A Donner Fellow experience that combines law and social work
Photo credit: Donna Loi
This summer, I was privileged to work at Jewish Family and Child Service (JF&CS) as a Donner Fellow. JF&CS is, among its other mandates, a children’s aid society, and I worked within this capacity. I am in a Combined Program with a Master’s of Social Work, which meant that this position was a perfect marriage of the skills and values imbued in both my programs.
My experience was eye opening, and I am now seriously considering entering the fields of both child protection and family law upon graduation.
My role at JF&CS had two distinct parts. The first was to update the agency’s Child Welfare manual to be in line with the Child, Youth, and Family Services Act, which came into force in April 2018. This legislation encompasses most of the existing law specifically relating to children, including all child protection provisions.
The Act instituted many changes, two of the most notable being that all children under 18 can be found in need of protection and that the definition of who is considered First Nations has been expanded.
When I started working, this legislation had only been in force for one month. I had never engaged in policy work nor worked so closely with legislation before. This was a valuable experience, especially as I grew to have an intimate knowledge of this legislation, which I hope will serve me well in my career moving forward.
The second aspect of my position was to write a brief yet comprehensive guide to child protection court procedures and processes for the social workers at the agency. Although I was privileged to have some real-life exposure to court during my tenure, ultimately I learned what I needed through the generosity of child protection lawyers and through secondary sources. It was challenging to have to piece together this complicated litigation process and to package it so that non-legal professionals could understand it, but I was successful in the end. I now feel that I have a comprehensive understanding of the inner legal workings of a child protection matter, from start to finish.
There were many other perks of this summer position. The most impactful was that I was able to shadow JF&Cs’s counsel several times in court. Seeing them litigate was motivating and helped me get over my “litigation-phobia.”
I also took the opportunity to speak to social workers in various fields within the agency, including those working in hospice and with the shrinking Holocaust survivor population.
There was also a highly affordable gym and a kosher cafe in the building, which helped me keep my life in balance.
My experience throughout the Donner Fellowship was highly positive, and I would recommend it to anyone who is considering it as an option this upcoming summer.
