Family Justice

Carol Shapiro said “when I worked with the incarcerated population, I gave everyone respect and in return, earned respect”. When I heard this in class, I was in shock and yet, proud. I was in shock because Carol has earned so much experience in her field at a young age and has received various opportunities/ positions throughout the years. Yet, she is one of the rare ones that did not abuse her powers nor back away from helping people in the community. I am not saying that every person who has an honorable position in society abuses their powers and forgets their mission to help people; I am simply stating that Carol has demonstrated to be quite a role model on how a leader should be. Not to say that anyone different from her isn’t a role model, but for today’s sake, she’ll be our example. On the other hand, I was proud of Carol. Proud because she was passionate to help, eager to make a change in the lives of others, and ready to take a risk. All of these traits made her who she is today, but we must not forget that for each risk and time taken to help the community, in the end she achieved massive results. One of the greatest accomplishments any one can undergo is helping someone and knowing you bettered their lives.

Additionally, I want to state that respect is an important feature we must all have when working in our internships. In many ways, respect gets people really far, not because it shows others that you are caring but, it demonstrates a humanistic quality in a person. I think a lot of problems that people face in areas of poverty is, finding someone who will treat them as a human being, not sub-human. The fact that we as fellows go into our agencies ready to help clients, says a lot about our desire, passion, and humanistic qualities in wanting to better lives . Similar to what Prof. Stein said to us in class, when people need help, a great skill to posses is observation of vocal tone, body language, and facial expression. We may not be as skilled as Carol when it comes to helping and creating programs to better families and communities, but what we do have is the time invested in our internships to learn the skills of what a person in need of help looks like (or would look like) and how to give them the help needed.

Moreover, I feel that when we help someone in our agencies, no matter our ethnicity or color, we should remember that no one is better than the other. Just because we are helping someone to get their lives on track does not mean that we are now the best, it just means that we are willing/ wanting to assist in helping others get their life on track.

It was interesting when Carol stated that an inmate told her “you’re white, what do you possibly know about helping me?” When she said this in class, it came to me as no shock. Majority of inmates in prison are minorities and when they see a white person, they don’t see someone with feeling. What they see is someone who stereo-typically is there to “oppress” them and make them feel like they don’t belong in society. This is something we as interns and people of various social programs need to tackle. The question is how? How do we get people in poverty, minorities, and overall people without a family/ support system to see that a white person and or an educated person, has the ability to help and better that persons life? The answer is, time and actions. Time because no one can gain trust in a matter of minutes and actions, because without actions, no one will see how valuable of a resource you are to them.

Furthermore, I want to mention a little about labeling. Labeling for the most part is the worst thing we can do to someone. When we label someone a criminal, drug addict, disgrace, or whatever people state, no one seems to notice the damages we cause with words. It is with this sort of language that we must put an end to labels and encourages participants to see their full potential (they are more than what others think of them). By encouraging these individuals and showing them their talent, we can change lives. However, we as interns and staff members at agencies aren’t always the solution to the problem. This is where family comes into play. With family as a support system, we can make troubled individuals better and best of all; we can set a family free from social constraints.

While labeling is a problem that needs fixing, we need to start understanding that programs don’t help the problem, they only alleviate the symptoms. Similar to our discussions early in the semester about the function and purpose of agencies, we came to the conclusion that while they do a great job in trying to tackle the issue, they only help the symptoms while dragging the problem at hand. My question then becomes what could we do to make agencies effective in assisting and solving the problem at hand? If family is the answer, then how to we get families to be apart of the troubled individuals life? The answer was Ms. Shapiro’s test/ experiment in the lower East side with La Bodega de la Familia. By creating pilot programs that last for a certain amount of time, we as helpers in the field of social justice can experiment with various ideas on what the answer could be to the problem. While many of us Verons aren’t so thrilled with the idea of testing the waters with programs that involve people in need of help, we need to understand that these pilot programs are in part, helping society understand what future programs and or the current program can do, and the results they can achieve by following a serious of methods, all complied through qualitative research.

