Week 5

Personal reflection time!

    I really should have planned out my Summer better.. Where did it go?! 

  The internship is going well, I've been going on trips with some of the other employees. I went to French town which is a poor community in Tallahassee and sat in on a community conference. The conference was about the establishment of a sort of Sober house a few miles away. The sober house is going to be in connection with their community center where a lot of homeless and poor come to get help from social workers. Whats really cool about this sober house is that it isn't a emergency shelter or a transitional shelter but it us a more permanent living situation where currently men can come and live. They all go to NA or AA together and are drug tested regularly to make sure that no one is using within the building. There are apparently a lot of homes like this in South Florida but there's also a lot of abuse and no regulation.  So DCF is working on creating a program similar to LEED certification where you can get a stamp of approval or a rating through the state as more of a marketing appeal for SOME regulation. 

    A lot of the projects I'm working on are really cool and speak to me on a really personal level. Ive been working with employees on methadone clinics , prescription drug abuse, and underage alcohol abuse in Broward which is where I'm from. Ive had 5 people die back home from all of those things, all of who were under the age of 21. So, it's really cool to be able to work and try to help the community. However, I don't know if I could ever work for the State. The state is SO SLOW and I'm not sure if it's this specific office-probably not- but there's a lot of interoffice DRAMA. However, if I could get contracted through the office that'd be really cool or maybe be a provider for homelessness or substance abuse. 

   Not only had this internship and this summer in general made me realize that I need to PLAN better but that I need to being finding specific service sites that speak to me on a personal level. So, I think I'm going to start working more directly with homelessness and substance abuse issues within the area along with children. OK, I'm going to TRY to work with children. No promises though... 

B LOVE!