1) The author completed a social justice internship where they worked with a diverse group of people and further developed their human services knowledge and skills. 2) Initially, the author was nervous about serving this high-need population but over time began to appreciate their role and see how it developed their understanding of the field. Their supervisor provided helpful support. 3) The theoretical knowledge gained from coursework helped the author solidify their learnings and put knowledge into action, such as proposing solutions to problems in their community.

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Internship Reflection
A year ago, when I applied for the social justice internship, I knew that I would have the
opportunity to work with a diverse group of people. I knew that I would learn a great deal
interacting with such a rich variety of cultures, languages, ages, and socioeconomic status. I also
knew that I would be utilizing and further developing my human services knowledge and skills.
Spending more than two hundred and fifty hours at the internship sites and devoting several
hours to class and course-related materials, my expectation from this internship was exactly as I
had predicated. In addition, working with this marginalized group of people taught me the
importance of integrating advocacy and activism into human services, to secure social and
economic justice for those people in need.
As much as I was excited to serve this population, I was also very nervous; was I capable
of serving this high-need population? It was a difficult start. I was consistently doubting myself,
wondering if I was the right fit for the program. I also wondered if the program was the right fit
for me – did their core values match with my own? But, as time passed, I began to really
appreciate my role, and I started seeing that my position was developing my understanding of the
human services field and widening my contextual knowledge about the necessity of helping
others (The Successful Internship). In addition, my supervisor’s support helped me adapt to my
new working environment quickly and easily. Her friendly nature, open communication and
clear instructions reduced my discomforts and provided me with the proper guidance to begin my
tasks. I found my intern supervisor (Kaori) to be the ideal leader, just as mentioned in Kouzes
(2010). She was always open to listen my ideas encourage me to act with confident.
Furthermore, I was also unsure as to how I would integrate all the principles that I read in
the book or other materials that had been provided us as a guide for having a successful

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internship. Now I realize that I had been applying many of those principles mentioned in The
Successful Internship, such as autonomy and acceptance, from day one of my internship. On my
first day, my task was to assist a client with a mental disorder; I was to help her navigate the
direction and the location of the hospital that she would be visiting to receive her
psychotherapy/treatments. I was provided with the route information and instructions on how to
assist the client. However, based not only on the client’s physical and emotional situation but
also on her ability to grasp the new route/way of taking public transportation, I had to step back
from my original plan and go beyond the instructions that were provided to me. I let the client
decide which route and types of public transportation to choose to get to the hospital. I followed
the client’s decision to take only buses (trains were confusing for her). At the end of the day, the
purpose of my service was to help the client to be able to take public transportation to reach the
hospital – the route by which she got there was not the main concern. This experience from my
first day of my internship taught me to make independent decisions and take input from those
who I am serving. An internship is more than an apprenticeship; in an internship, we are
supposed to be learning how we would actually do the job, not just copying the style and actions
of a supervisor.
Furthermore, the theoretical knowledge that I received through the assigned reading, in
class discussions and multiple presentations, as well writing papers was helping me to solidify
my learnings. The process of doing these exercises prepared me to put my theoretical knowledge
into action and my experience into words. In fact, I utilized the information and learning from
the course work as a problem-solving tool. For one of the assignments, we analyzed the
community assets to find a new way of combining existing resources to solve the problem, which
led to me thinking of an actual, promising solution to an existing problem in my community

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(McKnight, 2011, October 10). For this assignment, I analyzed the existing assets in the Rogers
Park community, and I found multiple ways of resolving this community’s problem with a lack
of communication or collaboration between community organizations and the immigrant
population. I recommended more outreach by the Glenwood Sunday Market to promote
community food gardens and affordable, fresh produce and more diverse programming at the
local public library, to attract all Rogers Park residences, especially newer immigrants, to library
resources and events. Furthermore, I utilized the knowledge from this exercise to address the
major problem and possible solutions for the inequities I observed within the Chicago Public
School System. While aiding refugee children and their families in their efforts to integrate into
the U. S. education system, I noticed the gap between the available resource and the need of the
refugee families. During my presentation on the Weekend of Excellence, I proposed some ideas
about how multiple community assets or ‘anchor institutions’ within Chicago, such as Loyola
University Chicago, can step in and investment its time and resources to invent the tools and
volunteer the people to address the problem (assessment tools to determine the level of
disabilities and teachers and psychologists with fundamental knowledge and skills school that
they need to serve students who represent a range of racial/ethnic, linguistic, economic, and
cultural backgrounds). Doing this assignment helped to turn my abstract understanding into
transferable knowledge.
Assisting the clients with unique and traumatizing stories took a lot of emotional energy,
but I was also able to apply many theories and knowledge from my Psychology classes. My
sensitive nature sometimes caused me difficulties in terms of differentiating my feelings: in
terms of what is the real problem versus what are my reactions to the clients’ stories. Techniques
such as mindfulness were useful to understand whether my thoughts and feelings toward clients

