Coming to a close

(apologies for the cheesy song, but it’s applicable)

The semester, like this blog, is drawing to a close. Complacency with final project deadlines is changing to panic, on-campus organizations are meeting for the last time this year, and LIFT-Chicago is making a new schedule for next semester and beginning its Student Advocate End-of-Semester Check-Ins.

Our Americorps leaders established the Check-Ins as both a reflective exercise for us and as a survey of what LIFT does well/could do better. The context of the Check-In is, essentially, a coffee date with either Hannah or Mini, two of our Site Coordinators, which is kind of fun. I know that this blog will help me to answer most of the questions on the Check-In evaluation (i.e. “What do you feel you have contributed to LIFT this semester?” “How has your perception of poverty changed over the course of the last semester? What event specifically was tied to this?”), and I’m thankful that this class has encouraged me to reflect more and, thus, prepare more for my end-of-the-semester reflection process.

Additionally (apparently, this turned into an extension of my previous blog post), I am thankful for this class because it has taught me to humanize my clients even more within the context of service. I’ve had so many more returners this year and it has been a joy to guide each person toward his or her goal pertaining to getting out of poverty.

I hope that they’ll be able to follow me to my newly-scheduled time slot; instead of doing the 9-11 shift, I’ll be doing one 1-3 shift and a 3-5 shift. To be honest, I’m a little worried about the transition for the aforementioned reason and because I’ve never worked a late afternoon shift before, but I look forward to the challenges and rewards of next semester.

Thanks for reading this blog, and I hope that everyone enjoyed the posts 🙂

Giving Thanks

Today, we had 21 people from my mom’s side of the family over for Thanksgiving dinner and went through the usual of greetings, small talk, EATINGEATINGEATING, and concluding with the inevitable heated debates.

Now usually, I don’t mind these debates because they usually involve sports or inconsequential things; however, one of my uncles made a rather insensitive comment about Obamacare in relation to the clientele that I work with (okay, he didn’t direct that comment at me, and he may have had some wine, but still…) and it was really hurtful; I took it personally and I had to leave the table so I wouldn’t yell at him.

Rather than getting angrier, I realized that everyone is entitled to their own opinion; however, we also have a duty to educate ourselves. At our biweekly training, we watched a video that summarized the new healthcare reform policies very well, and I feel more comfortable now that I know exactly how it affects me and my clients. I’ve attached the video in case anyone wants to watch it, and I’m very tempted to send it to my uncle.

In other news, since it’s Thanksgiving, I am very thankful that my friend Hannah prompted me to join LIFT last year; I would be a completely different person if she had not recommended me for the position. I would not be as outspoken about issues regarding poverty and I would not know the joy of finding someone an affordable apartment or successfully guiding someone through a public benefits application. To put it simply: my sense of purpose would be woefully incomplete had I not volunteered at this organization, and I thank my clients and Site Coordinators for helping me in more ways than they know.

Enjoy the rest of break, everyone 🙂

Shocking realizations: a complete 180

First: shameless plug time. Remember how I told you guys that LIFT has its own blog (if you don’t remember, click here)? Well, courtesy of our PR Student Advocate, LIFT-Chicago now has its very own tumblr! And I’m the very first featured student advocate to be profiled!! The blog is great, and I highly encourage you all to check it out.

Now to the real-and-raw, the nitty gritty, the heart-in-throat realization of my week.

I am currently enrolled in Loyola’s five-year program for English majors. This means that, by taking graduate courses now, I can get both my B.A. and my M.A. in English in less than a year. The plan was originally to continue on to a PhD program after completing this program, teach at the college level, and immerse myself in the world of academia. My not-so-inner nerd was completely thrilled at the idea of pouring over articles and publishing my findings on gender relations in Daisy Miller or Middlemarch.

Recently, however, I have been having doubts about this plan. I enjoy my classes but feel that I do not necessarily enjoy them to the point of obsession. I don’t always ask questions about the readings as much as I should and yes, I even commit the ultimate English-major sin of wondering WHY we bother talking about certain aspects of a literary work down to the tiniest of details

These questions were at the forefront of my mind when I went to my shift at LIFT this Friday. My intake meeting with a new client had ended on time (9:50) so I walked out to the lobby to grab a glass of water and gather housing resources for my next client. I started chatting with a woman who was there to make a phone call to request a meeting at Gift of Sight, which is a voucher program that provides people with free glasses and free or discounted eye exams. Since my 10:00 client had not yet shown up, I decided to make a few phone calls for her. I left a message at the Gift of Sight in Skokie and provided her with comprehensive directions of how to get there via public transportation once she secured an appointment slot.

