Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

Don Bosco Hall as an Agency for Social Work Michelle R. Orzel Wayne State University

Mission The agency that I work for is known as Don Bosco Hall and is located in the city of

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

Detroit. Don Bosco Hall is a non-profit private agency that looks to enhance the quality of life for youth and their families by providing supportive human services. The agency wants to utilize the most effective interventions available in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for the youth they serve. Don Bosco Hall focuses on family reunification, youth rehabilitations, youth protective service, mentorship, recreation and preparing youth with the interpersonal, technological, and educational skills to enhance their skills and abilities. The agency works with other community organizations and businesses in order to provide a whole range of services to the local community and the youth they serve. Don Bosco Hall was founded by the Rev. John J. Finnegan back in 1954. Rev. Finnegan was the pastor of St. Patrick Church in Detroit, and the agency was named after St. Don Bosco, a Roman Catholic priest known for his work among the youth in Italy. Since its inception, Don Bosco Hall has helped over 50,000 children, established family relationships, and kept the youth of Detroit off the streets. Serving over 2,500 youth and their families each each with several different programs, all of the agencys services carry out the Catholic Charities/ Archdiocese of Detroits mission of effective professional and Christian social services (Don Bosco Hall, 2013). One of the reasons I was so excited to work for this agency when I first researched it after getting my interview was the fact that it is based off the Catholic faith. I was born and raised Catholic and it is a strong part of who I am, so this was something that I knew I would work well with. Another interesting fact about it was that for about 8 years when I was younger, my mother and I would volunteer at St. Patrick Church every day! I knew right away this would be a perfect fit for me! Population Don Bosco Hall is an agency that works with the youth in the city. They use a variety of

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

different programs in order to provide a full range of activities and learning experiences for the kids. There are two particular programs that I am most familiar with because I work with these two programs specifically: Youth Assistance Program (or YAP for short), and the Supervised Independent Living program (or SIL for short). A few other programs that I dont directly work with but are successful at Don Bosco Hall include the Skyline Camp, the Male Leadership Academy, the Eagle Program, residential treatment center, the Sutton House, Community Enrichment program, and WAY Academy. Between all of these programs, a wide range of the youth are able to get the resources and help they need for themselves, Im going to focus on the YAP and SIL programs when describing the particular youth served. The main focus of these two programs are the inner-city, low-income youth of the city of Detroit. The YAP program works with these types of children, both male and female, between the ages of 7 and 17. They provide tutoring, recreational activities, counseling, drug abuse education and many other things. The SIL program works more specifically within the foster care system. The main goal of this program is to assist older foster care children learn the skills necessary to transition to independent living situations. The particular youth that this program works with are males between the ages of 16 and 20 that have shown the minimum requirements for living independently. My Role Ive never interned anywhere before, so needless to say I was nervous and very unsure of what my particular role was going to be within the agency. Ive seen movies and shows where the intern was the one who got coffee for the important people, and I knew thats not the job I wanted. Most of my friends graduated a year before me because I needed to take a year off, so I was able to hear about their internships. All I really knew going into my placement at Don Bosco

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

Hall was what I wanted to learn from this experience: what it was like to be a social worker working with kids. I wanted to learn as many different things as I could so that when I graduate and get a real job as a Social Worker on my own, I would feel prepared and ready to help. Ive been interning at Don Bosco Hall for two months now and I absolutely love it! Im definitely not the girl who gets coffee for everyone, and I honestly feel like Im learning a lot of valuable things that will help me in my career as a social worker. I have a lot of little jobs that are fully my responsibility, but for the most part its my job to do what I am told to do by my supervisors. What I am told to do is always different though, so its hard to put it into words really. Each day when I go in to start my 7-9 hour shift, I settle in and then go to my supervisors. I have two main supervisors: Ms. Wallace and Mr. Carter. Either one of them will give me my responsibilities for the day, or they split it up when they both have things they want me to take care of. These responsibilities have been very spread out across the spectrum of a social workers job. Ive needed to put a clients case file together, organize and file papers (Ms. Wallace has said numerous times that filing is a huge part of the job and before me she would set aside one day a week to take care of it all!), make phone calls to set up different meetings or gather paperwork for a client, fill out assessments for clients depending on my experiences with them (while asking Ms. Wallace about the things I dont really know), scoring assessments, running group meetings and other such responsibilities. Ive also set up a google calendar program to alert my supervisors of due dates for each client before they get here to make sure we dont miss anything. My favorite thing so far though has been planning, organizing, and setting up the Thanksgiving event we are doing: taking all the kids to the Golden Corral. I love being in charge of a whole event that is going to make the kids happy!

