Kelly Wyant
I am currently a junior here at Canisius College. My major is psychology and for my spring semester I decided to do an internship at Baker Victory Preventive Services. I started February 12th and my schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday from 2-6 which gives me about 12 hours every week. I was very excited for my first day because after I had a meeting with my supervisor at Baker Victory and she told me i was going to have my own office and we could get started as soon as possible. So here is my journal:
February 12th
Today is my first day at Baker Victory Services! I arrived at about 2 and went into see my supervisor. She was detained for a little while so Ruth one of the other supervisors got me situated in my office and then took me around the third and fourth floor to introduce me to everybody. Once my supervisor, Lorraine, was done she took me around and showed me the different rooms I had access to. Then we went back to her office and talked about the different things I was going to be able to take part in while I was here. She informed me that I would be able to tag along with different caseworkers to home visits as well as to court. I could also take part in any meetings I wanted to and she also planned to set me up with different tours of the other programs that they had here at Baker Victory Services.
February 15th
Today I made numerous phone calls to different furniture companies around the are in order to try and find out what kind of furniture items or household appliances they had as well as some prices. I am in the process of making a booklet so that if clients need furniture or appliances they know where to go. I also found out that on Tuesday I will be attending family court with one of the case workers.
February 20th
This morning I met the caseworker at 9:00 am at Baker Victory Services and from there we went to Family Court. Once we got there we waited for a little bit and then found out that we werent actually going to appear in front of the judge because the mother agreed to mediation and that isn't going to take place until March so they cancelled the hearing for today. I then went back to BVS and contined working on my booklet for the furniture stores and I also did my first progress note today. Progress notes just state who was there, where we were, what kind of visit it was, what specifically happened, and how I felt about it. Lastly, I went wround to different caseworkers to find out if there was any time next week that I could shadow them.
February 22nd
Today I finished up my booklet for the furniture stores and then I had a meeting with Lorraine. We went over my journal entrees, looked at my progress notes and my booklet, and then she went over the employee requirements with me. I also set up a couple of visits for next week, which include a court date and a home visit.
February 26th
Today I was shown the game closet that Baker Victory Services has and I was asked to go through it and get ride of any games that were missing pieces and also to try and straighten it up a little bit. There are numerous games in this closet so I spent most of my day working on that. Not only did I check and make sure the pieces were in there but I also had to fix the torn boxes and put everything back in order.
February 27th
Today I was supposed to attend court with a caseworker at 2:00 but that was cancelled. So instead I worked on the games for alittle bit and then went and talked with Ruth who showed me a lot of the folders and notebooks that she has on diffferent topics concerning families, adults, teenagers, children, abuse, communication, etc. She told me that I am welcome to go through these whenever I want to and make copies of anything I want as well. So for most of the time I spent at BVS today I went through her different files and folders and found different information I was interested in keeping.
March 1st
Today I got to the office and then I met with Lorraine for our weekly meeting. I was then supposed to go out with Sr. Kathryn for a home visit but I found out that she was out sick today so I didn't get a chance to go with her. After our meeting I decided to go back to my office and work on the game closet for a little while. I updated the game list that I had, fixed a few more, and then went through some more of the information that Ruth gave me to look at. I am also allowed to look through some of the case files and that the caseworkers have on their clients so that if I go out with them I am familiar with the family background so I did that for a little while today too.
March 5th
Today I was able to go to court with one of the caseworkers. We met her client there and then waited for a little while to be called in for our case. Once we got in there everything went smoothly in front of the referee. Since nothing was really being decided to do we appeared in front of the referee rather than the judge. The mother is doing everything that she is supposed to right now so they scheduled another date to meet again. This was a good court case to go to because I was happy to hear that the mother is doing everything she is supposed to. I was told in the beginning before I started that some of the clients like us and realize that we are just trying to help but other ones feel like we are against them and so is the rest of the world. This client though is very cooperative and is currently doing everything she is supposed to in order to get her children back.
