Brandie at WV Covenant House

This week at the Covenant House, while it was busy because it was nearing the end of the month, was a bit more monotonous compared to the others weeks. I didn’t have any large, major tasks beyond submitting applications for public housing for one of my clients. Most of the social workers were delving into the world of grant reports, attempting to produce a stellar report within the most conducive amount of time. I helped some individuals file paperwork while they wrote their reports and some odds and ends paperwork floating around the building. My main task this week was to operate the main phone. The individual who normally answers the phone at the Covenant House is contracted through a third party that normally will decrease their hours at the beginning of their work cycle. From this, they will increase their hours back to 40 after some many weeks. As of result of this, I was responsible for the phones in the afternoon. The majority of calls that we would receive is about utilities-

 Unfortunately, I didn't do anything too phenomenal this week because one of my roommates contracted COVID-19 and I quarantined from our apartment from Wednesday until the morning of Monday the 18th. For the first two days of the week, I did find experience in applying for West Virginia's Housing Urban Development and Public Housing assistance. It revealed to me how tedious, strenuous, and overwhelming the process is to search for help. If you're missing any pieces of the application, it won't be processed. There are a variety of hoops to jump through when attempting to look for housing assistance. Not only are some applications forced to be paper rather than fast, speedy online applications, but some people don't have the necessary paperwork like access to their social security cards or birth certificates. The stigma that revolves around poverty is overwhelming, painting a picture that those looking for assistance are merely lazy. The process of applying for assist

  This week at WV Covenant House revealed more aspects of the social work environment to me. While I didn’t too much, that spoke volumes in and of itself about how this agency and state functions. The main two tasks that I had this week was to reorganize our library in the queer resource room- separating sections based on fiction and non-fiction. I was able to separate everything into broad categories of academic non-fiction, memoir non-fiction, guide book non-fiction, novel fiction, and 18+ fiction. Once I had separated into this broad categories, I was able to go back and comb through each individual section to organize by common themes such as history of the queer community or health commentary by doctors. This project took me approximately three half-days. The other project that I was assigned to, this week, was making pledges to utility companies to pay client bills. Unfortunately, there was some complications with finances and Covenant House needed to make pledges rather than dir

  At the beginning of the fourth week, I felt nearly completely established at Covenant House. I have been working on tasks that has allowed me to be the primary case manager for a few clients in both the homeless prevention housing and health equity divisions of Covenant House. I’ve been given more and more autonomy to contact clients, keep their case files at my desk, sit in on intakes with clients, and provide transportation for certain clients. I still help Jodie manage the food pantry by helping families through the pantry to pick their food items, assist the volunteers, help receive food orders, and organizing the storage room. Although, if Cassie or Renee need me to address certain clients- Jodie usually allows me to be their extra pillar of support. That has happened a few times this week- especially with two clients (Case Study #2 and Case Study #3). Both were unique in their own ways, empowering, and a great wealth of building my knowledge and capacity for empathy. One of the

  Week three began my real involvement within the Covenant House and the common duties that I’ve assumed as an intern. The main things that I’ve been functioning as are Jodie, Renee, Angie, and Cassie’s assistants. In this roles, I’ve able to assist the functioning of the food pantry, contribute to the marketing of Covenant House, assist with the placement of clients in rapid, homeless-prevention housing, and assist clients who are HIV positive  with rapid, homeless-prevention housing. Mainly in my third week I became pretty well acquainted with our marketing strategies. Angie, in addition to marketing, is also our HR director- so she’s rather quite swamped with a variety of tasks. Covenant House, since their volunteer base and donor base is apart of the older generations, uses Facebook as their method of marketing and connection to their community. At this point, I’ve made upwards of ten Facebook posts that are active on their Facebook page for Pride, Juneteenth, Father’s Day, First D

After two days of beginning my internship and starting my first full week as the WV Covenant House intern, I began to quickly recognize the immense worth, knowledge, and power that the Covenant House has. My reservations, in hindsight, feels rather ironic and silly because of the knowledge that I have now. I sacrificed so much energy and dedication at Juniata to become a dual-POE in Biochemistry and Public Health Advocacy. My Public Health Advocacy POE is extremely unique in the fact that it calls on values of community engagement and intersectionality- two things that are not commonly found in modern service work. At WV Covenant House, their driving principals revolve around community engagement, intersectionality, client-based service work, and respect and dignity of those experiencing marginalization related to poverty or homelessness. While it feels silly to say from the outside looking in, WV Covenant House truly embodies the concepts of community engagement, intersectionality, an