Pathways to Wholeness Internship Experience

1. Pathways to Wholeness Internship Experience By: Chanessa Stanley

2. Getting Started as an Intern • Excited and anxious due to learning new things as an administrator • Nervous about internal changes due to new learning environment • Excited due to coming towards the end of my degree • Excited about the challenge as an intern for an up and coming non profit agency • Worried about reaching the goal of hours from home

3. Getting Acquainted • Agency Context most Learned: • Exposed to the community of the agency • Interacted with staff members, executive director, IT staff, and site supervisor • Interacted with job preparedness clients at partnered location(Friendship House) • Involved and exposed to funding process • Attended staff meeting • Excel training by IT • Intern View of Agency Context • National and Local Context due to women empowerment • Continue gaining knowledge due to beginning process • Not exposed to many of discussed contract assignments due to lack of funding

4. Developing Ethical Competence • No unethical observations at my internship due to given virtual tasks • Current Employment Unethical Observations: • No consistent weekly supervision • Falsifying Data • External hiring without internal posts • Solutions for Unethical Observations • Professionally discuss concerns (unethical hire) • Adapt to possible change • Observe environmental effects, which drives or decreases my attempts towards change

5. Using Supervision • The first Supervision meeting consisted of Site Supervisor and Executive director, discussing intern goals during internship experience to convert into a contract • Supervisions, located at the Panera Bread and few times at scheduled outings (library, state building, and Friendship House) • Discussed questions, comments, and concerns of given tasks

6. Supervisory Challenges, Learned Problem Solving Tactics, and Expectations of a Supervisor • Challenges Faced as an Intern • Over talked during a discussion • Problem Solving Techniques • Discuss concerns when asked • Correlate Cultural Competence • Give time for things to work themselves out • Supervisor Expectations Through Observation • Follow-up with staff feelings • Thorough explanation of employee expectations to ensure employee success • Improvement with Supervisory Relationship • Improve my questions to correlate with my concerns

7. Integrative Processing Model • Stage Two: Reflecting, mostly relates to my work ethics as a change agent and as an intern • Assessing your reactions to situations • It describes my ability to critique myself in order to provide adequate services • Demonstrates me being open-minded during interactions during the job preparedness program, located at the Friendship House • I ensure non-judgmental body language during interactions to ensure effective interventions and participations

8. Communication with Clients • Employment Experience: • Children’s Partial Care Case Manager(Previous) • Community Interventionist (Full-time Employment) • Community Living Specialist (Per Diem) • Gained various experience in diverse settings: • Community • Family Sessions • Individual Sessions • Parental Group Facilitator • Internship Experience • Life Skills Experience • Most Job Experience • De-escalation tactics with children and families • Least Experience Gained • Life Skills Training

9. Communication with Clients (Continued) • Most satisfying atmosphere as a change agent • Parent Support Group Facilitator • Adolescent Involvement • Reasoning Behind Group Choice • Both groups are very vocal about their feelings and receiving honest feedback of interventions

10. Developing Cultural Competence • During my internship I have not encountered minimal cultural differences due to the agency is an up and coming agency • Consistent contact with my site supervisor, who is of Ghanaian Culture • Involving cultural competence as an intern to increase understanding of possible reasoning of communication during between myself as the intern and my site supervisor • Gained Cultural insight as an Intern • Culture was not the focus during my internship, but instead the discussed goals of the program • Social Locations gained as an intern is having the ability to adapt to diverse client and staff personalities to accomplish the set goals

11. Writing and Reporting within Your Agency • Wrote about my experience as an active participant with their job preparedness program, located at the Friendship House • Reports also involved documentation and researching data to input into an excel database , involving possible funding, existing donors, and development of fundraising activities • Strengths of my reports are my ability to provide a complete view of staff information • Improvement for my reporting strategies are to decrease the sight of nervousness during presenting • Continued growth with my reporting involves delivering through messages in a briefer manner

12. Taking Care of Yourself • Throughout my internship experience I have learned my stressors, strengths, and ways to handle stressors. • Internal Stressors • Feeling of overwhelmed incomplete goals discussed due to lack of staff assistance • External Stressors • Sporadic meeting cancelations • Pending assignments due to failure of rescheduling • Unmet deadlines of requested items by the intern • Stress Management • Not to take on more than can handle • Asking questions to assist with effective completion • Strengths as an Intern • Independent assignment completion • Consistently met assignment deadlines

13. Ending Your Internship • Learned Professional Independence • Gained administrative skills to assist with future endeavors • Minor things I should have looked further into is not looking further into an agency that could provide future employment and staff members with more to time provide to intern exposure to more administrative roles • No Regrets due to the time schedule correlating with full-time employment • My wants, feelings, and needs after the internship completion is to further grow as an administrator • How I plan continued growth is continuing education as an administrator and receiving continued constructive criticism for effective leadership

14. Planning Your Career • My short-term goals are to continue to plan for the long-term goals • Overall goal is to continue my passion for advocacy through human services policy formulation • Goals grow and change as I do as a person • Plans of Goal Completion • Completion of Master’s Degree • Attend Networking Events • Research Guidelines for set goals • Surround myself with professionals with correlating goals • Attend trainings and forums to continue education in career interest