Skip to main content

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

By
As a current MSW student at the University of Pittsburgh, I have been doing my internship with Cheryl Parkhill up in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania! As I had such an amazing first year experience, I jumped at the chance to stay on for another year to complete my Concentration field placement. So Cheryl and I have just begun round two and I am excited about the potential these next two semesters hold. Last year I learned a lot about Home Studies and Post Placements and was able to interact with families involved in adoptions through China, Ethipoia, Bulgaria and Colombia. I also was able to develop my Doula skills as I was present at one of our birth mother's deliveries! As I am currently working to get DONA certified to be a Doula, this was a welcome experience. This semester we will focus more on Birth Parent Services as I assist Cheryl with developing and facilitating a birth parent support group. This is something that is virtually nonexistent in Pittsburgh so we are hopeful for a positive turnout. Our first session is July 9th. I will also be working more closely with referral sources in the area and doing some outreach to increase our impact in our community. I think Gladney has a lot to teach aspiring adoption workers and the experience so far has been incredibly positive. I hope all of the other new and old interns are enjoying their time with Gladney as well.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 23, 2013 at 1:55 PM

    Thank you so much for posting about your experience!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's not Business, It's Personal

By
Well, it is the beginning of my second full week here at Gladney as an intern, and it has been wonderful! I think that my favorite part about being here, besides the free cake that randomly shows up in the break room, is the people that are here. I have felt continually supported by each person I come in contact with. Each time I ask a question, or look lost, I am anwered with a smiling face and a helpful attitude! So, thank you Gladney staff! :) As I am typing this, I am overhearing a conversation with a caseworker and one of their clients, and the caseworker is getting to tell the family that they will be able to travel to visit a child in the next month! On the phone the mother started crying at the thought of, possibly , seeing their new baby in a month...and then I started crying as I recognized how special and personal this work is. What is done here touches lives, not only the families lives, but the staff's (and intern's) as well! That family will be changed from today ...
2 comments
Read more

Gladney's ABC program

By
Today I spent most of my time researching how Gladney can improve the web presence of their ABC program. Gladney's ABC program helps place African American and biracial babies with families. In researcing this topic, I learned that there are far more biracial and African American babies who need homes than caucasion ones. Therefore, I think it is important that Gladney do increase the web presence of their ABC program to bring awareness to the availability and need of biracial and African American babies to be adopted. Here's Gladney's ABC page on their website: http://http//www.adoptionsbygladney.com/html/abc/index.php Overall, I thought it would be a great idea for Gladney to provide links for biracial and African American moms to search for prospective parents who want to adopt from the ABC program so that they could more easily find a match and good family for their baby. Hopefully, making the ABC program more accessible will influence prospective adoptive parent...
2 comments
Read more

Training at Gladney

By
Lately I have been working on getting together a training for the staff of Gladney and some of our partnering agencies (through the DFW Interagency Adoption Council). We have been working with The Parenting Center to set up the training for February 25. As we were looking through the list of trainings that The Parenting Center offered one stuck out to us, in particular. This was titled, "Helping Children Deal with Stress and Feelings," and we felt that this training would be beneficial for most of the social workers that would be in attendance. The training is all about recognizing and responding appropriately to the positive and negative feelings of the children of today and the stresses they face. In particular, learning this information would be helpful to pass along to the families and children they work with on a day to day basis. I was especially intrigued by this title because it is not one that is taught on very frequently, yet is crucial to parents understanding the...
1 comment
Read more