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

Another important part of my role in this agency has been made very clear by not just my supervisors, but the two other social workers I work with and a few other higher ups I see occasionally. I need to make sure that I ask questions! They feel as strongly as I do that I need to be learning from this experience. They dont want me to just come in and file and work on my own things and go home to get my hours. They want me to learn social worker experiences, ask questions when I dont know things, and truly learn from this. I think thats amazing that even though they are so busy, they make the time to make sure I am getting what I want from this experience. Other Disciplines Don Bosco Hall is an agency that works with the community to ensure children of the city are able to get all the resources and skills they need to develop into skilled, mature adults. This requires the agency to work with other disciplines than just Social Work. These other disciplines include those in the educational field, the criminal justice field, and sometimes, the medical field. Education is a huge part of every childs development. Needless to say, this discipline is a very important interaction to uphold for Don Bosco Hall. We work with each childs particular school in order to keep updated on their progress, attendance, and behavior so that we are aware of what the child needs help with or needs to work on. Its important to have good communication and repoir with the schools so that they provide us with the information we need in a timely manner and so they help us in developing the children. We also work closely with a tutor. During the school year, every Tuesday we make it available to the children to come in after school hours and work in our computer lab. They bring their homework and the tutor will work with the group on a subject or two to make sure everyone has an understanding of a particular

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

area, and then she works with them individually with questions they may have on their own homework. It is slightly difficult at times because they are all at different levels and many are even at different schools, but it works out nicely and a lot of kids are helped this way with a free tutor. One other way we work with the education field is the free public school we run in our building. This is not a program I work specifically with, but I have toured it, researched it, and met several of the people who work in this program. The school is called WAY Academy and its a second chance school for children who were having trouble in their own schools. This is for kids in the 7th-12th grade and there is also another location in Detroit. Several of the kids in our programs with Don Bosco Hall are also students at WAY academy. Another discipline we often work with is the criminal justice department. This ranges from the judges and court system to police officers. Some of the kids who are in our program were referred to us from the court and therefore, we must continue to work with that court. The kids in my particular program are foster children, and therefore we often have court dates with these children to reassess their living situations and status in the system. Another instance of when we may work with this discipline is when a child goes several days not being in the home they are supposed to be. This happened a few weeks ago and we needed to go to that citys police department and file a missing persons report. This is one of the main disciplines that we work with because of the clientele we work with at Don Bosco Hall. The last discipline we work with is the medical field. This field is necessary because we help the children we work with to stay up to date on their immunizations, the annual physicals, and annual dental exams. We have a program known as the HANK bus that comes to our building and provides the physical for the children when they are needed. We keep copies of all the necessary paperwork that goes with these exams in their files and then we also send the

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

originals or other copies so the child can keep a copy and the school gets a copy. We help the children set up and keep their appointments for the dentist or any other medically related visits. We also, when necessary, set up psychological examinations to evaluate that area of the child and get any help needed for him. Our job is to make sure each child in our programs gets all the help and support they need in each and every area of their life. Entering the System The process it takes to enter the system at Don Bosco Hall is not a very lengthy process. To start it off, the child needs to be referred to the particular program. This referral can come from a number of different places: the court, a parent, someone at his/her school, a doctor, a community member, a coach, or a home provider. After being referred to the program, each individual program goes through its own set of intake documents and take the necessary information and keeps it in the case file set up for that child only. Each child gets their own case file, no matter what program they are apart of. The eligibility depends on which program the child is looking to join, each one has its own requirements. The program I am most familiar with when it comes to clients entering the system is the SIL program, so that is what I will go into detail about. In order to be considered for the SIL program at Don Bosco Hall, you need to be a male between the ages of 16 and 20 and part of the foster care system. The next step after determining if the youth qualifies for the program is to conduct a home visit. We need to make sure the home that the youth resides in is a supportive and good home that will provide what the youth needs. After assessing the quality of the home, we then begin the intake process. There are several important pieces of information necessary for the case file in this beginning stage, but all are needed to make sure we can help the child to the best of our ability. The first assessments that we

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

take include the Pre-Placement Assessment and Home Assessment. We then need to do a Face Sheet (filled with general information on the child), and take a photo for the file. Then there are several documents that the child needs to read over and sign, and these include the HIPPA Notice, program statement, release of confidential information, contractual agreement, policy and procedure page, consumer rights statement, consumer responsibility statement, and the physical restraint policy. Other information we need to gather just to make sure we know what areas we need to work on the most and to keep up on the childs progress. This information includes education documentation, employment information, school status form, clothing inventory, medical and dental exam documentation, a medical passport, and a HANK application. After the child has been in the program for 30 days, we also conduct an Initial Service Plan to determine the goals and skills we need to work on. Lastly, there are just a few documents we like to keep on file just in case we, or the child, may need them in the future. These include a copy of his social security card, birth certificate, drivers license (or state ID), bank account information, medicaid card, and their school ID. The child has entered the system after we originally accept them into the program. We set up what days we want to do one on one sessions, explain the policies and procedures for group sessions and describe the different services we provide in our program. We set up goals together and then make a plan of how to achieve these goals. We fill out all the paperwork and get them set up and then work with them for as long as we can (for many, even after they leave the program). Progress Through the System Its most difficult to describe how a client progresses through the system because each client is different. What is the same for each client is some of the forms and paperwork we

