Personal Story
Andrina Parker
Student, Child Welfare Scholars Program
I was born two months premature to an alcoholic mother. We moved to Kansas
a couple of years after I was born.
My brother and I were placed in foster care a couple of years later. That
is when I met Kari Simpson. She was our Social Worker. She spent a lot of time
with my brother and I making us feel comfortable and safe. She made us feel
loved.
For the next few years, my brother and I were in and out of foster care. Our
mother would straighten up long enough to get us back, but then would falter
and cause us to be placed back into foster care.
Through the years, Kari was the only constant in our lives, especially mine.
She would come to visit us and take us out to lunch. She would talk to us on
our level, and genuinely cared what we were saying. On our birthdays, she would
either call or send a card. I knew some kids in foster care that could not
stand their Social Worker, but not me. I could not wait to see her or talk
to her. On days that I did well in school, I would call her and she would get
so excited for me. She was my friend.
After a few more years in foster care my brother and I were placed up for
adoption. Kari questioned many families, but in the end she and the courts
decided that the Parkers, the family we were with at the time, would be the
best family for us. My brother and I felt like we had a home. I was excited,
but at the same time, I was sad. I thought I would lose the one constant friend
that I had made.
I was wrong. Kari and I have kept in contact through the years. Although our
contact is not as often as before, we still talk and get together. She really
did care about my brother and I.
When it came time to start college, I knew what I wanted to be when I 'grew
up'. I wanted to be a Social Worker. I wanted to be a friend to a child the
way Kari was to me. After taking a few classes, I have learned that Kari went
above and beyond the call of duty. She did not have to send us cards. She did
not have to talk to us almost on a weekly basis. She did this, because she
cared.
When I graduated from Johnson County Community College with my Associate of
Arts, I applied to the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas
. Upon being accepted, I was told about the Child Welfare Scholars Program.
I immediately knew this was the program for me. I applied and got an interview.
When I was in the Interview, one of the questions the interviewers asked was "Why
do you want to practice social work, and why do you want to work with children
primarily?" I told them of my past with foster care, and told them about my
awesome social worker. They asked what her name was, and when I told them Kari
Simpson, they were shocked. She was a graduate of this program.
I am now in the second semester of my junior year, and loving social work
more and more everyday. I am learning more and more about the decisions that
Kari made for my brother and me. At the time I did not understand, but now
I do. She was acting in the best interest of us, the children.
I know because of this program, I will be a better social worker. I do not
have to worry about working; I can concentrate on my schooling. Had it not
been for this program, I do not know if I would have been able to get into
social work now. I would have had to take a couple of years off from school
to work for the money, and who knows if I would have gone back to school?
I have recommended this program to many of my peers. When they ask why I push
it, I tell them my story. I tell them they can also be the light in a child's
eye. This program gave me the very best social worker. Now hopefully I can
be as good of a social worker to a child, as she was to me.
|
About
NASW