sandra Rago, MSW Candidate
Simmons School of Social Work
It was a Thursday in mid-August, yet the air had the slightly crisp quality of a cool autumn morning. After spending the summer outside as a camp counselor wearing flip-flops and shorts, it felt strange to be heading toward an air-conditioned conference room dressed in business casual attire. As I found my seat at the Healthcare Orientation for Social Work Students, I came to two realizations. My first thought was that the famous “last summer off ever” between the two years of graduate school was quickly winding down. My second realization was how excited I was to begin my next field placement in a hospital.
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Published April 2015
by Michele Lubowsky, MSW Candidate
Simmons School of Social Work
It is all right to be vulnerable. What’s necessary is to realize our vulnerabilities and be rowdy and fearless anyway. If we recognize that as humans we’re connected by vulnerability, we stay present and honor the mission of social work: to improve the well-being of others.
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Published October 2014
by Natasha Naim, MSW
Simmons School of Social Work
The author is a newly graduated student of the Simmons School of Social work. In this article, she touches upon the lessons she has learned from working in the field with older adults and discusses the greater cultural and societal factors that she has observed that have impacted the older adult population.
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Published April 2014
by Nicole Frankel, MSW Candidate
Simmons College
I was an English major for my undergraduate studies at a large private college in the Boston area. I had two internships in different sections of the publishing industry. After graduating with a BA in English in 2009, I was hired for my first “real world” job as an editorial assistant for a nationally recognized medical journal. I stayed at this job for three years and fine-tuned my proofreading, editing, project management, and organizational skills. However, I felt trapped by the gray walls of my cubicle and an endless barrage of emails being my only contact with the outside world. I craved face-to-face connection. I dreamed of using my dedication, determination, and studiousness to create real change in our society. I was a psychology minor during undergrad but never thought it would go anywhere because I only enjoyed the “people side” of psychology and not the “science side” of the inner workings of the brain and pathologizing diagnoses. I mentioned to my therapist at the time that I was considering a career change. She suggested that I look into the social work field.
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Published April 2014
by Miranda Smith, MSW Candidate
University of Nevada, Reno
In my first year of field placement as a master’s of social work student, I interned at a local hospital. In the second semester, I stayed specifically in the trauma ICU, and to some extent, the ER, places of high emotional stress for social workers and nurses due to the near-constant exposure to the effects of trauma and death (Adams & Riggs, 2008; Badger et al., 2008; Bride, Jones, & Macmaster, 2007; Dane & Chachkes, 2003; Dominguez-Gomez & Ruteledge, 2009). I was concerned that I would be negatively affected by this experience, so I started researching the negative effects of working in a helping capacity with traumatized individuals for one of my classes. This is when I first discovered the concept of compassion fatigue, which is related to burnout and to secondary traumatic stress as well as vicarious trauma (Dane & Chachkes, 2003; Figley, 1999; Noushadd, 2008; Stamm, 2010). According to Stamm (2010), compassion fatigue consists of both burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and thus has symptoms of exhaustion, frustration, anger, and depression, as well as negative feelings driven by fear and work‐related trauma. Signs of compassion fatigue can include insomnia, physical/emotional exhaustion, a diminished sense of enjoyment, irritability, and avoidance (Figley, 1995).
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Published April 2014
by Naomi Rush Olson, MSW Candidate
Simmons School of Social Work
Abstract: This essay argues that social work field curricula should encourage students to view their placement settings as sites of culture and should adapt tools and insights from anthropology to improve the educational value of the field experience. Students in the field occupy an insider-outsider role in their placement sites that fosters a distinctive and valuable point of view. Unfortunately, many resulting experiences and insights are not adequately processed in assigned reflective writing and supervision contexts. Anthropologists record their field impressions in ethnographic field notes, which subsequently become data for reflective and analytic processing, a method that can be usefully adapted to social work education.