March 8, 2007
Today I went to court with a different caseworker. Today was very interesting because I was able to find out a lot of background about the case and then see first hand the way the client interacted with different people. This hearing today was in front of the judge and it was rather short. They explained what the mother is going to begine, meaning counseling, and hopefully she will stick with it. They scheduled another hearing for May so that they can see how the mother is progressing. Before we actually went into the court room though I was listening to the client and the caseworker talking as well as her lawyer and the client believes that she didn't do anything wrong and everyone is against her. This is one of those difficult cases but I think the caseworker does a very good job with handling this client.
March 12
Lorraine signed me up to participate in some of the orientations that BVS was holding. The first one was on Monday and it started at 8:30 am. All of the participants got to know each other by different activities. Next, we went over the philosophy of treatment, professionalism, and diversity. All of these were very interesting and we did many activities to demonstrate what we learned as well. The most interesting one I thought was the one about diversity. We went over all the ways that someone can be diverse and then participated in activity that demonstrated the importance of understanding diversity. I was there most of the day and I found it very informative. I found out a lot about Baker Victory Services and the different programs and strategies they use.
March 13
Today I came in and met with Lorraine we talked about things that i have been doing here at BVS and things I am still interested in doing. After my meeting I shredded some papers for a little while and then looked through a case file until it was time to leave for the day.
March 14th
Today I took part in another orientation, which was also very interesting. Today we talked about fire safety, abuse prevention, mandated reporting, incident reporting, and infection control. This was th elast orientation that I took parent in but I found them both to be very interesting and informational. IT game me a chance to see what a new employee of BVS has to do before they begin. I also found our through these orientations how many different programs and services that BVS offers.
March 19th
Today I didn't have any visits planned so I stayed at the office and went around to different caseworkers to see if I could find any home visits to attend with them. One caseworker said I could go with him on Tuesday and another caseworker said I could go with her on Thursday. After I did that i went around the offices to see if I could help anybody or shred any papers and then I continued to work on the game closet.
March 20th
I was supposed to attend the home visit with one of the caseworkers today but he was out sick so instead I just kept my self busy around the building helping people and working on my game closet. I am almost done but because there are so many games its taking me along time.
March 22nd
Today I was supposed to attend a home visit with Shannon but it had to be cancelled and rescheduled that day during a time I had class so I couldn't attend with her. I stayed at BVS and did a lot of what I did on Tuesday and I also finally finished the game closet!! Which was a big accomplishment and it also looks a lot nicer and it is much more organized. Then I met with Lorraine for our weekly meeting and we talked about a lot of things I've been doing and we also went through a checklist she has of things she is supposed to inform me of and that I am supposed to know.
March 26th
Today I was supposed to go on a home visit with a caseworker but he had something come up before I got there so I couldn't go with him. I talked with Lorraine today and she said that she is very sorry that I am having trouble going out with caseworkers. She explained to me that they are pretty short handed right now so thats why I am having trouble finding people to go out with. Also we have new people who are starting there and they also have to go out with caseworkers so that they can get an idea of what goes on here before they get their own caseloads so she said that is another reason why I am having trouble finding people to attend home visits with. I also have some restrictions. For example I am not allowed to be a third party reviewer which is kind of like a witness who signs some papers with the new client. But because I am not allowed to do that I can't go out as often.
March 27th
Today I began helping Lorraine around her office. Every week caseworkers have to fill out a schedule form which I did too. Then they give it to their superivsor and that is how they keep track of their hours. The supervisors have to keep these schedules for a certain number of years and then when thats up they all have to be shredded for confidentiality reasons. So today I went through all of the schedules from 2004- to the present and put them in chronological order. Anything before 2004 was supposed to be shredded but I put those in order too just to make sure one of the recent schedules didn't get mixed in there. Then I put them in file folders and labeled them with the approprate year.
March 29th
Today I continued on with the schedules and shredded the box of papers I had which took me a very long time. Then I shredded some more papers for the other supervisor. Next I went back up to Lorraine's office and began to help her sort through some of her files and papers she had around the office and put them in different file folders so she could get everything organized. This took me till it was time to leave and I still wasn't finished so I will continue the next time I come in. This kept me busy but it was also interesting to look through some of her stuff. She told me I could make copies of things that I found interesting so that I could keep them for myself.
