A Social Work Internship Program for Undergraduate Students

A Social Work Internship Program for Undergraduate StudentsAuthor(s): Margaret C. BristolSource: Social Forces, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Oct., 1951), pp. 97-102Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2571747 .

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SOCIAL WORK INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR STUDENTS 97

The social opportunity for the collaborating leader is still available, and his devices remain identical with those perfected by Washington.28 The reason, evidently, why such a leader cannot again rise to Washington's stature is that the relatively feeble reaction of the Negro people, which Washington greatly feared but which he was able to overawe, has now grown to such formidable proportions that he is effectively lo- calized. Recently one of Washington's institutional successors publicly voiced the opinion that "the South is capable of solving its problems without

outside assistance." He was given immediate and wide publicity in the dominant press of the South as "a recognized leader of his race,"29 but the tactic also readily aroused the indignation of the Negroes of the community. Negroes apparently will no longer permit such views among responsible persons to go unrebuked even though they be manifest material expedients. Probably a col- laborator of Washington's magnitude could never again be imposed upon the race because even the rural Negroes of the South are conditioned to re- spond negatively to him.

28See, for example, Joseph W. Holley, You Can't Build a Chimney from the Top (New York, 1948).

29 Associated Press report of F. D. Patterson's speech in Mobile, Ala., Feb. 14, 1949.

A SOCIAL WORK INTERNSHIP PROGRAM FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS*

MARGARET C. BRISTOL Florida State University

D URING the past five years approximately ninety senior students have participated in the internship program at Florida State

University. Most of the students were from Florida and a majority of them came from small towns and rural areas. For the most part they came from rather protected homes and were without any paid work experience.

This kind of background perhaps gives more meaning to the following seven comments which have been made by as many students.

I don't think I ever fully realized exactly how much it takes in money and personnel to operate an agency so that it can fulfill all of its functions.... In my opinion, shortages in all of the agencies in money and personnel are due to the utter lack of knowledge about social agencies by the tax-paying public....

So many peoples' lives depend on our laws and policies, yet the lawmakers tend to forget how public funds should be used.... It has awakened in me a keen interest in the politics of the state and my own home town. I believe that in any community in which I shall live, I will want to know more of the government and politics of that community. When the Legisla- ture meets in April, it will be of interest to me to hear

their reasoning and to try to understand why various laws are passed and others rejected. It is important for me as a citizen to know about community matters and to be active in them.

If more people could really see the way some people live, I feel certain that there would be more community concern and support of housing (and other) projects. It surely made me more aware of these little hovels which we have gotten so used to seeing in Florida and -instead of passing them by with indifference, I now look and ask myself, "wHY?" Making people aware of what is going on is the only way of combating many of the problems. The more people begin to ask "why?" and seek to find the answers, the sooner will something be done about it.

One of the main things which this experience did for me was to awaken me to the needs of a community . . . I had studied and read about community problems, but I never had a real appreciation of them in most instances ... I think that I can applywhatI learned about Jacksonville to almost any community .of any size. At least I'll know what to look for. Even if I never do social work professionally, this experience will be of benefit to me and make me a better citizen.

In having seen this over all picture of Jacksonville's resources, I've learned more about the actual finances and politics of the city and of the state than I learned from classes. Should I ever have the opportunity to

* Read before the fourteenth annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Atlanta, Georgia, April 27, 1951.



98 SOCIAL FORCES

participate in the functions of an agency as a board member, I will understand just how inmportant it is for the services to be in the hands of intelligent well-trained and warm people. I had not given much thought before as to what was done with our taxes or private contri- butions for social services. This I am sure is going to make me much more aware of the state and local budgets and where the money goes.

The very fact that millions of people in the United States live in hovels as we saw in Jacksonville was a blow to me. I am just as guilty as most in that when I see a shack I tend to say, "Why do people live like that?" then forget all about it because I have a com- fortable home, good food, and warm clothing. Now when I look at shacks along the highway, I wonder why they have to live like that, can they be helped, are they receiving any assistance, who benefits from their rent and yet fails to repair or build good homes. These are all new questions for me to ponder-there is still the sympathetic feeling but there is a greater desire to know the why on my part.

