Community Intervention Blog Post

So, I'm deciding to write my reflection as a letter to a friend of mine who is a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault and was the driving force and inspiration for this week!

Dear Friend,

As you know the week of April 11th was Domestic Violence Awareness Week. We had to do a community intervention and participate in various events throughout the week. Although organization was tough through three different classes ... yes, all three classes organized this! We had to communicate via email and blackboard which became increasingly difficult because something always goes wrong with technology. Emails don't always work, people don't check them (I know you never do) and others don't have the time to respond. Verbal and face to face communication is the best way to do things. I know what you're thinking, didn't one person do all the work? In some cases yes, but we broke into teams split the duties and I think everyone kept their word. With a cause like this how could you not? Our class is suppose to evaluate this, and the way I think we should evaluate it? Not by who did what, or was every job done equally but how the survivors felt about this event and if we made an impact. Yes, for classroom sake we have to know all that who did what stuff. But when it comes down for it we were there as advocates and if the survivors felt support and we raised awareness and money that our evaluation was successful.

I know you're not a social work major, so it's kind of hard to understand what we all go through but let me tell you. This week has created a bond between us all that I'm glad I got to experience while here in college. Talking to classmates I think is the best way to be informed and to gain feedback. We were the ones to make all this happen! No one understand the stress and hard work as much as we do. And I think we all never felt prouder than when the survivors thanked the social work department for all their work, how amazing is that?

The future, what can we do there? If this wasn't a letter I'd ask you out loud, cause I think people and survivors like you will shape future community interventions like this. Weeks like this shouldn't stop. A survey given out at the end of the week would be the best way to better organize and fill in the holes for the future. Taking feedback from survivors and making a comprehensive evaluation to give to future social workers would work best. Do you think survivors would be willing to evaluate the programs? I feel they would if it would help the cause.

I learned a lot about myself through this experience, starting with how unaware I was of the oppression of this group and also how vague my understanding was about what survivors go through. And I'm sorry I never truly understood what you went through, but this week has shown me how hard it is and that support is the best medicine. A small community like that at BSU can reach out and touch so many people and I love feeling that I could be a part of that. I'd like to share a quote with you, from an article I read for class that I think pertains to what I learned during this week and maybe will inspire you too:


"It requires that we choose to belong to each other. It does not require us to like each other or agree with each other…it requires us to be committed to both caring for the container of commonality and the individual differences inside."

This quote pretty much sums up my learning about communities and community interventions. That we are all so different. During Take Back the Night I was standing with so many people so diverse and different than me, but we were all there for one commonality which is what made this week so special. You know me, I love being an advocate for anything possible, using my loud mouth to the advantage of other people is something I'm proud of. This is the thing that made me feel the most like a social advocate, I started in my community and bettered the people in it, rather than working from the outside. 


The future is unknown, but you know other social workers will be taking over this project in the future ... what can I tell them? 1. Start AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE 2. Assign jobs and stick to them 3. People don't respond, it happens 4. Work together, this is a community event 5. Be willing to let someone else lead, you could learn a lot 6. It's SURVIVOR not victim. 7. Strength in numbers 8. Meeting face to face means more and get's more done 9. Learn to tie knots or the clothesline project will be VERY difficult and 10. Accept criticism, everyone is entitled to their own opinion!

I hope reading this letter let you know a little bit about what I did that week. I know it was too hard for you to attend, but maybe when these kids in the future do it, you could do too.

Sincerely,
Lacey.