When friends and family ask about my internship at Values Into Action, I tell them the name is perfect!
As a grad student with little social work experience, I felt excited but unsure about what to expect. I chose Values Into Action because it focuses on disability and disability rights. These issues matter to me and connect to my goals in social work.
Traditional social work happens in public places like hospitals, schools, and prisons. This work matters, but people are engaging with professionals based on the system’s rules.
Values Into Action takes a different approach.
Support partners visit people at home instead of having them go to an office. Support happens in living rooms, kitchens, grocery stores, and parks. Any place people go can become a space for social work.
At first, I was nervous. Walking into someone’s home felt much more personal than meeting in an office. Like any trainee, I was eager to impress. I immediately noticed the strong relationships among support partners. Built on familiarity, trust, and humor, these long-standing connections helped me as well. My nervousness faded as I began to build direct relationships with the people we support. In the second half of the semester, I am meeting with four people we support every week. Our goal is to identify areas in their lives they want to change or improve, and then make it happen! Our projects include various topics. We plant gardens, sign up for library cards, do crafts, and prepare for moves.
Interning with Values Into Action has shaped my identity as a social worker.
It reaffirmed my commitment to strengths-based and person-centered approaches. A strengths-based perspective focuses on individuals’ abilities and resources instead of their problems. A person-centered approach sees those you support as the experts of their own lives. At Values Into Action, I saw these theories from the classroom come to life. This internship has shown me what it means to put values into action.
Social work goes beyond systems and services. It’s about building relationships and respecting people as whole individuals.