This experience was somewhat of a transition in my life. Before, I felt like a teen-ager, but now I feel for the first time like an adult.

These comments indicate that education be- comes vital to the degree that it is adaptable by individuals to their own life experiences. If education is merely memorized or rote learned, it is soon forgotten. Public sanction of the welfare services which implies acceptance of the services which we believe to be necessary to meet the needs of people and the willingness to support them financially can only come as we have an intelligent and aware citizen group.

This emphasis upon citizen education is actually the major objective of the social work intern program to which these students reacted in the ways just quoted.

BACKGROUND OF PROJECt

For five years now during the second semester, a group of senior students majoring in social work at Florida State University and myself spend 8 weeks in Jacksonville. For this 8 weeks' internship, the student earns seven semester hours of credit. During this period the students have contacts of various lengths with some fifty different social agencies and welfare services. No one student has all the fifty contacts but each student has, on the average, some experience with at least 20 of them. The length of the contact varies from the short group field trip to an agency or institution to a

week spent in one agency. All of the students spend several days in both the City Health Department and District Welfare Board and one orientation period in the State Board of Health and Board of Education. These are the general basic services with which we believe it is important for all students to have some familiarity. During each week there is a group evening meeting to discuss the previous week's experience and to make assign- ments for the coming week. Each student keeps a detailed diary of activities, reactions, questions, and problems. In the group discussions, we attempt to help students integrate their experiences with principles learned in the class room, to help them resolve many conflicts which often center around such questions as professional ethics, personnel practices, inter-agency cooperation, citizen participation, etc.

Since 1928, the University has been concerned with the undergraduate student interested in Social Work. Early in this period, there was little or no demand for professionally trained case workers within the state. Later during the depression decade, the FERA wanted a trained staff, but in Florida as elsewhere the demand far exceeded the supply. After 1932, and it is still true, the college graduate could go right into some social agencies as a "case worker" regardless of academic major, be it English, Chemistry, Economics, Sociology or Home Economics. Because of this situation, the Department of Sociology began to offer a few introductory courses such as Field of Social Work, Problems of Child Welfare, Introductory Case Work and some field experience. These courses were designed to serve the following purposes: to give a more rounded general background for agency employment; to orient students to social work and to help them acquire a somewhat more realistic awareness of what is involved in professional competence. Through these years, this curriculum has been changed, contracted and expanded in an effort to arrive at a sound initial experience for the pre-professional student. We have always believed that these students, whether they entered professional social work schools, went into agency employment, married and became mothers and club workers, or became business men, needed not only academic work but also some kind of practical and realistic contact with social agencies and community services.

Throughout these years, this pre-professional curriculum has been taught by professional social




workers-all graduates of accredited schools of social work. In 1945, these courses were removed from the -Department of Sociology and placed in a separate department of Social Work. It was within this framework that the project discussed in this paper was started in the winter of 1947.

Many questions about this community project have been raised. How was it actually planned? What steps were taken in the planning process? What do students actually do while in the agencies? What responsibility does each agency assume? What does it cost the student and the University? What does the student get out of the experience?

PLANNING THE PROJECT

About a year before this project was put into operation, a small group of social workers from state-wide social agencies was invited by the head of the Division of Social Work to meet the representatives from the Department of Social Work to consider the problem of field experience for the undergraduate student and to help work out what- ever plan seemed suitable. This group agreed that it would be advisable to plan a project that would be carried out in one community rather than to place students in two or three different cities as had been previously considered. Thus, more intensive supervision could be given.

