1.7 Practice
Journal Prompts
- What are you looking forward to as you begin your internship? What are your concerns? What are some ways you can apply an equity lens to your experience?
- What are some of the theories you have learned? How do you think these might apply to your agency?
Self-Care Activity
- Self-care is a major concern for people working in human services. Working with people who are experiencing problems can be rewarding, but it also can be exhausting and frustrating. Many of the issues we help clients with involve complicated solutions across several different services or agencies. The rate of turnover tends to be very high in the field due to factors such as the unpredictability of the daily work, the ever-changing landscape of funding and service guidelines, and the frustration caused by the difficulty in getting things done.
We feel that self-care is a critical element for workers to be able to continue to do the work we love without feeling burned out. In this text, we end each chapter with a different self-care activity. Our hope is that while you are still an intern you can begin to develop the habit of regular and ongoing self-care. Attending to your own needs is an important part of your professional training.
Self-care looks different for everyone. I may enjoy hiking to unwind, while someone else prefers a cup of tea and a good book. We supply different suggestions throughout the text—use the ones that work for you, and modify or ignore the ones that don’t feel like a good match. Our hope is that by the end of your internship, you will have a “toolbox” of self-care skills to take with you into the field.
For this chapter, we ask you to compile a list of the activities you do now to help you destress and get back to a feeling of balance. Focus on activities that help you clear your mind, and avoid activities that can lead to future difficulties, such as drinking or smoking. You can put this list in your journal or post it somewhere to remind you to take time to care for yourself. The activities in this book should help you expand that list. Chapter 5 discusses the importance of self-care in more detail.
Class Discussion Topics
- Discuss your list of self-care activities, either as a class or in small groups. Add activities that other classmates mention that you would like to try.
- Discuss using an equity framework. What does this mean to you, and how do you think this applies to your agency?
- Look back at the case studies of Diego, Lisa, and Jing. How can you apply their experiences to yours? What theories do you think will be most appropriate for the agency you will be interning at?
- How can you use the CSHSE Fieldwork Standards to guide your internship experience?
Practice Licenses and Attributions
“Practice” by Yvonne M. Smith LCSW is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
A credit class in which students apply theory to practice by using what you have learned in coursework in a real-world setting with a supervisor/mentor who is invested in your growth and development (often also referred to as fieldwork or practicum).
a way of looking at and acting on issues of justice to ensure that outcomes in the conditions of well-being are improved for marginalized groups, lifting outcomes for all.
any activity you participate in whose function is to nourish you either physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
the quality of being fair and impartial and providing equitable access to different perspectives and resources to all students.
(or internship/practicum) experiential learning contained within human services programs. For the purposes of this text, fieldwork, internship, and practicum will be used interchangeably.
