Lily is one of our Master of Social Work (MSW) interns at Friends In Deed. The internship program is proving to be a very positive experience for everyone involved – Friends In Deed and our clients benefit greatly from the extra skilled help in our programs, and our interns get valuable experience in the field. In fact, the only drawback is we get fond of our interns and it is hard to say goodbye!
It will be hard to see Lily go, when she finishes her internship in a few weeks’ time. Lily has been completing her first MSW internship – case management – with us. In her final year she will go on to do a second internship, her clinical internship, with a more therapy-based focus.
Growing up in a family that struggled with homelessness and addiction, Lily’s ambition to help others with the same struggles had her wanting to become a psychologist. Life – and four children – got in the way of that goal, but after many years of working in the nursing field, and embarking on a degree, she remembered her childhood dream and switched majors from nursing to social work.
Lily says that working at FID has changed her perspective. She currently works in cancer care, and hopes to continue in that field once she has completed her masters program, switching from nursing to therapy. But now, she says, she has a better understanding of how things like mental health and substance use can be part of the complicated interplay of issues her patients face, and she feels better equipped to help her clients address those issues.