The School of Social Work would like to share an article that features Dr. Lianne Urada’s research and our MSW student on paid internship arrangements at the San Diego Public Library!
This story is a true spirit of collaboration and reflects all of the teamwork efforts made by many at multiple levels, allowing us to realize who we are as social workers.
This partnership has been years in the making. It all started with a conversation Lianne had with a parent who happened to be a librarian at the Central Library and told Lianne about the opioid crisis in the bathrooms- so she introduced her to the Supervising Librarian. A meeting was arranged with Jennifer and Lianne since, through Jennifer Cosio’s efforts, the first nontraditional placement of a social work student was made possible at the Encinitas Library. Jennifer Cosio (representing Consensus Organizing Center) and Amanda Lee (representing the School of Social Work Field Education) began exploring and working on the possibility of placing a student intern at the downtown library ever since July 2018. While the County was not mentioned in the article, Charity White-Voth from the County Behavioral Health Services (BHS) staff volunteered her office to supervise since the library doesn’t have an MSW to supervise. And then the City found a way to pay the intern through the youth workforce development grant they received.