April 2nd
Today when I got to BVS I had a message from Lorraine telling me that she got me a tour over at Miller House. Miller House is a place that teenage mothers can stay with their kids. They each have their own room, community bathroom, then there is a kitchen that they can cook in, a living room, and a play room for the kids to play in. The meeting was set up for 2:00 pm so when I got there most of the moms were still at school. I saw some of their kids who were playing in the playroom. The supervisor over there showed me around and then we went into her office and talked for a while. She told me a lot about Miller House including how they help the mothers and the different programs they are enrolled in. She also gave me some information to take home. Miller House is a wonderful place that helps teenage mothers get back on their feet.
April 3rd
Today I spent most of my time helping Lorraine with her office. She then had to go for a meeting so I went downstairs to my office where I read through some more information that Ruth had given me on adolescents.
April 5th
Today I was able to go on my first home visit with one of the caseworkers. I can't say very much about it because of confidentiality reasons but I am glad I got to go because I got the opportunity to see what a caseworker does when they go on a home visit. In the particular home visit we were going to check on the 2 year old boy that was living there to make sure he was ok and to make sure that the father was keeping up with everything he had to do. The caseworker filled him in on what happened at court the week before since the father wasn't able to go because his child was sick. Then they talked about few other things that he needed to do and then we left after about an hour. I was very excited I got to go because it was my first home visit and I was happy I was able to see what goes on at one.
April 9th
Today when I got to the office I began helping Kathy one of the secretaries with some of her work. She is in charge of closing out cases once they are done and recently the format for this changed and it is now much more complicated then it was before. She went over the new requirments and then told me what I could do to help her. I went through the entire file cabinet and one of the shelves in the closet for her and went through and took our all of the staples and paper clips. It doesn't sound like a lot but it is because these files are very, very large and you have to flip through every piece of paper. This I did until she had to leave and then I went downstairs to my office for a little while.
April 10th
Today I was supposed to go out with one of the caseworkers but she was out sick today so I continued to help Lorraine get organized in her office.
April 12th
Today when I came in I went and helped Kathy continue to close those files. This time I went through and changed some of the tabs and the table of contents in all of the case files. This took my until the time I had to leave. It is very repetitive but I'm glad I did it because it familiarized me with the paper work that the caseworkers have to do while they have an open case. In this field of work there is a lot of paper work and you have to make sure that you stay caught up with it.
April 16th-19th
For the rest of the week I continued to help Kathy and Lorraine. I helped Kathy with closing the files and I helped Lorraine with organizing her office.
April 23rd
I finished helping Kathy so then today I finished helping Lorraine with the last little bit of stuff she had left. I shredded some papers and went through a couple more files for her to make sure everything was organized. Also today there was a book that needed to be copied so they asked me if I wouldn't mind doing it. They needed three copies of every page and then I had to put it together so that it could be bound. This took my all day and then when I finished I went home
April26th
Today I went on a home visit with one of the caseworkers and then after that we went and met another client who took to the golf dome. This was my second last day at Baker Victory Services but I'm glad I got to end it the way I did. I got a very good experience by going to both. They were two very different clients with different issues. The first one was a get to know the person session because the case had just been recently transferred to this caseworker. And for the second one the caseworker wanted to take his client out into the community so we went to the gold dome which was a lot of fun. We played minature golf first and then we let the client hit a bucket of golf balls. He seemed to enjoy it as well.
April 30th
Today was my last day at Baker Victory Services. They had cake for me and also gave me some souverniers. We all spent a lot of time talking. Then after that they asked me if I could help them clean out one of the offices because they were going to have two new case workers move into there. The room was being used to store items such as baby clothes, baby supplies, and other various things. So I went through all of that stuff and kept the things that were good and we would be able to give away to clients and the other things I threw out. After I finished the closet I said goodbye and thank you to my supervisor and then I left.
I am very glad I decided to do my internship at Baker Victory Services and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an internship. You learn a lot about the services that they offer and also about casework as well. It is a very good internship if you are interested in something like this because you are able to deal directly with clients. Before I went into this internship I wasn't sure if that was something I wanted to do but now I know that I would like to do this in the future and hopefully I can go back there one day. Overall it was very helpful in my decision making process and I think it was a very good internship opportunity.