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Published October 2013
by Nickia Miller, MSW Candidate
Springfield College School of Social Work
Abstract: The author examines the role of clinical supervision, specifically supervision through Cognitive-Analytic Therapy (CAT), for social workers in understanding and managing countertransference and transference in their work with groups and individuals. By relating her own experience as a group work facilitator without CAT supervision and then under CAT supervision, the author concludes that CAT supervision benefits clinicians and facilitators by allowing them to identify their own countertransference and transference as well as that of their clients, helping them to avoid burnout and be more effective in their roles as clinicians.
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Published April 2013
by Erica Lamb, MSW Candidate
Aurora University
As a social work student, I am frequently conflicted about the use of self in a therapeutic relationship with a client. For me, there seems to be a delicate balance between establishing a trusting, congruent therapeutic alliance with the client and the possibility of sharing too much personal information, which could unintentionally impede the healing process. I have always been wired this way, and even as a toddler, I would crawl under the public restroom stalls and tell strangers my life story. For many years I facilitated women’s group Bible studies, which operated in a way similar to a support group. The topics typically would incorporate many self-help techniques, which were grounded in a biblical foundation. To provide a safe environment, encourage conversation, and reduce any power differential that the women may have been feeling, I would often be the first one to self-disclose something. Based on my personality and the habits I had formed from leading Bible studies, I knew the area of self-disclosure would be challenging for me.
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Published April 2013
by Cindy Rinaldi, MSW Candidate
Aurora University
I came to my social work program with plenty of life experience caring for older adults. When I was young, I cared for my grandmother, and volunteered in nursing homes and for the Meals on Wheels program. Later, I cared for my elderly parents for more than ten years. Placing my mother in a nursing home was a difficult decision, but it gave her and me the opportunity to socialize with other seniors. So it was natural for me to ask for an internship working with seniors.
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Published October 2012
by Rachel Bedick, MSW Candidate
Simmons School of Social Work
In August 2012, I participated in a two-week medical brigade to El Salvador, organized by the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). Before I began working towards my MSW, I worked as a community organizer with public housing tenants in Somerville, a low-income community outside Boston; this work shaped the way I think critically about institutions, inequality, and social change. My desire to combine individual clinical work and community organizing work with Spanish-speaking immigrants led me to social work school. I was curious to see how El Salvador, one of the poorest countries in the world, uses its limited resources to simultaneously attend to individuals’ needs and make structural changes.
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Published April 2012
by Joshua Barnes, MSW student
Simmons School of Social Work
I was eager to make a good first impression at my first-year internship at Year Up in Boston. Year Up is a national program designed to close the “opportunity divide” between available corporate jobs and the five million young adults with only a high school diploma. 18-to-24-year-olds join a one-year training program that offers “hands-on skill development, college credit and corporate internships” (www.yearup.org). Students attend classes and workshops on professional behavior; social workers are available to consult with students during lunch and classroom breaks. Each social work intern is assigned to one floor of the program and works closely with the teacher on that floor.
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Published April 2012
by Jana Wardian
Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC)
Arizona State University
When I was working on my MSW, I read a statistic that would not let go of me, “Nearly 40% of patients on dialysis had diabetes.” I began to wonder what dialysis was like and how a person who struggled to manage one chronic illness would now cope with a second chronic condition. I sought an experience that would complement my interest in helping people with chronic illness to manage their disease and engage in their care. My prior experience had been with diabetes education and support. Now it was time to go to the next step. I asked our field coordinator if she had any contacts with dialysis clinics and whether I could do my second year MSW field placement there. She had never had a student do an internship at a dialysis clinic, but was open to the idea.
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Published October 2011
by Jessica Eslinger, MSW
Doctoral Student
University of Kentucky
Reflection is a process of people “exploring their understanding of what they are doing, why they are doing it, and the impact it has on themselves and others” (Boud, 1999, p. 123). Reflection can help increase students’ awareness of their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences and therefore build a greater capacity for empathy with clients. Reflection leads students to be curious about the human condition, and to challenge their existing assumptions. It can help students to analyze and integrate past and current knowledge into their practice. Finally, as reflective practice encourages students to stay in touch with their own responses and personal needs, it is a vital component of self-care and professional development.
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