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were due to their stories or how their stories related to my own personal journey – the ability to
differentiate in this way is essential for human services providers (Corey & Corey 5, 2015). As I
read my clients’ case notes, I found a lot of similarities between my story and their stories. I
became emotional and sad, wanting to do everything for those clients. Similar feelings
repeatedly came during our class discussion. Most of the time when Camille argued against
Capitalism and Tim fought against her point, I would try to agree or disagree but often only to
ease my discomfort. I think my work at the internship site and participation in the in-class
discussions (sometimes emotional, sometimes awkward, and sometimes sad) were preparing me
to be able to understand my own feelings and separate them from any professional decisions.
Being able to understand your own feelings towards a situation is extremely important, because
service providers need to understand that clients are the ones who need help. Our class
discussions often made me rethink the instances when clients’ stories influenced me so much that
I would try to make myself feel better by suggesting they act in a certain way. I think sharing our
internship site experience during our class discussions have been very beneficial for me, not only
to accomplish my setup goals but also to solidify my core goals and values. Now I understand
that learning is a gradual process and that reflecting, learning, and applying it in many areas,
such the internship site (work), in class (conversation and activities), and in writing reflections,
has helped me to understand my own weakness and strengths.
Although I have only been an intern for a few semesters, I have been given the same
respect and responsibilities as the full and part-time staff. As a result, I have been working
directly with my clients and have been able to form good relationships with them. Also, I have a
very strong relationship with my supervisor and good connections with staff from other
departments within the organization. Ending my internship, given these connections, is going to

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be very difficult for me. My organization has this culture of celebrating everything, so my
supervisor and the staff are hosting a farewell party for me on the April 26th. This is very nice
and exciting, but I also know that I will get emotional.
At the same time, I will also be thinking about the problems that I noticed as an intern. I
will still be thinking about the project that my supervisor and I worked on together – advocating
for refugee children with special needs. Due to many external and internal causes, such as CPS
budget cuts and systematic biases, many refugee children are not provided with proper school
support, such as language interpretation and education aid, which is detrimental to their
education. Knowing that school psychologists are not capable of assessing their learning
disability puts me in the same situation as the medical resident described in Palmer (2007).
Similarly, to the case study described in this article, knowing the persistent problem in the
Chicago Public School system is not enough, and I am not in a position to make the change. But
at the same time, I am also happy that my supervisor will carry on our joint work of consistently
contacting the schools to try and push the issue. And we did achieve some success, but the
mission is still in the baby stage of implementation and will need a lot more time, effort, and
dedication on the part of my internship site and the schools. Though I am still unsatisfied, I am
optimistic about the change. I agree with Johnson (2006) and the highlighted Gland’s philosophy
in this article – the system is big, and we cannot expect to change it by ourselves and within a
short period of time. This also doesn’t mean that I need to give up; I just means that we must
focus in on one issue at a time, and I think noticing the problem was the first step towards my
development as a human service provider.
The realizations and experiences I had in my internship were of great assistance in
narrowing down my future career interests. When I started my undergraduate career, I really

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wanted to go for a higher degree in Clinical Psychology. As I took more and more Psychology
courses, I became excited about the prevention part of Psychology. In addition, the courses
for my minor (Psychology of Crime and Justice) gave me a deeper understanding of how
education and power play a big role in our societies. Now, my current exposure to the needs of
refugee children and their families as they integrate into the U. S. education system has further
increased my interest in education-related work. I have decided to postpone my graduate studies
to spend two years working for Teach for America, while still researching the opportunities I
could pursue within the human services field, before or after a graduate education. Given my
interest in the intersectionality between Psychology, human services, and education, I knew that I
would be in a much better position to create effective change if I were to have experience as an
educator.
I am very satisfied with my internship, and I am glad that I chose the Refugee
Resettlement K-12 Program as my internship site. I loved working with a group of people with
different cultures, first languages, ages and socioeconomic status. I had the privilege of learning
and teaching many new things each day. I found that the people were very receptive to new ideas
and always wanted to learn more. There are some instances when I had to tell my clients that
they need to take time to learn new things. For example, I often had to remind refugee children
that they may not always get an A in exam, although that is what is expected of them by their
parents. My comments sometimes disappointed my clients, but honesty was necessary. I am
very happy that I was able to share my philosophy and experience with the future intern who is
taking my place as a K-12 intern. I was able to tell her that she will have opportunities to
network with a variety of people and learn as well as practice her skills into many areas. In fact, I
have written a welcome letter to my dear future intern, which my supervisor (Kaori) will give

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that letter to her on her first day of at internship site. This was an extremely enriching
experience.

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References
Johnson, A. G. (2006). Privilege, power, and difference.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2010). The five practices of exemplary leadership (Vol. 237).
John Wiley & Sons.
McKnight, J. (2011, October 10). ABCD 101. Retrieved from
http://www.abundantcommunity.com/home/videos/abcd_101.html
Palmer, P. J. (2007). A new professional: The aims of education revisited. Change: The
Magazine of Higher Learning, 39(6), 6-13.
Sweitzer, H. F., & King, M. A. (2013). The successful internship. Cengage Learning.