Author: semcalli

This summer, thanks to the Judith Cossin Berkman ‘59 Endowed Internship Fund in Social Work and the Hiatt Career Center at Brandeis, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to San Francisco and intern with Homeless Prenatal Program.  I had dreamed of working with HPP for over a year, and the WOW program made that possible for me.  Now that I have been back in Waltham for a week and have started classes, I have had time to reflect on my experience at HPP, so I can share that with all of you.

Before I began my internship, I established three goals for the summer. Upon reflection, I realized I did not spend much time working toward my academic goal of developing a research question for a senior thesis, though I was able to explore concepts I learned about in school through direct experience.  Because my internship was focused on gaining professional experience, meeting my career exploration and skill development goals felt natural.  I worked closely with the staff at HPP to provide both direct and indirect social work services.  Working daily with the staff and clients at HPP strengthened my interpersonal skills and improved my professional abilities to support a diverse range of clients.  After three months at HPP, I feel confident in my plan to pursue a career in social work and prepared to apply to MSW programs this year.

The most fulfilling thing about my internship was working closely with the DV Advocate team and developing strong relationships with my coworkers and supervisor.  Joining a team that has been together for a long time and already has a particular dynamic can sometimes feel disruptive and awkward, but the DV team absorbed me quickly and began to feel like a (highly productive) family.  Unbeknownst to me when I applied for the internship, I came into the team during a crucial time of transition.  Emotions were high, as were workloads, so it was clear that my role on the team would be primarily supportive.  I enjoyed the level of responsibility the gave me when assigning me tasks., and I felt especially proud of my ability to effectively organize the files during the transition.  One of my favorite things about working with the DV team was our ability to have a good time even when stress levels were high by taking trips to the movies and playing games during lunch.  

As August ended, so did the DV CalWORKs program, into which I poured my energy this summer.  While two of the team members will remain at Homeless Prenatal after the DV CalWORKs program ends, the other two will be moving on to new opportunities, as am I, and as will the other intern.  Endings are always sad, and I will miss these people dearly.  I am incredibly thankful to have spent the summer working alongside them.

Next week will mark my two-month anniversary in San Francisco.  I have been enjoying my summer and spending my free time  doing things like attending the Pride celebration, watching an all-female Queen tribute band on the Fourth of July, driving down Route 1 to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and binge-watching procedurals on Netflix.  Amidst all this fun, I’ve also been working 30 hours a week at my internship, and some things have changed since my first week at Homeless Prenatal Program.

First, our team got a new intern, Jocelyn, who is a third-year at UC San Diego.  We quickly bonded over the fact that we are both living in the Outer Sunset neighborhood and started carpooling three times a week and going to get poke bowls during our lunch break.  

But there have also been more institutional changes.  Shortly after my internship began, I learned that, after housing the program for five years, HPP would not be retaining the contract for the DV CalWORKs program. In fact, the entire program will be taken over by a new agency by the end of August, right after my internship ends.  I am getting a unique experience to observe and facilitate the transition of the program.  I have gotten to hear both from the executive staff about why they decided to pass along the contract and from the DV advocates about how they are feeling about the end.  The domestic violence advocate team is a tight-knit group of women, all of whom have been meeting with clients in this role for two or more years.  So, naturally, this transition has had a significant emotional impact on both the team and the clients.  

My workload has also changed as the transition progresses.  At the beginning of my internship, many of my tasks involved calling new referrals to schedule appointments, but now that the contract is being transferred to the new agency, so are all the referrals and clients.  Many of my daily tasks now involve preparing clients’ files and sending them to the new agency.  As the DV CalWORKs program winds down, there are not many opportunities for me to work directly with clients from the program. However,  I have been training to participate in the intake and triage process.  I studied and took a test to get certified for the Adult Needs and Strengths Assessment (ANSA), a tool HPP uses to assess all of their clients.  I have also been shadowing staff members as they meet with first-time clients to assess their needs and make referrals.  Ideally, by August, I will be able to take shifts doing triage on my own.  This will provide me with crucial direct service experience to prepare me for a future in social work.  

