A few thoughts
9:13 PM
Last weekend was our mid-year retreat for JVC. Called "Re-Orientation", the retreat was an opportunity for us to gather with all of the JV's serving on the East Coast for the first time since August, to reflect on our experiences from the past five months, and to refocus ourselves mentally and spiritually for the remainder of the year. A good deal of the retreat focused on Catholic Social Teaching - an amazing body of teachings that I'll have to reflect on here at some point.
For now, though, all I've got is a reflection on my work in the shelter. With five months of case management experience under my belt, I'm at least slightly more competent than I was back in August! But I've also realized how little I truly know about the nuances and subtleties of social services work.
In one sense, my job is very simple. I help my clients to assess their needs, refer them to local resources for employment, welfare benefits, and mental health support, and assist them in finding safe housing for after they leave the shelter. The daily reality of my work, however, is much more complex and has far less defined measures of success than such tasks suggest.
One of the greatest challenges of my placement has been coming to the realization that “success” in this line of work cannot be measured by results, nor can it be achieved by following a simple checklist of tasks. It often does not matter how hard I work to complete housing applications on time, to locate the right referrals for a particular client, or to create goal plans designed to lead that client to self-sufficiency. A family may be placed on a waiting list for transitional housing months longer than the full extent of their stay at the shelter. A client’s mental health issues may prevent her from following through with the very referrals intended to offer her relief. The lasting effects of trauma may prevent another client, who has spent her entire life surviving one crisis after another, from prioritizing her long-term self-sufficiency over the apparent needs of the moment.
When first confronted with these realities, I was tempted to question the value of my work. Yet I have slowly learned that none of these realities lessen in any way the vital importance of the services our shelter provides every day to women and children in need, nor do they offer an excuse for inaction in the face of my clients’ suffering. I have learned to respect the depth of my clients’ brokenness and pain by accepting that their path to wholeness may not be as quick or direct as I would like it to be. I have learned that my role is not to create a path for the women I work with, but to accompany and support them on the path they are making for themselves.
I still work just as hard to get housing applications in on time, to locate the right referrals, and to challenge my clients to plan for the future – but I also strive to understand that the most important work I do for my clients may lie not in these concrete tasks, but in the time I spend listening to their pain and affirming their worth. My more experienced colleagues are quick to remind me that the average survivor of domestic violence leaves and returns to her abuser seven times before she leaves for good. I often do not know at what point in a woman’s journey I am encountering her. Yet I am learning to rely on the hope that my ministry of compassion and presence may provide a small but important witness to her right to a better life.
1 comments
Your insight into the role of the "helping" professional is so powerful - in a society that is so task oriented, it's good to remember that it's not "all about us!'
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