How it's like to volunteer at DPSS

Last week I volunteered at Department of Public Social Services office and provided advocacy to people in need for emergency food, shelter and transportation. 

Before I went to site, I was a little confused on what kind of role I would be playing. I thought I was going to explain the application requirements to people and helped them fill out paper work, which would be explaining the same rules all day. I tried my best to memorize all the details in the handbook one hour before the volunteer work started. However, it turned out quite different. There was no one exact way of how to make things work here. In fact, I was surprised that every one’s case was so different that I never had a previous example to follow. I had to either came up with something myself or ask the group leader and the liaison how to proceed every time I encountered a client. I truly understood the saying that people’s life could be difficult in every different way. I got involved in multiple cases at the same time, because a single could proceed slowly. I also had to keep asking for updates for all my cases, otherwise it got buried under new-comers.

One of my cases was an angry applicant waiting for hours to see his worker. I got his information and asked the advocacy liaison to search for his case in the system. It turned out his assigned worker had to see an emergency case first and could not possibly having extra time to see him. If he had not get impatient, if we had not take actions, he could spend his day for nothing.  We helped him reach another available worker and allowed him to finish his application. 

A lot of the times I approached a person and offer legal aid help, and the person was usually defensive showed no interest. But when asked more about his or her application, waiting time and potential issues, the real problem showed up. The most memorable client had for the day was a recent immigrant. When I first approached and asked a few questions, all he was saying was “yes”. “no”, “OK”, which seemed like he did not need help. It turned out he only had limited English Proficiency and only spoke French. I found an interpreter to help complete his application and provided more information on finding job to support himself.

I believed the most important lesson I learned from the advocacy was to take initiative.  This also applied to the social entrepreneur presentation we had in the class. To make a change, we have to step up and start from somewhere.