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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Woodside, Marianne, author.
Title: The human services internship experience : helping students find their way / Marianne Woodside, The University of Tennessee.
Description: Los Angeles : SAGE, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015040088 | ISBN 9781483377841 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Social work education. | Internship programs. | Social workersTraining of.
Classification: LCC HV11 .W7175 2016 | DDC 361.0071/55dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040088
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
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Preface
The purpose of this textbook is to help you, the human service student enrolled in internship, bridge the theories and knowledge of human service delivery with its actual practice. Hopefully, the text will assist faculty as they guide their students through the internship process. And we believe that students will benefit from and feel supported by the text as they engage in their internship experiences. To meet these goals, we present this text, The Human Service Internship Experience: Helping Students Find Their Way. It is intended to be both a text and a workbook. This hybrid approach to learning during internship is guided by our teaching philosophy, that of striking a balance between an academic approach to learning with experience in a human service setting and self-reflection.
The inspiration for the text comes from over 40 years of experience teaching internship in human services and counseling. The content and approach illustrate what my students and I, over some 40 years, have learned from each other about internship. The text is filled with voices of students at differing stages of the internship process and from various parts of the country. It also includes messages from practicing professionals: a human service faculty member, a site supervisor, and a human service professional. Each of these speak to you to both share their experiences and support you during internship.
We know that an internship as a field-based experience is a powerful learning tool in human services, as in many other professions. This text assumes that internship is both a time students can fully apply their academic work in a real-world setting. It is also a time when students can confirm and expand their identity as human service professionals.
Internship is a time when various dichotomies pervade the lives of interns. For example, prior to and at the beginning of internship, interns feel anxiety as they anticipate working with clients and contributing to an agency. This anxiety is in direct contrast to their growing excitement about being able to actually practice their knowledge and skills in helping others. A second example has to do with how interns view clients. Early in the internship, interns may see their clients in simple ways and develop small interventions. Later, as their confidence grows and their skills increase, the issues may appear more complex than first thought, while the interventions may have contributed to small change, if any. A third dichotomy in their experience may appear during supervision. Effective supervision requires feedback, both positive and critical. While positive feedback confirms the interns skill and progress, critical feedback is often less easy to receive and can shake an interns confidence, if only initially.