Today marked the last day of my first year MSW field placement. I can’t believe it’s already been a year! In some ways, I thought this day would never come, but now that it’s here I’m in disbelief.  We (my fellow intern, Laura, and I) had a great last day, full of food, good feelings and well wishes. I’m sad to leave but excited for my next placement. I learned so much this year in working with the kids, and had great supervision which was so crucial. I’m really grateful for my experience, even though it was challenging at times I know I’ll be a better social worker having been placed there.

The cranes you see are from my POPS project…we reached our goal of 1,000 cranes and it’s great to leave such a positive mark there!

Also, totally unrelated, I met Ty Pennington today while hanging out in Washington Square Park and might be on his TV show! Gotta love NYC life.

bonjourkimie:

me! me! me!

(Source: calikenz)

dystort3dpsyche:

midiprincess

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Kolkata, India: Supporters of the All India Mahila Sanskritik Sanghathan (AIMSS) protest violence and political attacks against women and girls. April 16, 2012

Photos by  Ajanta Sinha Ghosh

(via socialworky)

(Source: tubeofwonderful, via carrieh25)

(Source: kthanson)

Cranes of Hope

For my POPS (Planning, Organization and Provision of Services) Project this year (a first year intern assignment to help improve our placement agency), I began making origami cranes with the students I work with.  Inspired by a student who was folding paper airplanes during session, along with the story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, I taught students how to fold cranes.  On the inside of each crane is a wish, dream, hope or goal from the student who folded it.  The project ended up serving so many purposes: community cohesion, empowerment and even anger management.  Even students who were resistant to learning how to make the cranes found enjoyment upon completing one, and many came back numerous times to make more cranes and more wishes.  Currently, we’re at over 800 cranes, and plan to make 1,000 by the end of the month.

I’m not a creative or particularly crafty type, so it was exciting to be able to come up with an artistic project that served the population (which is challenging with contraband limitations).  Additionally, it was a great way to engage the kids, which is so challenging 90% of the time.  It also served as a sort of play therapy-esque approach; while the students folded their cranes their defenses went down and conversation flowed much more freely.  It’s a great project and the displaying of cranes (strung together and hung from the ceiling) has really brightened up the counseling office and gotten many compliments.  It was great to see the students coming together towards a common goal, especially when there are so many things that put them at odds (gangs, different housing facilities, behavior issues, etc.) 

lizisbored:

Brilliant.

(Source: m00tw00t)