It has been two weeks since I finished my internship with Heartland Alliance on the case management team. Another case management intern, Marie Dix, wrote the blog post, “Unfinished,” and her words beautifully captured some of the thoughts currently racing through my mind: the positive staff culture I’ll miss, the systemic injustices refugees face, and the connections to families I now have to let go. With my final blog post, I want to leave a message to future CAPS Fellows:   I am not sure how I will capture everything I want to say, but I suppose the easiest place to start is at the beginning. The application process for the CAPS Fellowship is not a hard process, but, just like the internship itself, you get out what you put in. It definitely makes you take a moment to close your eyes and envision the future you want. I, like […]

As I reflect on my time at Heartland Alliance, many thoughts and emotions come to mind; the most prominent being gratitude. I came into this internship seeking clarity. Whether it be clarity regarding the path I want to pursue or a deeper understanding of what I do not enjoy, I was hoping to find meaning in this experience.  This feeling of gratitude that I mentioned is for the gift of clarity that Heartland Alliance has blessed me with. I came into my internship confident and still am certain that I have found my home in the field of Social Work. However, in a vast field, I had struggled to pinpoint my passions within the field. Working with refugees at Heartland Alliance is something I thought I would enjoy, but I had no idea how much I would come to love it. There is something special about working with people from […]

This is the last of my 11 weeks with the refugee case management team at Heartland Alliance. I admit there is much about this remote work that I won’t miss: being on hold for 15 minutes with an insurance company, realizing that the reason my coworkers were ignoring me was because I was muted, and the frustration of being “it” in games of four way telephone tag between clients, interpreters, and other offices. There’s even more that I will miss though: my coworkers (and the gifs they send in our Microsoft Teams chat), the families I’ve come to know, and the opportunities to learn about the world without leaving my bedroom.   My sphere of awareness grew beyond the four walls of my cozy suburban house to encompass the ongoing genocides in Myanmar/Burma, the torture and murder of LGBTQ people in many African nations and the harsh realities of rebuilding […]

There are a lot of things that have a subconscious or conscious impact on you. Waking up to it being a gloomy day versus a sunny day affects you. The way someone says something to you, or your outfit of the day. Over the course of these past few months I have had the time to acknowledge these subtle changes in my day, and how they can drastically change my mood. I started only picking out clothes that I wanted to wear, so that I can have that extra ounce of confidence. I noticed the difference in mood when I did not get fresh air and when I did. The difference of one less hour of sleep. Right now I am noticing how my bedroom does not fit my current needs and plays a big part in the lack of motivation I have been feeling since quarantine started. It took […]

As I write this blog post, my parents are having a conversation about what my family is going to grill on Saturday to celebrate our nation’s independence, my sister is outside working on her tan so she can get the perfect Instagram picture, and I have a countdown ticking away on my phone to when Hamilton drops on Disney+. My life probably mirrors many other lives across the United States today; people are changing their Fourth of July plans to fit the restraints of the pandemic and wrapping up their work for the three-day weekend, but there is one major difference. I cannot stop thinking about the millions of people in camps across the world who are anxiously awaiting approval to seek refuge in a country like the United States.   I am not trying to get political, but I am going to state a few facts that I have […]

During my first few weeks working with the refugee case management team at Heartland Alliance, I would tell my curious friends and family (partly joking) that I call people I don’t know in languages I don’t speak to help connect them with services I know little about. Every day that assessment becomes a little less true, as with each encounter I get to know our families better and learn the ins and outs of services SSI and SNAP and WIC. Although I’ve become fluent in social service acronyms, I haven’t made much progress on my Swahili, Pashto, or Arabic, so I guess my original statement will always be a little true! I will forever be grateful for our skilled, generous, and endlessly patient interpreters.    I have always been less comfortable on the phone than in person, and the first few calls I made, though well intentioned, were awkward and […]

My work at Heartland ALLiance has been inspiring, eye opening, and something that I look forward to each day. I came in the CAPS program struggling to pinpoint my calling. I knew that I had found my home in the field of Social Work; yet in a field so vast, I struggled to narrow down what branch of social work I wanted to work in. My weeks at Heartland thus far have been a comforting confirmation for me of the work that I passionately want to pursue. This experience has reminded me of the beauty I find when working with people different than me. However, my time at Heartland has also reminded me that helping people navigate injustices, no matter how much passion I have, will be and should be uncomfortable. Our current times have been startling reminders of the disparities in our systems and the ways that the people […]