Working with a non-profit as prolific as Homeless Prenatal Program has provided a lot of opportunities for both personal and professional growth. Being a student of Sociology and African and Afro-American Studies, I have learned a lot about oppression and inequality on an academic level, but academic essays can’t stand-in for people’s actual narratives.  It is clear that there are many disempowering forces at work in the lives of HPP’s clientele, but it is also clear that HPP offers a space for those clients to be empowered and supported through direct services and advocacy.

One of the most unique and critical parts of HPP’s model is its practice of hiring former clients and others directly from the community it serves, which supports the upward mobility of the community and promotes culturally relevant services.  This is a completely different model from that of universities like Brandeis and pretty much any other industry, as well.  While non-profits certainly have their challenges, like transitions, and flaws, like depending on government contracts and private donations for funding, Homeless Prenatal Program has taught me a lot about how non-profits can empower individual clients and communities.  

(PS. I’m still working on the parking thing.)  

After almost 10 hours of travel, I arrived in the Bay Area on a Monday, ready to begin my internship with the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP). I am lucky enough have access to a car this summer, so on my first day, before I even stepped into the building, I learned about the stress of traffic and parking in the city. Located in the Mission District of San Francisco, an area known for its strong Latinx community, HPP is situated in a building purchased from a failed business during the dot-com boom. Thanks to its origins in the tech industry, the building itself is very hip with exposed piping, natural lighting, and an open layout, which HPP has paired with artwork and bright colored paint to make the site feel welcoming and friendly. On my first day at HPP, I received a full tour, signed paperwork, familiarized myself with the online software, and met the team I will be working with this summer: the DV CalWORKs advocates.

CalWORKs is the welfare-to-work program for parents with children under the age of 18 in the state of California. Typically, recipients of CalWORKs receive a monthly stipend while they are going to school or searching for work for up to 48 months. However, a significant portion of CalWORKs recipients qualify for an exemption from the standard requirements because they have experienced domestic violence (DV). HPP is contracted by the Human Services Agency (HSA) to run the DV CalWORKs program. HPP’s DV advocates ensure that CalWORKs recipients who have experienced DV receive an exemption, help them meet the CalWORKs requirements, meet with clients on a monthly basis, and connect them to other resources both inside and outside of HPP. In my role as an intern with the DV CalWORKs program, I am learning how to input new referrals from the HSA into HPP’s system, call new referrals to book appointments, and file clients’ paperwork.

The DV CalWORKs program is only one small piece of what HPP does. For almost three decades, HPP has been providing families experiencing economic insecurity and homelessness with lifesaving resources. Over the years, HPP has expanded rapidly to meet the needs of its clients and now staffs over 80 people who provide services including housing assistance, prenatal care, parenting advice, community health worker trainings, a free computer center, support groups, and financial coaching. My supervisors at HPP are really invested in providing me with a wide range of experiences across HPP’s many other programs, so I will be supplementing my internship with DV CalWORKs by shadowing the staff from other programs throughout the summer.

As someone who aspires to pursue a career in social work, HPP is a great organization to work with. One of my goals for this summer is to develop the strong cultural competency skills required to provide effective and relevant support to diverse populations. Shadowing case managers at HPP will help me achieve this because HPP serves a population primarily comprised of Latinx, Asian, and African American women experiencing poverty and homelessness. HPP is also the perfect place to achieve my personal goal of building strong relationships with coworkers and clients because the culture of HPP is one in which everyone knows everyone else and because the DV Advocate team is such a tight-knit group. To achieve my academic goal for the summer, I hope to explore the intersection of race, poverty, gender, and reproductive rights through direct service and engagement, which will inform my future studies at Brandeis.  My last goal is to learn how to park.