This committee concurred with the Department of Social Work that a broader experience could be offered to students in a more metropolitan area like Jacksonville where a wider range of community services existed than in Tallahassee where the University is located. It was also agreed that the next step was to invite representatives from the social agencies of the city of Jacksonville to participate in the planning. The committee soon realized the need to have a local agency to serve as a "parent body," so to speak, for this project and act as a general coordinating agency. The Council of Social Agencies seemed to be the logical organization to do this. The Executive Secretary of the Council volunteered to present the plan to her Board. The Board agreed to have the project carried out as a council function. The Executive of the Council had been interested in pre-professional education for social work for some time and especially in citizen education and participation through volunteer services. During the next few months she made contacts with other local agencies, interpreting the proposed plan and securing their participation. In this way much of the

preliminary planning had been made when the first group of students arrived in Jacksonville.

THE PROJECT IN ACTION

Through the five years of its existence a rather consistent pattern of experience has developed. The first few days are devoted to a rather general orientation to the City and Community of Jack- sonville. This is based on the belief that the social services do not and cannot function in a vacuum, on the belief that the social worker in order to be effective, must really know the community in which she works.

The students report to the Council of Social Agencies where they are met by the faculty member and the council executive. At this group meeting the council executive discusses in verybroad and general terms the community in which they are to be "residents" for eight weeks. She discusses such things as the current economic, political and social problems, the strengths and weaknesses of the community. She repeats what has already been discussed by the faculty member about professional ethics and the relations with agency staffs. Follow- ing this group discussion, the students are sent out in pairs to ride the bus on funds provided by the Council. They are advised to select sections of the city with which they are not familiar and to plan so that the group as a whole covers the main parts of the city. The original purpose of this bus trip was to give the students an opportunity to observe that they could about the growth of the city. From the windows of the bus what parks, playgrounds, schools, churches, industries, houses, businesses did they see? Could they see how the city had grown? Actually there is a second and equally important value that seems to come out of this bus ride. Many of the students are from small towns and villages. Few of them have ever been in a large city unless accompanied by family. The whole experience is rather a fearful one at the on- set and it was soon learned that the process of going to the bus information station, finding out wvhat bus to take, locatiing on the map where they were going and getting back home again before dark was a growing-up experience which helps to foster independence and self confidence in an amazingly short time. I have seen this change take place year after year-one from questions, unsure- ness, wanting to be told how to get places to just the opposite.

Appointments for the first week are planned so



100 SOCIAL FORCES

that there is ample time to get from place to place. This is important to help them learn how to get around and to get some idea of how long it takes to reach various places. Punctuality is stressed on the belief that this is an essential work habit.

On the second day they have three lectures and discussion periods. The city attorney talks to them about Jacksonville city government, its structure, functions, and problems and its relations to county and state government. Following this is a discussion by the judge of the Civil Court of Records, who talks not in a judicial capacity but as a person versed in the historical and cultural de- velopment of the community.

Later the group goes to the Jacksonville Cham- ber of Commerce where the Executive and department heads discuss the functions of the Chamber in helping to improve business, employment op- portunities, government, etc. These speakers through the years have developed a real skill in presenting honest information, pointing up problems with frankness and integrity.

The next day is spent with the Jacksonville Housing Authority. Here they are shown films and hear some discussion about housing, slum clearance, need for low cost housing and the policies of the Housing Authority. Then they are taken by the staff of the Housing Authority through housing projects and into some of the bad housing areas of the city.

The following day is spent with the staff of the Engineering and Sanitation Departments of the City Department of Health. They go on a trip of inspection of a bakery, see how buildings are rat proofed, see the dog pound, water purification plant, and how the garbage is disposed of.

At least one day of the first week of orientation is spent visiting one or more major industries. Here they are especially interested to learn about working conditions, hours of employment, policies regarding illness, vacations, accidents, retirement, and safety devices.

At this point weekly schedules are made for each student. Insofar as possible, we try to give each student a varied experience with both public and private agencies, case work, group work, health, sectarian and non-sectarian agencies; courts, hospitals and other institutions. As stated earlier, all students do not have a uniform experience. However, with the weekly discussions, it is possible for the students to compare notes and to profit indirectly from the experiences of others.

What the student actually does in the many agencies varies with the kind of agency. However, the University at no time presumes to tell an agency what it should offer to students. We do discuss with the agencies the broad, major objectives as seen by the University Staff and the kind of total experiences that we'd like for students to have. We realize that situations in agencies change so that necessarily the experiences given to students will change also.