Once that was done, I asked her if there was something else she wanted to accomplish. She laughed and said, “Child, you’ve done all this and I wasn’t even supposed to have an appointment today. I’m counting my lucky stars.” As she collected her coat, she continued: “You know, you really are good at what you do. I can tell you love people, and you’re gonna go far on that some day. Don’t you forget it.”

Honestly, I almost teared up at the sincerity of that statement, and not simply because it was a wonderful compliment. She had reinforced the idea that, based on my strengths, I am meant to do something in my future that requires working with people, something that makes a concrete difference. Based on my earlier premonitions, I knew that this plan would not involve a PhD in English, though it may still have something to do with teaching, so I should finish the M.A. degree that I am already working toward.

At the moment, I’m still trying to figure out what my new plan is, and for what purpose I will use my newly-edited resume. However, I am glad that I realized this amendment sooner rather than later. This event reiterated what I’ve said before: at LIFT, we Student Advocates exist entirely to help our clients, but our clients help us in far different ways than we may have imagined.

Unfamiliar Territory and New Perspectives

Last Friday at LIFT, I had a terrific first meeting with a returning client and was getting ready to meet with my second client. Our new Northwestern volunteers were shadowing meetings at the office in preparation for conducting their own client meetings. I was explaining to my NU volunteer, John, how to look at progress notes from previous meetings to learn what had been accomplished, etc. I then stepped into the waiting room to greet my client and explain to him that John would be shadowing.

Unfortunately, my client wanted to focus on something completely different than the housing issues he had been dealing with for the past several meetings: he had brought in some unfinished credit report materials and told me he wanted me to help him complete the application. I asked him which company he had been dealing with and he couldn’t remember, so I became nervous and started fumbling with papers and frantically Googling credit companies.

While I was doing so, I tried to make conversation. My client was wearing a magenta shirt and complementing necklace (which didn’t faze me; I’ve lived in a big city long enough that I’ve seen a wide variety of everyday outfits), so I complimented him on his ensemble. He thanked for my compliment and proceeded to tell John and I about how he self-identified as a transgender individual; he felt more like a woman than a man and had dressed accordingly his whole life. I was fascinated; I have plenty of friends who are gay but not trans, and I’ve always wanted to learn more about the culture and the whole logistics of it. She* really enjoyed talking about it and our discussion seemed to make up for the fact that I couldn’t figure out the damn credit report.

At the end of our meeting, I apologized and suggested some documentation for next meeting that credit reports usually require. When the client left, I turned to John and said, “Uh…well…that’s not how our meetings usually go.” He laughed and said it was a learning experience, nonetheless. I guess it just proves how much my clients teach me every day; they’re certainly cultural assets to the volunteers, and meetings like this promote and foster tolerance. 

If anyone else would like to know more about transgender people, here is the Wikipedia page for a quick skim. For more detailed explanations, The American Psychological Association has a highly informative page that answers a variety of questions. If you’d like to get involved with the transgender community in the city, there’s the Chicago Gender Society and a large variety of other LGBTQ organizations.

 

*note: I apologize for the discrepancy in pronoun usage; my client preferred to use a female name, but I’m still trying to discern what type of pronoun to use.

I particularly enjoyed our class discussion last week about asset-based community development. I think the reason why I enjoyed it was because I identified so much with it: it is almost an exact replica of LIFT’s mission. In fact, here’s a snippet from the approach page of the LIFT website:

“In the process of working toward their goals, LIFT clients develop an important  internal “toolkit” for progress and resiliency that enables them to move forward independently and bounce back from challenges and setbacks. With the support of LIFT volunteers, clients strengthen their goal-setting abilities, problem-solving skills, knowledge of key community resources, self-confidence, and ability to advocate for themselves and their families.”

The fundamental principle of asset-based community development is to emphasize the strengths of the community and utilize them to improve it rather than imposing improvements from the outside that may be short-term or ineffective. However, the biggest problem may be pinpointing the strengths themselves.

One of the first questions on the LIFT client intake paperwork (well, actually, it’s digitized now, so I guess it’s technically not “paperwork” anymore…) is, “What are your strengths?” When I ask clients this question, they usually react with hesitation, confusion, or laughter. What does this have to do with helping them gain housing, public benefits, or employment?

Ah, but you see, it CAN help, especially with regard to employment. Realizing one’s strengths is the first step to determining what to put on a resume, or even what jobs to look for. Additionally, it can help bolster a client’s confidence and help him or her to feel more motivated to succeed in improving their quality of life. Once I explain this to clients (emphasizing the employment aspect if the client is looking for employment), they take the question seriously and really think about their answer.

