I greatly enjoy working one on one with refugees, and hearing their past and present stories. Furthermore, I enjoy that I am doing a difference in my community, and improve the lives of others.
What I wish was different
I wish I had the time to be more involve, and be a deeper member of the organization. But, due to outside circumstances, I cannot.
Advice
I wish that more people can volunteer their time, and contribute their life experiences to help ACC's mission.
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Case Management Intern
May - August 2019 • Denver, CO
What I liked
I loved the independent work and the challenge of cultural and language barriers. It required me to make decisions and be creative in my explanations. I had to problem-solve.
What I wish was different
I wish I would have gotten more experience in other departments. I also wish I would have talked deeper with people at the office to learn how they got to where they are.
Advice
I would tell people who are considering internships to commit a good amount of time to the internship. You learn a lot more and get to know people better when you are in the office everyday. In this particular internship it was also important to form relationships with clients to better serve their needs.
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Youth Program Intern
June - August 2018 • Aurora, CO
What I liked
I loved working with the youth and seeing their growth throughout the program. My supervisor was incredible and gave me and the other intern in the program increasing responsibility as she saw we could handle it, until by the last few weeks, we were entirely running the program. It was an incredible experience.
What I wish was different
Nothing! :)
Advice
Try to get involved for a longer period than just the summer. It's hard to really connect with clients and especially the youth in just an 8-week timeframe.
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Resettlement Intern
May - August 2018 • Denver, CO
What I liked
I loved the amount of responsibility I was given that forced me to learn to take initiative and problem solve on my own. I loved the working environment and my coworkers who loved their jobs, and most of all I loved getting to work with refugees from around the world, hearing their stories and of their resilience.
What I wish was different
I wish generally that social work functioned differently. I wish that employees would be able to take a lower caseload so that they could devote a lot of time and energy into each client, but I also love to see a higher amount of refugees being resettled. In the end social work is difficult and a person (even me as an intern) doesn't have time to stop and care well for every small need a refugee may have, even though we can try. But I did see a lot of people at ACC doing a great job of this balance, finding time in their busy schedules to sit down and talk to a client for an hour about an unforeseen need and helping them to solve it.
Advice
If you work in refugee resettlement, you have to learn to be flexible really fast. You also have to be okay with things not going the way you planned or wanted them to go. You have to be okay with ambiguity, and language barriers. Once I learned all of these things, I was able to let go of my own harsh expectations of myself and truly help the person in front of me. Other than that, I would say just take the time to recognize and value the story of every individual as they tell you. Whether it is clients or coworkers, there are a ton of amazing people in this office who can teach you a lot!
