Family Promise Day 3

Yesterday I arrived at Family Promise in the afternoon where I organized files of the previous families(boring stuff). Some of the files I organized were scripts and notes of the families in their mock job interviews. My project sponsor informed me that the shelther tries to give the parents of the families job training and prepare them for their job interviews. I found out today that children from hawken's middle school will be here later this month. I will help the children make a women's clothing store at the shelter. The clothing store will have clothing for job interviews and other professional outtings. Last night I traveled to Imani church in euclid to do a training session for the church. THe church will be hosting the familes for the week of mother's day and we had to go over the rules and procedures for the church. Family Promise is trying to do an outreach to more African American churches to host the families. Out of the 80 churches that participate in family promise their are only 3 African American Churches. When I was at the church during the trining seesion I learned alot about the statistics of homelesssness and how out of all the countries America has the highest rate for homelessness. As well the trauma and affect that homelessness has on people was shocking. It was said that children who are homeless by the age of 12 have experience a very violent encounter or near death experience. The parents of the children commonly have PTSD and are depressed. I learned what to ask and how to be a listener not a talker. Some familes want their space and may not want to talk about their problems or how they got there. What I thought of being nice and concern I learned can be annoying and discomforting. Overall last night was a good experience to see people in room willing to help and take action to stop this huge epidemic of homelessness. On a side note I decided to do this project to get an experience with social work. When I get older I want to work with families and children. Today I had to answer the phone and to hear these people problems and how they need help, killed me inside. Our shelter is full and I cant help the people that need help, maybe over the month I will learn to eliminate my emotions. In cuyahoga county there are only 4 family shelters and they are all full. A part of you wants to help so bad but you cant. When you go to sleep at night you think about the 30 calls you received that day and how you had to turn away all of them. It kills me inside that this is such a big problem just in Cleveland. Depressing Day :(