MSW interns find a home with Chuck Farrell, Lawrence Township School's lead social worker 
Chuck Farrell |
April 13, 2009 - For the past eight years, Chuck Farrell has jumped at the chance to add a bit of extra work to an already busy work schedule. His Township provides the site and encouragement; he provides the instruction and support to an annually growing number of interns.
As the lead social worker in the Lawrence Township School System, Chuck provides field instruction for four Indiana University School of Social Work students and four psychology students from the University of Indianapolis.
The reason? It supports students from kindergarten through Masters level.
The Township has few social workers. With his interns, Farrell has eight more people to help provide services to children. “I have the ability to impact so many more kids with these kids (interns). They go out and change lives and support kids/teachers who are struggling.”
Farrell is a born social worker. It just took him a little while to realize it. He went to John Herron School of Art and after graduating moved to Arizona where he worked as a freelance artist. He then moved back to Indianapolis where he worked as a general contractor for 15 years, but never really felt a connection to it.
Farrell realized what he really wanted to do was work with children. He went back to school at IUPUI and earned his MSW degree from the School of Social Work in 1998. After obtaining his degree, Farrell worked two years in the Pike Township School system before joining Lawrence Township Schools.
Farrell started off with two MSW students his first year at Lawrence and has come to enjoy the process of watching students gain confidence during the year they spend with him. “It’s like an apprenticeship,” he said. Students not only learn what they are good at, but what they’re not good at and what they don’t like to do, he noted.
That means the interns working with Chuck aren’t just watching him work with students. “For learning opportunities, I have the whole Township and I can plug them in anywhere and give them any kind of experience they could possibly want.”
By the second semester, interns may realize they like working in the high school more than elementary schools, Farrell said. He helps them make arrangements to work in the high schools where they can hone their skills.
The interns’ opportunities don’t stop at the school door either. Farrell has helped setup several programs including a food and clothing pantry with a church. Township schools do monthly food drives and he picks up the food in his pickup truck as well as furniture that is donated.
Farrell also has developed an outreach program with neighborhood groups at an apartment complex near 42nd Street and Post Road. Once a month, they offer everything from parenting skills, resource information to lunch in a bid to establish relationships with parents of students.
Their kids are in Lawrence Township schools, but maybe they don’t have transportation or don’t feel comfortable coming to a school due to their past educational experiences. “So you go to them so they can see we share many of the same concerns about life and their children,” Farrell said. “The key is for the parents to see “we do care.”
Farrell doesn’t bring up these accomplishments except to explain that his interns have an opportunity to work on a variety of issues from upset students, any kind of family issue you can think of, to mental health needs.
“This is such a good place for an intern to come. It’s not about me as much as about the opportunities and needs.”
Each year Farrell’s approach with the interns is pretty much the same. “I know they have the desire and skills but much of the time they lack confidence because they haven’t used them,” Farrell said. “I start them here and assess their level of skill before they are ever released out into the Township.”
As Chuck’s office receives referrals of students with problems, he’ll approach the interns and ask who wants to handle such and such a problem. It could be something as simple as a student upset over the death of a pet. “Like adults, kids have many struggles, so they bring them to me,” he said of his office.
He tells his interns they don’t have to have all the answers, but to just listen, which often turns out to be just what the student needs.
In the beginning, he gives them the options of seeing the student on their own, having him sit in to lead, or watch the intern talk with the student. “No one has ever picked the last one,” Farrell said laughing.
When they opt to watch him, Farrell tells the intern if they think of something that needs to be said, they need to speak up.
Then as they begin to work with students, the interns come to understand the practical realities of the job. Knowing theories about how to respond to a situation is fine, but they learn the number one thing you can do for the students – when you only get to see them 20 to 30 minutes a week – is build a relationship.
“Because if you walk in and “throw a theory on them,” they are going to shut down, and they (the students) will be gone. They don’t know you, often they struggle with trust.”
The interns soon realize that many of the students they will face, for many reasons don’t want to be in school. But if you take an interest in them and gradually build a relationship, it can pay off, Farrell explained.
At first the interns may feel like they aren’t really helping the student. “But with nonjudgmental listening and caring eventually the kids will begin to trust, open up and talk about their life - things they won’t tell anyone else.”
As the year goes on, Farrell and the interns become a working team. “I don’t work on an ‘I know everything basis’ ” Farrell explains. “They learn from me and I learn from them.”
By the time they leave, Farrell’s biggest hope “is that they realize they can do it,” Farrell said of the interns ability to handle the duties of a school social worker. “They are more experienced and confident when they leave here,” he added.
When they go out on a job interview, they can say, ‘I’ve done that, I know what I am doing.”
Simply put, Farrell says, they are not going to walk into a situation where they are helpless and dependent. Instead, they have the training that will allow them to step up and help.
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