Gateway Health, I Worked in

¶ … Gateway Health, I worked in the Human Services field. The experience was in general wonderful, although it certainly was not without its challenges. The co-workers were for the most part helpful and friendly, and made me feel a part of the team. The management at times did not know entirely what to do with me, but I took that as part of the working experience -- it forced me to find ways in which I could make a greater contribution.

That really opened my eyes about the nature of the working world, in particular because I needed to learn how the field works. I want to help people, so finding ways that I could help my organization really challenged me to look at the idea of helping in a more holistic way. In human services, there are always ethical considerations that arise. Each client is unique, and we tried to help them in the best way possible.

But the different problems that clients presented meant that we were constantly looking for the best approach to address those problems -- it was not simply a question of finding a formula solution because there were no formula problems. I did not deal with the more difficult clients, but I know that many of my co-workers are exposed to strong ethical dilemmas on a fairly consistent basis, and they gave me some insight into how to deal with those.

Some of the treatments for patients can be fairly aggressive, and come with potentially negative consequences attached. Meaning well is not enough, in human services at Gateway a consequentialist approach to ethics has to be taken, because it is the outcome for the client that is the key measure of success in what we do. I think my interactions with others on the internship showed that I am ready for fieldwork.

I was able to forge generally good relationships with supervisors and other agencies, and I was able to form strong relationships with my co-workers and I believe the clients as well. I learned a lot about my effectiveness. I would say I was a solid B, if such grades existed in the field. I believe that I brought a lot of knowledge from my coursework, and throughout the course of the internship I was engaged in the process of learning how to apply that knowledge to fieldwork.

I saw a lot of positive results, but there were also clients with whom I feel I could have made more of a difference. The point of internship is to learn about one's strengths and weaknesses, and I feel I learned that my greatest strength is in my book knowledge. I still need to work on applying that knowledge to real people and their complex situations, but I also have come to understand that comes with experience.

Even some of my most experienced colleagues at Gateway admitted that they feel they still make mistakes, so I can take heart that we all have room for improvement. What I intend to change is that in the classroom I think I will apply what I learned on my internship to the class learning. This will allow for a two-way flow of knowledge, in contrast to the one-way flow I had before,.