I end this blog by quoting Carol Shapiro “be true to yourself”. The best thing anyone could be is true to themselves.If you believe in yourself and desire to make a change, it is in you to make wonders happen. While many out in the world aren’t as fortunate as many of us to have a support system compiled of family, friends, and loved ones, it is important that we show others that self confidence and optimism can take you far. In that note, I ask you, what have you done in your internships and/ or in your life to encourage someone to fulfill their potential and or better their life?

Start asking this question

Thanks so much for having me last Thursday. I felt like the oldest sibling who moved out and was asked to come back home for Sunday dinner. :)

Opportunity cost is the “the value of a choice that someone gives up when making a decision.”

We’ve all been there before: you’re in a class; the professor is discussing a topic you know very little about. You feel apprehensive about asking a question that’s burning inside of you, because you’re also thinking, “I’m I about to ask a really ignorant question?” or worse: “could I cross a line?” When you’re in your career, this internal struggle of to-ask or not-to-ask is a thousand times stronger as you fear being an example of the old saying: “it’s better to be quiet and look stupid than to speak and prove them right.”

If you do NOT ask the question, there’s an opportunity cost: what WON’T you know? When I noticed the high turnover of Job Developers at my CEO (the job which bridges upper management’s mission for the organization and those who actually develop employment opportunities for our population) I thought I could cross a line by asking why it was so high. But I felt there were serious implications on how this was affecting our mission. If we didn’t ask how turnover was affecting CEO, we risked not knowing how this devalued our services to the ex-incarcerated. Why should vulnerable populations receive sub-par services because the social organizations who work with them aren’t in the habit of looking inward? Professor Waterston is 100% right when she says that this inquisition - my final paper – opened the door to a position as a business analyst at CEO.

From day one, my boss told me that individuals should focus on making a career out of the way you think. What were some of the things that you wish we discussed further last seminar? What is the one question you wish you’re apprehensive to ask your mentor about your organization?

Focusing on the Positive

First, I want to thank all of the mentors for attending the Vera Mentor Coffee. Everyone had great things to say about their interns and the work being done at their respective agencies. Now I would like to express my thoughts after our discussion today.

In this day and age many things are not left to certainty. We live in a time when the economy is still fragile, jobs are still few and help is not always around the corner. Yet it gives me hope to see an institution like Vera and her spin off agencies doing their part to aid those who are less fortunate, people that share more similarities than differences from you and me. People like the veterans, musicians and college graduates who never got their break, and ended up on the streets; but after the creation of such an agency as H.S.I. (Housing Services Incorporated) these people are now living in their own apartment. Often we acknowledge and give publicity to the negatives in life and forget to show or talk about the positives in society.

I think back to where I was just a year ago. Rarely, if ever did I come in contact with someone who was poverty stricken, or living on the streets. I was not aware of a society which there was such a visible gap between poor and rich. I could not understand why some could get a helping hand while others were left to beg. Now the answers are coming clearer to why this happens, but the answer I long for is how to change this pattern.

This is my first internship and first class structured in such an unusual way. I am use to learning in an environment where there is one teacher and thirty students, where there is a test every other week and a final paper at the end of the year. The classes I usually attend are a mixture of A to D students with most falling in between. It was a little unsettling to be in a class in which you are surrounded by A or A+ students, and instead of a test each week for two hours there is a discussion. You intern at an agency which deals with a major social problem. You have a blue collar background and migrated from the “boondocks” in upstate New York. You were living in a community that was predominately composed of your same ethnic, cultural, and social background and now live a community that mainly speaks Spanish, and is composed of people from different ethnic, cultural, and social backgrounds. I was shell-shocked to say the least. In the class and at the internship, I had to deal with preconceived notions I had, identifying with a population that seemed to have different background than mine, and recognize factors and possible solutions to social problems.

I was wondering if any of the fellow Verons relate to my experiences, and if you too have had a dilemma while facing these questions. I also want to know if you would share any other questions or experiences you have faced while interning or attending the seminar. I wanted to also express my support for Christina’s idea about interconnecting the agencies to work together and provide services to clients who will benefit from multiple agencies. Did any of the other Verons wish to express any ideas to better aid their agency’s clients?