[humanser] Blind MSW Student Seeking social work practicum site in Boston Massachusetts

[maidaavdic at unomaha.edu]

Hello Fellow Human Service Members!

I hope you are all doing well and prospering at the beginning of this new year. My name is Maida and I am an MSW & MPA Student at the University of Nebraska Omaha. I am currently planning my first practicum rotation for three months during this summer semester. My sister lives in Boston and I have visited the city many times. Each time that I go, I am more impressed with the opportunities and liberal stance on disability in the Boston area. I would love to have an experience of working for an organization, agency, hospital, etc. that offers social services within the city. But, being from Omaha and recognizing that Boston is so massive, I feel overwhelmed with the amount of potential practicum sites within the city and I am not sure where to begin my search. Does anybody know of a good organization or agency that could provide practicum supervision for me this summer that they could recommend? There are only a few requirements that the practicum site must meet for my social work program:

-The site must allow me to work 32 to 40 hours per week for the duration of my practicum semester this summer (between mid May and mid Augus).

-The practicum supervisor must be a Masters level clinical social worker licensed in the state of Massachusetts who can provide direct and/or indirect supervision. In other words, this person does not need to directly supervise me all the time. They may delegate task supervision to somebody else in the agency. They do, however, need to be able to meet with me one hour per week to discuss learning objectives and my progress as a practicum student.

-The practicum site and supervisor must complete a brief online training for supervision and sign a contract agreeing to the practicum arrangements.

-Finally, and most importantly for me, the practicum site and supervisor should be willing to provide the nonvisual accommodations I need to be successful as a blind practicum student. This includes the use of screen readers when completing documentation and a small amount of extended time (about 25% longer) to complete the documentation (especially when I first start learning the documentation system and how to use it Witt the JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, or Narrator screen reader). 

If anybody knows of a site and has some contact information for me, I would greatly appreciate this. Thank you so much and I hope everybody has a wonderful day!

All the Best,
Maida Avdic
Master of Social Work & Master of Public Administration Candidate 2020
University of Nebraska Omaha Grace Abbot School of Social Work
Mobile: (402)-515-5336
maidaavdic at unomaha.edu