An Inspiring Intern

ConnieMunozThis month I would like to brag on Connie Munoz, our Communities In Schools Social Work Intern at Lewisville High School.

Connie began her CIS internship at Lewisville High School in January and hit the ground running. She is a social work intern from Texas Woman’s University. She applied herself to learning the Communities In Schools integrated student services model, how to accurately document and track services to students, and most importantly what she could do to help the students that were assigned to her as part of her internship.

Connie was assigned 10 students for her caseload at the end of February. She helped two students graduate early in the month of March. She was very thorough in making sure these students were prepared in transitioning out of high school and into their next chapter of their lives. Connie helped one student set up interviews at multiple trade and vocational schools. This is very helpful because this student lived on her own and did not have a stable home environment that could help her research and make important decisions that would affect her future. Connie stepped into this position to make sure this student considered all of her resources before she made a decision.

I appreciate and respect Connie’s desire to soak in as much social work knowledge as possible. Although we have our weekly supervision time to evaluate her performance and reflect on her internship experience, Connie does not wait for this time to ask questions. She is continually evaluating her service approach, possible ethical decisions she needs to make, and find more effective approaches to the issues our students face on a daily basis.

I am very proud of Connie, and very thankful that she has invested so much time and effort into the students at Lewisville High School. She is kind, empathetic, easy to build rapport with, genuine, and has had a major impact on the students she had helped. I know that whatever population Connie chooses to work with in the future, she will be very successful and her clients will benefit greatly from her work.