Photo with field instructor: Carol Anderson, LICSW (left) and Kristen Struss, MSW IV-E student (right)
Kristen blogs about her summer internship at her place of employment, where her focus for the summer has been on learning about and gaining skill in a child protection supervisory role. In addition to her field task instructor, Kristen also worked closely with an outside field instructor who has extensive experience in child welfare supervision and administration outside of Kanabec County.
My internship is at Kanabec County Family Services which is also the place of my employment. Our mission is ‘To make a positive and lasting difference in the lives of those we serve.’ I have been employed by KCFS for the last 13 years as a child protection social worker. My internship is an administrative internship supervising children’s services which includes child protection, children’s mental health, truancy and minor parent programs.
I thought that transitioning from my employment to my internship would be really tricky, but it went a lot smoother than I expected. I did keep a small amount of intense families that we did not believe it to be in their best interest to transfer to another worker. Mainly, I have been doing administrative activities which have included clinical supervision of staff, consultation, budget work and some translation of policy. It has been extremely interesting to me and I am so thankful I have had the opportunity. I really have come to the realization though, that I am not quite ready to leave direct practice with families. The families I have the opportunity to serve in the child welfare area are some of my favorite people. I am amazed and have enormous amount of respect for the work these families put in to better their lives and the lives of their children.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always rosy. I have had days where I have cried my entire way home and days when I have been so frustrated and anxious about certain situations it affects my life outside of work. I am hoping that at some point, I do get a chance at the supervision work within a child welfare setting (and it may come sooner than I think), but right now I want to bring the knowledge and skills I have acquired throughout the program to the families within the child welfare system in my community.