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall

continue to fill out for everyone. For instance, every 90 days after the Initial Service Plan is completed, an Updated Service Plan needs to be completed in order to make sure the plans we set out for the child is still in place and progressing through. There is also an Annual Transition Plan that needs to be completed bi-annually in order to ensure we are on top of where the child is placed and how the fit is. We keep up with court dates (and the reports that follow), dental exams, physicals, and our weekly group sessions; this is the same for every child in the program no matter what. What turns out to be different for each of our clients is how they progress through the program on an individual basis. For one client it may happen quickly because they are working hard to meet their goals and move towards the ability to live independently. Another client may be lazy or not care, doesnt try to reach his goals and just does the minimum required to stay in the program. These two clients will definitely progress through the system in completely different ways, even though we are working just as hard to help them both. No matter who the client is or how hard they are working, we work just as hard for each one of our clients. We want to make sure each young man is able to get and keep a job, graduate from high school and go to college, develop all the skills needed to successfully live independently, and achieve any other goals they may have in mind. So we work with each young man individually and in our group sessions to make sure they reach these goals. Exiting the System There are several different reasons in which a client may exit our system. The process is the same, or basically the same, for each client, no matter what the reason is that they are leaving our system. Some of these reasons could be because they were terminated through the court system, the may have aged out of the system, they may request to leave the system, they may get

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall 10

arrested, they may be considered AWOL and need to exit the system, or they may just finish the program and basically graduate. Basically, no matter what the reason is for why the client is exiting our system, we still go through the same process. There are a few discharge papers we need to fill out with the client (if the client is available) and records we need to keep. We also go through the case file and provide copies or originals of any paperwork that may be necessary in the future for the client to that client. The client signs off that they receives copies of any of this paperwork, and then we close the file. In closing the file, we keep everything in order, just in case we need to access it again, and we transfer the papers from the binder to large manilla envelopes to store in a different location. Obviously we prefer it when clients are terminated from the system for good reasons, but sometimes its out of our hands and we just need to do what we need to do. We always keep good record of how, when, and why our clients leave our systems just in case we need to access that information at a later date. Community Involvement Don Bosco Hall is committed to the city, the community, and helping the children in every way possible. We have several different locations in Detroit that all work with the community to help the children in the surrounding area. This provides a location to as many children as possible by spreading them out to different areas of Detroit. The agency also provides several different programs, events, and resources to children and even adults in the community regardless of whether they are in one of our programs or not. Don Bosco Hall works really hard, through a number of different means. Once a month there is a meeting held in Detroit for any groups in the community to come

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall 11

and gather information for resources that could be used to help kids. A Don Bosco Hall representative attends this meeting each month to not only gather information to help our kids, but also to speak about our programs in order to let others know that we are always taking more kids under our wings. These meetings are very informational and last a few hours. One of the programs that Don Bosco Hall runs is known as the Community Enrichment Program. There are actually several programs that fit into this section. They all provide preventative services to children by using community counseling, tutoring, recreation and cultural arts services. This helps to bring people in the community together, teach young people the history and beauty of where they live, and teach the children academics to help improve their education. One of the Don Bosco Hall buildings is known as the Community Resource Center, or CRC for short. A lot of things are done at the CRC that help the community and the people in the surrounding area. Programs are run out of this building that help with academics, employment, and extracurriculars. Dance classes are held there, keyboarding classes, karate, special holiday dinners and other activities like that. The purpose of this building is to help people come together, meet new people, work together, learn from each other, and have a good time! Don Bosco Hall is an agency that continuously works to improve the lives of children in the community. We know our mission, our purpose for continuing on, and we know who we are trying to help with all of our programs. I feel very proud to be a part of this team at Don Bosco Hall, and although I am still learning my role in the company, I love how much I am learning and look forward to all I will learn throughout this semester and the next.

Running Head: Don Bosco Hall 12

Resources

Don Bosco Hall (2013). Don Bosco Hall: Preparing the Youth of Today for Tomorrow. Retrieved from www.DonBoscoHall.org