The 2017 Shari Prestemon Social Justice Interns have graciously agreed to share their experiences with all of us. From time to time, we’ll be posting ‘journal entries’ from Naiomi Gonzalez and Katy Morton. Below is one of these entries.
Community
This week, the welcoming spirit of Back Bay Mission has continued to be apparent in all things.
This past Monday, June 12th, was my 25th birthday. After celebrating this weekend in New Orleans at the PRIDE parade with Naiomi, we headed back to Back Bay for our second week of work. I wasn’t sure if anyone would even remember my birthday, but just about everyone wished me a happy birthday, and we were even invited out to lunch and dinner by members of staff. Once again, the sense of welcoming and community that drew me back to Back Bay in the first place, was alive and well.
Throughout this week, we have had the opportunity to shadow Kenney, as well as some of the other staff members, to a wide variety of community meetings. We have been welcomed in and invited to represent Back Bay with the staff at all different kinds of meetings, and boy have we learned a lot! We have been exposed to groups and organizations who work to end homelessness, hunger, health issues, and other concerns related to poverty in the lower six area.
Although we have mainly been active listeners at these meetings, rather than active participants, it has truly been an amazing learning experience. I feel as though I am beginning to gain a better understanding of the issues Biloxi and the surrounding areas are facing, and how the community is working together to combat poverty. It continues to be truly amazing to me just how invested these organizations and people are in working to end poverty and improve Biloxi. It has also been very interesting to me to see all the different ways social workers are involved with these efforts, whether through their agency of employment or just from personal interest.
I spent the year before this internship working at a very busy skilled nursing and rehab facility in southern Florida. Although I enjoyed working with the aging and memory-impaired population, I realized that working for a huge corporate entity as a social worker was probably not where I needed, or wanted to be, at this stage of my professional or personal life. The facility where I worked was beautiful and provided excellent care to the patients and residents, but I still felt as though I was not helping everyone that needed me. I even felt as though I may have begun to experience some of the symptoms of burnout, as I was constantly stressed and feeling like I could not help everyone that needed a social worker. I worried that I was beginning to question why I chose social work as my profession, and started to lose sight of the reasons why I wanted to help people.
I can happily say that Back Bay, and the staff here, have already started to remind me why I love social work and serving others. Back when I was only 15 years old, and had come down with my family and church group to rebuild after Katrina, Back Bay helped me to realize that I truly loved serving others and working towards ending poverty and related issues. Back Bay was one of the first places I was when I realized I wanted to be a social worker, and I feel so fortunate that it is here once again to remind me why I chose this profession and career path.
I also discovered the importance of having a support system when working in the social services/human services field, and feel as though Back Bay truly works to be a built-in support system for all of its’ staff and volunteers. That support system also seems to expand out into the community, as groups of people and organizations come together throughout the month to meet, discuss, and create plans to work to improve the issues facing the underserved population in Biloxi.
I am so excited to continue on this personal and professional experience of growth, and cannot wait to see what next week has in store for us!
