I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous to start my internship at YAP Ireland. First, starting any new placement, whether employment or interning, can be a bit nerve-wracking. More importantly, I've been fortunate enough (I feel comfortable saying I'm the luckiest MSW student who has ever attended Monmouth) to have the most amazing supervisors for my past internships in my MSW program. I figured there was no way I'd be lucky enough to have both my past supervisors, be able to intern in Ireland, and have an equally great supervisor and coworkers at my internship. Well, for some reason I am that lucky and have had a great first week with YAP Ireland! (I'm hoping I didn't just jinx the rest of my time here). Everyone has been incredibly welcoming and made me feel at home right away. They gave me advice about moving out of the hostel (which I did, great decision!) and about other things about Ireland. This week I also attended a meeting in the Meath office, in Navan, which was cool because I nearly immediately got to experience an Irish country town. My supervisor also took me out to get a filtered water bottle (I had a Brita one with a flip straw that would leak all over my bag, so I give it a bad review! But maybe the Brita one with the push/pull top is better?) and a hot water bag so I am not as cold at night. By the way, this hot water bag is probably the second best investment I've made here, other than the short let :) Anyway, my first week at YAP Ireland was fantastic and I learned about the organisation itself, as well as how it differs from YAP, Inc. My coworker/colleagues (not sure what the PC term is because I think in a hierarchy I'm below them) and I also discussed differences between social work and social welfare between the States and Ireland and some social issues Ireland is now facing. I was a bit surprised when, while discussing homelessness, one of my coworkers (let's pretend I am their equal) said she thought it was against people's human right for the government to not provide them a place of shelter. I don't think this would be something someone outside of a homelessness agency would say in the States, and I'd be a bit surprised if human rights were brought up even in that context. For me it highlighted how much more in touch Ireland (and I'd venture to say Europe) is to human rights and how much more aware they are of the concept.
This weekend I did some more walking around the city centre, maybe visited a pub or two, and also toured Trinity a bit. I applied for a visitor's card for Trinity College, and this week I think I am applying for the same for University College Dublin (UCD), so I can do schoolwork in their libraries. Hopefully they come soon so I can start acting as if I'm attending those schools :) I've also been trying to figure out trips to take while I'm here. There's so much to see and do, it leaves very little time for schoolwork :) On that note, I'm going to go back to reading about humanitarian issues in war. It's exactly how I like to spend my Sunday night (joking).
Cheers :)
Sounds like you are having fun. Keep warm. Love you Mom
ReplyDeletethanks mom love you
DeleteQuestion: What is the health care system in Ireland like, including mental health?
ReplyDeleteOh man. I feel like I'm going to need my whole time here to wrap my head around their health care system. I actually talked about this with coworkers today! There's public and private health care here, and they have a medical card that you get if you're under a certain income level (kind of like medicaid but national). you can also get a medical card only for the general practitioner, but my coworkers weren't totally sure how that worked. The health care system was revamped, so there's a bit of confusion about things now. Apparently they're about to take away a lot of people's medical cards. Last week my coworkers told me there's actually a lot of social welfare fraud in Ireland and it's very easy to take advantage of the system. As far as mental health goes, there's a huge stigma about it (not surprising). I've been focusing more on children's mental health, which is "shit" and "horrendous" because for the most part there's very little services for them. There's especially a lack of services for kids aged 16-18, because children's services end when you're 16, but you can't use adult services until you're 18. Also, GPs diagnose children first, not psychiatrists/psychologists. They tend to avoid diagnosing kids, though, because they don't want to label them at such a young age. (this happens to be the area I'm writing my 625 paper on). Also, the whole social work system is completely different over here. It's a little hard to keep track of all the differences!
ReplyDeleteIs there anything being done to address the gap? And thank you for your feedback! Is there a lot of stray dogs in Ireland?
ReplyDeleteI have an extension on the paper so I'm going to look more into it later on in the week, but it seems like there isn't. There's been political recommendations, but no political action.
Deleteehm, not sure about the stray dogs? I haven't seen any, but I've mainly been in Dublin. Where did that question come from!?!
Ok now that I've gotten clarification about the dog question, there was actually a dog rescue organisation on Grafton Street my first weekend here and I stopped and petted the pups and told them about how I'm a rescue mom. And I donated some money to them. And I wished I could have taken a dog. We do have a neighbourhood cat that likes to come in sometimes and be petted.
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