In some instances, the experience consists only of visiting the agency where the executive discusses the agency function and services. This kind of experience is given to groups of students and is used to enrich the more detailed activities of the group. In other agencies such as the Visiting Nurse Asso- ciation, Health Department, and school attend- ance division of the Board of Education, students' activities consist for the most part of planned ob- servation. For example, a student may be assigned to a particular nurse or worker and goes into the district with her and observes first hand the housing and living conditions of the people and the kinds of services that these agencies offer. In those instances, when it is not advisable for the student to go into the home, the nurse or social worker not only gives the reasons but also discusses the "case" situation with the student before and after her own visit into the home. The principles of confidentiality and the importance of the worker client relationship thus become more real to the student.

In still other agencies, students read selected case records which are discussed with them by the agency worker. In some well selected instances, the students have some direct contact with clients. For example, in agencies such as the Catholic Charities, American Red Cross, Salvation Army and others, students are assigned to the information desk, asked to do such things as take a child to the clinic or to make a home visit for the purpose of securing quite specific but simple information. In general, the students assume the kinds of responsibility that volunteers might be given in the same agency. In all instances, the agency worker takes on the responsibility for preparing the student for the assignment and for discussing the visit and the student's record. Then, too, when- ever advisable students attend annual meetings, Board meetings and other committee meetings. This gives them an excellent opportunity to observe both professional and lay activity and the




cooperation of lay and professional workers in group activity.

Based on the belief that it is impossible to get any "feeling" of swhat it is like to live or work in an institution by a 9-5 daytime visit, we plan week- end visits to children's institutions. The students, two or three to an institution, are at the institution when the children come home from school Friday afternoon and stay until they go back to school Monday morning. They eat and play with the children, put them to bed and go to church with them. These students leave the institution with much more appreciation of institution life.

We also try to give the students a realistic view of services for the aged. The students visit the individual homes of many of the chronically ill or nursing homes with the visiting nurse and see the OAA recipient through the services of the District Welfare Board. They visit some of the sectarian and non-sectarian homes for the aged ranging from excellent ones to very poor ones. We are fortunate to have such homes as the River Garden Home for Aged Hebrews and Moosehaven where some excellent longitudinal research in human develop- ment is being done.

In addition to the usual full time social case work, group work, community organization, and health agencies, we try to round out their community orientation by contacts with other periph- eral services. For example, two or three students spend several days in the Division of Employee Services of the King Edward Cigar Company. Others spend a couple of days with the County Home Demonstration Agent. They visit the Chil- dren's Museum, meetings of Alcoholics Anony- mous and Central Labor Union.

The functions of the participating agencies vary so greatly that it is difficult and relatively mean- ingless to attempt to compare experiences in the different agencies and to try to compare reactions of students to these experiences. For example, the functions of the Visiting Nurse Association, the City Health Department, Salvation Army, Catho- lic Charities, Juvenile Court, Community Chest, etc. are so different that we cannot compare one with the other. Even within agencies serving family groups there are marked differences in intake policies and procedures, case loads, source of funds, organization and structure. This makes it equally difficult to compare experiences within a group of agencies serving a similar group of people.

Upon leaving Jacksonville and before returning

to the campus, we spend several days in an ex- tended field trip, visiting state institutions in the section of the state adjacent to Jacksonville. These agencies are the State School for the Deaf and Blind, The Farm Colony for Feebleminded and Epileptics, and the State Industrial School for Girls. These visits help students see more closely the relationships between services of these state institutions and the local agencies.

Where did the students live while in town and what does it cost them? They live in rooms in private homes for the most part. There is a natural pairing off into groups of two or three together. Some of them have been roommates back on Campus. At the end of the eight weeks, we always try to determine approximately the additional cost to the student over and above what would have been paid had the student remained on the campus. The students who live in University housing have to pay for their rooms throughout the whole period in order to hold them for their return. Other items are paid on a pro rated basis. Other students make plans not to live in Uni- versity housing. This makes again for a great deal of variation. And so the additional cost to the student varies from 20 to 95 dollars. In two instances actually, students found that it cost less to be in Jacksonville. These two had a room with kitchen privileges and did most of their own cook- ing. The University pays a per diem for room and food for the university teacher.