While it is true that the client service aspect of LIFT does represent some form of outside help, we adhere to the fundamental principle of asset-based development because our meetings revolve entirely around the client and his or her strengths. By doing so, we help to empower them so that they can do even more outside of our meetings.

LIFTopolis

Remember when I talked about the Client Survivor activity that we implemented for LIFT’s New Volunteer Training? Well, since we spent last week building our “Get Involved” page on Taskstream, I thought I would take this opportunity to talk a little bit about an activity called LIFTopolis, aka Client Survivor on steroids, that we invite community members to participate in so it’s not restricted solely to LIFT and its affiliates.

At the start of the game, like Client Survivor, each participant is given an assumed identity and a goal. For instance, one’s identity could be a 39-year-old man with a prison record and substance abuse problem who has to find housing. The participants are then released to navigate the “city” of LIFTopolis. Because participants are dealing with other issues in addition to housing, there are many more stations than there are in Client Survivor; for instance, there may be tables representing City Hall or policemen that randomly detain homeless people for being on certain restricted areas of the street. People will do their best to navigate the social service system first-hand.

By the end of the activity, participants should feel a little bit like this….image from here.

One of the benefits of LIFTopolis is that, like Client Survivor, it allows participants to empathize with our clients and feel the frustration of trying to obtain basic needs. Additionally, it allows people to examine the social service system more closely and value the perseverance it takes to navigate it.

Last year, I was excited because we were going to implement LIFTopolis into our Poverty Awareness Week schedule of events (for those of you who have forgotten what PAW is, click here for last year’s PAW blog). We were going to invite people to sign up for the event throughout the week and then host the event in Mundelein. Our team had worked hard to map out locations, identities, etc. to maximize the impact of this event, and we were ready.

There was just one problem: not enough people signed up, so we had to cancel the event. This also happened when LIFTopolis was offered during Chicago Ideas Week.

It’s disappointing to realize that the hard work and excitement that we put into the event did not pay off, as it would be a great way for the community to get involved in LIFT and moreso understand our motivation for exactly WHY we do what we do. However, I am going to propose that we try again this year, because I think it’s an extremely powerful and moving activity.

Looking back

At LIFT, we have a database that contains meeting notes, information, etc. about all of the clients that we have served over the years. Sometimes, if I’m procrastinating or just bored at home, I will go back into the database and look at my old clients to check on their progress. I know it seems a little creepy, but I feel responsible for them, somehow, and whether or not they’ve gotten a job, house, benefits, etc.

I scrolled through the names that I remembered and was disappointed/worried that many had either stopped to LIFT or had not yet achieved their goals. Granted, the job/housing/etc. searches can be very frustrating, which prompts some people to simply leave, and I have worked with some clients who have been with us for over two years. Nevertheless, I will never be numb to the feeling that I have let them down in some way.

On a happier note, I noticed that some of the clients I had worked with, whether it was once, twice, or multiple times, have since gotten jobs or housing and are moving on to make improvements in other areas of their lives such as improving computer skills, learning a new language, improving their local community, etc. One client, a victim of domestic violence, joined a support group in order to share her story and give others hope. This success, to me, proves that LIFT embodies Morton’s paradigm of social advocacy: we have given our clients the motivation to improve themselves and others. They too will take this inspiration and go out and set the world on fire (thanks for the turn of phrase, Jesuit education 🙂 ).

New Baby LIFTers!

Disclaimer: this post is not actually about babies, just new faces.

After a long interview process, LIFT-Chicago has chosen 30 new volunteers for the 2012-2013 school year! This weekend, the LIFT Leadership Team and the Site Coordinators guided the newcomers through an intense training process that lasted all day Saturday and part of the day on Sunday. Although I am not part of the Leadership Team, I volunteered to help with one particularly fun activity on Saturday: Client Survivor.

Client Survivor is an activity which simulates the process of obtaining housing in our society, and we implement it in order to give new volunteers an understanding of what their clients will be going through when struggling to find somewhere to live. We gave each person (or pair) an identity with a detailed financial background and sent them off to “Chicago” (aka the 3rd and 4th floors of Mundelein) to try to find housing through the various organizations we set up in different rooms. We had several stations representing landlords, emergency shelters, etc., and the Leadership Team member sent to run each location was told to be unreceptive, rude, and cold to anyone who came looking for housing. We even had an LT member who represented the CTA and closed random staircases and elevators to represent the maddening construction. The only person allowed to be helpful was me because I represented LIFT, though I was extremely limited in what I could do for each person since there were so many people to help in a short period of time. Half of our new volunteers secured a place to live, while the other half gave up in frustration.

