Blog Post 4: Imagine Austin

 

 Last week in our class we talked about Imagine Austin. Imagine Austin is Austin's thirty year plan for the city's future. We watched a few clips and videos to get an idea of what their mission and purpose was. I thought it was very interesting that at the beginning of class Professor Rhodes asked if anyone had heard about it or seen anything regarding Imagine Austin. Not one person in our class had ever heard about it. As social work students I would say the majority of us, some more than others, are pretty involved within the community. I thought it was ironic that most of the videos and clips regarding Imagine Austin all said something along the lines of "we want your help" or "we want your opinion," yet none of us had heard about it. Although no one had heard of it, I was still pretty interested in this future plan regarding the city of Austin.

One thing that caught  my eye after learning a little bit about it was that they said some of the goals were sustainability, mobility and interconnectivity. I thought all three of these components are very important and essential for any city to expand on. I went to Imagine Austin's web page to explore a little bit. I am interested in what the city plans to do to make the education system better. After reading a little bit about it, I was surprised to find out that the program highlight for this fall is focusing on dance, theater, media, and visual arts. The plan "provides a framework that connects high-impact arts strategies to specific student cognition or academic learning goals so that teachers or teaching artists can address particular student needs" (http://www.austintexas.gov/page/workforceandeducation).

In class we talked about how this program needs to work on reaching more people and advertising better. I completely agree and think this plan could eventually be better implemented if more people knew about it. If one of the main themes is "we want your opinion," than they need to give people more opportunities to share their opinion.

Observation:

 I read an article in the newspaper last week titled, "Black women face far greater risk." It was talking about how based on statistics black women have a higher risk of being a victim of domestic violence.

Post 3: Change

Last week in my class, Social Work Practice in Organization and Communities, we discussed implementing change at the organization level. We discussed a few different types of change and how people should go about change. Some different types of change we discussed were empirical, normative, power and environmental. I never thought in depth about how difficult change within an organization could be. You have to think about your clients and other employers. I can see how it can be very difficult to take in everyone's considerations when trying to change something when people are already content with the way things are. Although implementing change at an organization level is difficult, it also made me realize that change is an important for the growth of the organization. In class we split into groups and were all given a problem about how an organization should go about change. My group's problem was about a women shelter that was trying to expand to include opportunities for women with children. We saw how difficult it was to come up with ideas on how to go about this while trying to consider costs and other staff and clients concerns.

Talking about change in general made me think about how afraid I am of change in my life. I realized I have no real reason to be afraid of things changing within my life. It made me realize that change helps you grow and expand in many positive ways. I feel like I am sometimes too content with my life because I fear change. I am now working on overcoming this by changing certain things in my life that will positively impact me to help me realize that change is not always a bad thing and more likely a good thing.

Observation: This weekend I witnessed how people are affected differently when dealing with a death of a family member.

Blog Post 2: The Social Animal

This week in class we watched a TED talk by David Brooks called the Social Animal. He was very entertaining, but also brought up very interesting points. He brought up three main insights. The first being how the unconscious mind does most of the work. He explained this by discussing how our mind can take in millions of pieces of information per minute, but we only consciously take in 40 of those. This leads to us unconsciously gravitating toward things are that are familiar towards us. The second insight was that our emotions are the center of our thinking. He talked about how our emotions are the foundation for reason because they tell us what to value. The third and last insight was that we are social animals, not rational animals. I found the last point very interesting and agreed with him when he said we emerge out of relationships and our deep interpretations we take from them. This made me think about how much I rely on other humans and how the majority of my emotions our caused from my relationships with the people around me.

After Brooks presented the three insights, he discussed significant human gifts. In class we discussed a little bit about how these gifts could be used within the work force one day as a social worker. A few characteristics that were said or discussed in class by either students or our professor that I thought stood out was the importance of accepting change, importance of working with groups and how well you communicate within them, being the professional that you want everyone else to be and being aware, open-minded and curious. At one point within the TED talk, Brooks discussed that when we look at these deep human gifts like mindsight or blending we are not measuring them by IQs or test scores. After reviewing some of the significant characteristics I listed above I found it interesting that none of these characteristics could be measured by actual scores either.

Observation:

Earlier this week I saw what appeared to be a blind, homeless man outside of CVS. He was struggling to find his way and was yelling at people. The police eventually showed up.

Blog Post 1: After-school Programs

I am very interested in the benefits of after-school programs because of the volunteering experiences that I have been involved with. After-school programs provide numerous, positive efforts for children in crucial years of their life. After-school programs are especially beneficial for children being raised in low-income communities. They provide children with an older role model that they can turn to for help. They also provide children with meals, homework help, learning activities and depending on the different programs possibly bible study lessons. Well-run programs keep up with the children’s education levels, discipline problems, and physical or internal disabilities. They provide many children with that extra encouragement needed that might not be given to them within their families.

The past two years I have had the opportunity to volunteer with one and been able to witness the impact they have on children’s life. This program truly does give children a safe place and environment to go to after school when many of their parents are still working. They are able to engage in activities, such as field trips that they normally would not have been given the chance to do so. The program I volunteer for has qualifications the child has to meet and also offers limited spots. It is sad to see children get put on waitlists or even get turned down. I think our society could do a better job of increasing the amount of beneficial after-school programs. Many studies have shown the positive increases it makes in a child’s life including decreases in crime related activities and an increase in graduation rates.

Observation:

I saw a homeless man wondering in the alley behind the place I live in tonight.