WHAT IAS THE PROJECT ACCOMPLISIED?

How have we evaluated this total experience? The nature of the project itself is such that it is very difficult to set up any objective criteria for evaluation. From the point of view of the students and benefits received from the experiences, we will not be able really to examine the ultimate values until the project has been repeated several years and there has been a follow-up study of students and their activities. But we do know that all the general reactions of the students to the total experience are definitely positive and seemed to be more than just an enthusiastic reaction to a new experience. Social conditions become more real to them. Problems of poverty, housing, illiteracy and many others were no longer "academic book problems" as one student expressed it. They began to appreciate more and more the relation between governmental services and the sources of financial support, employer and employee relationships,



102 SOCIAL FORCES

the needs of organized labor, agency function and relationships between agencies, personnel stand- ards and practices. For example, a critical situation which resulted from a decrease of local tax funds for relief purposes took on real meaning to them. They were able to see first hand what this meant to people and why funds were reduced despite the needs of the people. The role and the use of the citizen as a volunteer in social agencies became dearer. These students became constructively critical of current agency practices and were soon competent to recognize at least acceptable social work performance and to evaluate professional ethics and relationships. The need for professional skills obtained through graduate social work education, so frequently stressed in class work, became more apparent also.

Added to all of this is the acquired self-confidence and poise and ability to function at least superficially in the work-a-day world. They acquire

some added competence to manage money and to live within a budget as most of them had to do. They learn what it means to eat three meals a day away from home or college where most of the se- lection was already made for them. The girls, for example, learned a lot of the routine life of the "working girl" who comes home from work tired but who must wash out blouses and underclothes and then after seemingly just getting to sleep, get up in order to have breakfast and get to the office by 8:30 or 9:00. Even bus transportation as a necessary item of expense became something that had to be considered. They watched with much personal interest the move toward increasing bus fares throughout the city. In other words, most of them were taking the first step toward assuming the individual roles as independent adults in a productive world and they found this transitional experience to their liking.

THE NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION AND ASCETIC PROTESTANTISM

ISIDOR THORNER Los Angeles, California

HAT relation, if any, is there between the W New Year's resolution and ascetic Pro-

testantism? Do the underlying value- attitudes and geographical distribution of the resolution imply anything as to its origin? The evidence suggests that the probabilities favor the affirmative. The solution involves the employment of an "ideal-typical" construct (basic personality type) which accentuates the central tendencies ob- served in a given population and ignores others, while admitting that the selected traits may develop in various directions. With respect to ascetic Protestantism three logical possibilities may be posited: the personality type persists un- changed; its basic characteristic, affective control derived from emotional inhibition, weakens; and, finally, this trait gradually intensifies. The first possibility is contrary to fact.' The others may co- exist among different portions of the population. The argument for the inherently ascetic Protestant

nature of the New Year's resolution (hereafter designated NYR) which is clearly a manifesta- tion of weakened emotional discipline would be considerably enhanced if it could be proven that its geographical distribution coincides with that of some phenomenon that can be shown to be a product of the intensification of ascetic Protes- tant emotional control while both phenomena are found within the geographical limits of ascetic Protestant-influenced societies and not elsewhere.2

Originally the ascetic Protestant was marked not alone by a relatively high degree of emotional control founded on affective repression but also by a strong moral conviction that the godly man can

1 Isidor Thorner, "Sociological Aspects of Affectional Frustration," Psychiatry, 6 (1943), pp. 157-173.

2 Christian Science demands of its believers an intensification of affective control. The evidence for this and its distribution in the Western culture area co- incidental with that of the NYR may be found in the author's Christian Science and Ascetic Protestantism: A Study in the Sociology of Religion, Personality type and Social Structure (unpublished doctoral disserta- tion, Harvard University).



Documents

A Social Work Internship Program for Undergraduate Students