All in all, I think it was a fairly successful exercise: I remember being frustrated but extremely humbled trying to “find housing” while participating in it last year, and I know that it has helped me to empathize more with my clients who struggle to apply for housing because of racism, their socioeconomic background, etc.

Here’s a picture of me from last year’s New Volunteer Training–I think that we were commiserating over the difficulty of the Client Survivor Exercise, because it seems like I was being particularly emphatic about something.

What am I doing here, exactly?

As I mentioned before, I have the early morning shift (9-11am) at LIFT this year instead of my usual late-morning or afternoons shifts of 10-12 or 1-3. The 9-11am shift garners a lot more no-shows or cancellations than the later shifts, mostly because many clients come from as far as the South Side or the suburbs and may not be able to rely on transportation to get here that early. And, let’s face it, sometimes people just forget about appointments; I know I’ve forgotten an orthodontist appointment or hair appointment on occasion.

Because I spend 4 hours a week in the office and client meetings usually take 50 minutes, this should correspond to me having 4 client meets per week. This week, none of my scheduled clients showed up, and I had two walk-in appointments that lasted 30 minutes each. During the rest of my time, I replied to voice mails (another duty of the early morning shift) that we had gotten in the time that the office had been closed until 9:00 this morning. Most of the messages were from clients explaining why they could not make their meetings, and many of the reasons were so heart-wrenching: not having enough money to take the CTA down here, needing to be in line for a shelter to have a place to stay for the night, etc.

In class, we had talked about the privileges in life that we take for granted, and I thought at that moment about Johnson’s phrase “unearned entitlement,” how most of the student advocates at the LIFT office don’t need to think about where their next meal will come from or how they will get home safely. True, this discrepancy between groups of people is the main reason that most of us volunteer at LIFT in the first place, but it’s still jarring to be confronted with that fact at the office. In meetings, when I discuss a client’s personal issues with them, sometimes I feel like a fraud because I have never personally experienced homelessness or domestic abuse or starvation. I know it’s illogical, but it’s my immediate reaction: how can I understand our client base if I have never truly experienced what they are going through?

Then again, I am also extremely thankful that I have never been in that position because, otherwise, I would not be in a position to work at LIFT and help our clients in the first place.

I know that these conflicting feelings will never quite go away, but it’s good to think about them on occasion, and our class discussion of Johnson’s article helped us to do so.

Here’s a picture from LIFT’s 2012 Regional Summit (yay Facebook). We were asked to capture our LIFT experience in one word, which I thought corresponded well with this post. I believe I wrote “awe-inspiring.”

Jumping back in

Although I volunteered at LIFT all of last year, I took a break over the summer to work and study for the GRE.  I was nervous about beginning volunteer work again two weeks ago because I was afraid that I would have forgotten where to find resources or apply for benefits or somehow have forgotten how to use Google Calendar, where we make all of our appointments. Then again, maybe that old “it’s like riding a bike” cliche would be true: I would be able to pick up where I left off in terms of my ability to assist clients.

Since LIFT advocates have to be in the office at least 4 hours per week, I chose the 9-11am time slots on Wednesday’s and Friday’s.  It’s a nice shift because the office is still calm right when it opens at 9:00, and the computer stations aren’t busy.  Aside from my initial fumbling with our new online database (which I’ve grown to like a lot), my meetings have gone smooth.  They have been mostly intakes, or first meetings, which means that we’re bringing in a larger client base.  I’m happy that we’ve been able to reach out to so many people and that those people were inspired to come in.

This past Friday, however, I got to work with one of my regular clients who has been searching for employment.  After an enthusiastic “HI!!” from me and a cheerful “What’s up, kid?” we quickly got down to business.  Often times, we spend meetings with clients looking for job openings online with them because some don’t have access to a computer or are more comfortable looking for them with us.  This client always comes in with a folder filled with job listings and ideas and we can zoom through them and apply to at least 5 in a fifty-minute meeting.  After I set up another appointment for him and wrote the meeting wrap-up notes, I joked, “you’re even better at writing cover letters and finding job openings than we are” and he replied, “Well thank you for the compliment, but it’s way more fun to apply to jobs with you all than by myself.”

After the client left, I realized that he, while able to navigate the weird world of job applications, was capable of doing all of this by himself, he comes to LIFT for the emotional support.  I also realized how well this connects with my first blog post: in any meeting, even if we can’t make tangible progress like finding a house or job for a client, we can always be present emotionally.  And, honestly, that’s what distinguishes any form of service, whether you volunteer at a hospital or your club’s event.  Even giving a friend a hug is a type of service: you’re making a difference in someone’s life and providing emotional support.  If I make it my goal to provide some sort of emotional support every client meeting, I shouldn’t be nervous about jumping back in.