Fridays

You may be wondering why I haven’t talked more in depth about the work that I do. Well the biggest reason is that as a social worker, I am limited in what I can share because of the confidential nature of my work. As a result, I can’t go into specifics at anytime outside of my co-workers and practicum group. I can talk in very general terms about what I do though, so I’ll try and describe my favorite day --Friday.

This might be a little complicated, so I’ll give you a little bit of a background about what social workers (and related professionals) do at our clinics:

Low risk health worker: Social workers who have only a bachelors degree (usually). Work with pregnant women enrolled in our case management program. Provide services such as home and clinic visits, referrals, education, facilitate parenting and Centering support groups.

High Risk health worker: Social workers who have at least a Master’s degree. Work with pregnant women who are high risk due to certain factors (age of mother, twins, substance abuse, domestic violence, health conditions etc). Provides same services as above.

Pediatric worker: Social workers who work with the Moms once they deliver their babies. The Mom and baby are eligible for case management services until the baby’s first birthday.

Clerk: Often no college education. Responsible for case management enrollments, Medicaid Enrollments (medical cards), and MPE (short term medical coverage for pregnant women until real medical card can be processed).

Ok so on Friday I work with a MSW (master’s social work) intern who acts as the only permanent social worker at the clinic. She is responsible for doing pretty much everything a low risk worker, pediatric worker, and a clerk would normally do. The clinic is small, but at times there are too many clients for one person to see. That’s where I come in.

As a BSW intern, I am pretty much not qualified to do anything except what a clerk would normally do. So on Fridays, I have been mainly just observing enrollments and pregnancy testing, reading over the paper work, and being forced to do role plays with the MSW intern to get used to asking really personal questions of people I have just met. This is where the skills I learned in Practice Methods are supposed to come in, but I still find it difficult at times. For example, try to think of an appropriate/unembarrasing way to ask a client if they have ever had an STD? And which one specifically? And how many times have they had it? I have to remember that there is often a difference between how many children my clients have and the number of times they have been pregnant. And during the enrollment I have to try figure out what happened with the other pregnancies. I have to know the appropriate way to ask about health conditions, domestic violence, drug abuse, citizenship status, sexual partners etc. The list goes on and on. So needless to say, I’m learning a lot.

This past Friday I ended up flying solo because the MSW intern wasn’t able to come in to work. I was a little scared at first, unsure of my ability to take over for the day. The thing about my work is that even though I might have feel massively unqualified, my clients are real people with real needs, real problems, and real obstacles. It is pretty motivating to look at the appointment schedule and know I can be the one to ensure that some of those needs are met. Sometimes my clients are struggling with very basic things like food and housing. Things that I have taken for granted for 21 years. These are the things that motivate me.

And by the way, by the end of this semester I’m going to be an expert on subjects like the birthing process, breastfeeding, nutrition during pregnancy, and infant developmental stages. Who knew!

Sorry this post is long, but I have some really awesome and random pictures/stories from the past few weeks.

Picture #1 is the Central Park L stop near one of the clinics.


Picture #2 is a little sign I found at the High School clinic. It made me laugh. Now you know a really helpful phrase in Spanish!


Picture #3 is a very common sign seen on the streets downtown. The first time I saw it I immediately looked up searching for a deadly icicle ready to sneak attack me from above. After awhile I guess I realized that looking up won’t help anything so why even post a warning? I also recently saw some interesting modifications to this sign including “falling lice” “falling is nice” and “falling twice” :)


Picture #4 is my favorite hamburger ever!! If any of you come for a visit, we’ll have to make a stop at Epic Burger for one of these tasty tummy fillers.


Picture #5 can anyone guess this one? Look at the hat carefully.

Well, I am usually the only white person on the train by the time I get out to the clinic stop, but the other day I saw this big white guy get on the train a few stops before I had to get off. He was all beardy and rough looking and the first thought that came into my head was “he looks like he could be from Bozeman.” And so I was really really shocked when I realized he was wearing a Montana State blue and gold stocking cap!!! AND he sat right in front of me on the train, so I sneakily took a quick picture to show you all. Random huh?

Until next time…

Beth