Lessons from field work - Never tell your supervisor that you have nothing to do
Happy Professional Social Worker’s Month everyone! I’m back with some reflections on my experiences as a graduate level social work intern.
For the uninitiated, all social work programs require students to complete internships, also called field work, in order to gain hands-on experience. Most two-year graduate programs have students complete two separate placements, though some allow students to keep the same placement for two school years.
I’m just going to say it from the start - neither of my internship placements were very good. I still learned a lot in spite of, or perhaps at times because of, how bad they were, and over the next few weeks I am going to share some of the lessons that have stuck with me over the years. Hope you enjoy!
Never tell your supervisor that you have nothing to do.
My first field work experience was as a school social work intern in an inner-city community school in Cincinnati. I was placed there with another student in my cohort, so we found ourselves on day one crammed into the tiny cubicle of our field instructor (aka supervisor, aka the actual school social worker for that school). She clearly had little interest in letting us follow her around like the little puppies we were and quickly oriented us to doing her job duties such as they were.
The main activities of the school social worker, as far as I could tell, were to keep track of truant students and try to figure out ways to get them to be not truant. My fellow intern and I wrote up late students, did some home visits in sketchy neighborhoods, and made calls to disconnected numbers. Throughout the semester, our field instructor appeared completely disengaged and unenthusiastic about facilitating our learning experience. We would often end up back in her cubicle, asking for things to do. Finally, about a couple of months into the semester she said the words that I have found myself returning to with new eyes at various times my career.
She said, “Girls, don’t ever tell your boss that you have nothing to do.”
At the time I thought this was more of her lackadaisical attitude, as in, “if you have nothing to do, keep it to yourself and go find somewhere to hang out.” And maybe that is what she meant. My fellow intern and I certainly did our share of finding places to hide and do our own school work or just chit chat, but we also teamed up to design a social skills group curriculum, “market” the group to the elementary school teachers, and run it for a group of 4th and 5th grade girls. I helped a grandmother who had no transportation run around to the various government buildings in order to obtain legal guardianship of her grandson. We each had our own first experiences with individual counseling with a few students who came looking for us. We also got to take a bunch of kindergartners to the Cincinnati Zoo. So it wasn’t all bad!
As I’ve gone along in my life and work, I have found myself circling back to this piece of advice from my first field instructor and seeing it with different eyes. At times I’ve reflected that we each have to take charge of our own learning, and that no one is going to hold our hands and guide us every step of the way. Lately I’ve been thinking about it with yet another slant. If you let other people fill your free time, they’ll fill it with what is important to Them. I like to be in charge of how I spend my time and energy. So when there are gaps in my day that I feel like I have nothing to do, I do my best to make a conscious choice about how I want to use that time. Sometimes I feel motivated to work on my business as I’m doing today writing this post. Sometimes I lie on my therapy couch (It’s really comfy!) and listen to a book or podcast. Sometimes I call clients who need to be rescheduled. Sometimes I stretch or meditate. Sometimes I run errands. In any event, it’s my choice how I spend my time and fill it with things that are important to Me.
I have no idea if she is still out there being a field instructor, and in some ways I hope not, but I do feel thankful for this nugget of accidental or purposeful wisdom from her.
I hope you’ve enjoyed coming with me down memory lane this week. Next week I’ll be sharing another experience from my field work that taught me that I shouldn’t be afraid to speak up for what I want or need.
Until then, take good care of yourself!
Meghan
PS: Leave a comment below with your favorite accidental nugget of wisdom and where you learned it. I’d love to learn from you!