Women’s Law Project

It seems a little incredible, but I have just over a week left at my internship. Next Friday is my last day and I’m moving out of our apartment the following morning.

It seems to me like now is the time to sit back and reflect on the last two months. Did I accomplish everything I wanted to? Did I learn something?

On the living-in-an-apartment-in-Philadelphia front, I certainly learnt a lot. I’m a lot better cook than I was two months ago, as evidenced by the fact that the number of successful meals I cooked increased inversely proportionate to the mess I made and number of kitchen items irreparably destroyed. I now know how to unclog a drain, have keys fixed, get rid of flies, and go grocery shopping on a student budget (even when tempted by all of the wonderful foodstuffs at Whole Foods).

I also experienced Philadelphia as a tourist and a resident. I went to Independence Mall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Love Park, Penn’s Landing, the Italian Market, Chinatown, Reading Terminal Market and the Magic Garden. I had my first Philly cheesesteak. I also learned how to navigate the crowds of tourists who have the annoying tendency to block the sidewalk near our apartment as they line up to get a cheesesteak.

Did I get to see everything I wanted to? No, there is still the Philadelphia Zoo, the Franklin Institute, the Atwater Kent Museum…

Of course, I did also go to my internship this summer Monday through Friday. I can’t possibly list everything I experienced and learnt at the Women’s Law Project here but I will share a couple things.

The range and breadth of my experience certainly far exceeded my expectations. I now know nearly every zipcode in Philadelphia and can tell you, with a fairly high degree of certainty, its location and racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic make-up. I learned this rather inane set of data in two ways. Firstly, through outreach. I spent many hours a weekend researching each zipcode and combing through the Telephone Counseling database looking at call distribution across zip codes. Secondly, through counseling and intake. Behind all this demographic data, are people who call the WLP at some of the worst moments in their lives. For many zipcodes, I can also picture a specific caller I have talked to, trying to help her deal with the problems in her life.

Nobody calls the WLP when life is going swimmingly well. Everybody calls the WLP when they have a problem, usually of an unimaginable magnitude. Rarely does a caller have just one question. Most of our clients are trying to fight multiple fires: they have an abusive partner, they are fighting for custody of their kids, they need a divorce, they have no money, they have no health insurance. I listen to their problems for an hour or even just ten minutes, but I can get off the phone. For our callers, these problems are their lives. That was one of the hardest things for me to come to grips with this summer.

On the phones, you see the best and worst of humanity. You hear about terrible things people to do one another. You also hear women who are so resilient in the face of incredible hardship. The dignity and graciousness of many of the callers I have talked to takes me by surprise every time. I can only hope that if I was ever in a similar situation, I could be like that.

The thing that I learnt this summer which was probably the hardest to understand but the most essential is the importance of listening. Sometimes, all anyone needs is to have someone who will listen and validate the person’s story.

The learning curve over the last two months has been huge. Whilst I may eventually forget all the technical details I have learnt about family law or Philadelphia zip codes, I believe I won’t forget the larger lessons about privilege, compassion, and justice.

Also, I won’t forget to make sure to always be really nice to the office manager as she will be the person to help you when you break the copier… and the shredder.

I can’t believe I have been interning at the Women’s Law Project for over a month now. It is amazing that I feel like I’ve just started, yet I only have three weeks left.

I realized, after scrolling through my previous entries, I have never really talked about the physical environment of my internship. Maybe an office in the middle of Philly is not quite as exciting as the locales in which other CPGC interns are currently working, but it seems worthwhile mentioning at least.

We live about 13 blocks from the WLP office. (I say “we” because, as I previously mentioned, both Lizzy and I work at the WLP). We walk to and from work everyday. Since it is Philly in the summer, the weather is brutally hot and humid. Luckily, the WLP is well air-conditioned, so from nine to five I escape the Philly heat.

In the office, I have a small cubicle in a cluster of other cubicles, all assigned to the Telephone Counselors. Since there are more volunteers and interns than desks, everyone rotates spots depending on who is in for the day. However, I am the only full-time intern this summer so I usually grab the same desk everyday.

On a typical day when I’m counseling, I print out the daily log and begin making calls right away. I take down notes on scrap paper, which I then record in our database after I have talked to the caller. Before I phone callers, I try to look at their intake notes and pull up information on my computer that I think will be helpful to them. When I have questions about the proper information to give a caller, I run it by my supervisor before getting back to the person.

One of my favourite aspects of my internship at the WLP is lunchtime. Typically, the entire office has lunch at the same time in the conference room. The conversations at lunch range over a very varied set of topics, but they are always fascinating. Everyone has something interesting to say: from the staff attorney to the law students to the office manager.

One of the great things about a small office is that you know everybody who you are working alongside by name. The atmosphere at the WLP is super friendly and engaging. I think this is one of the components that has made my internship great so far: working around knowledgeable, passionate, and enthusiastic people.

Every Thursday and Friday afternoon since my internship has begun, I, along with some of the other interns, have been working on a summer outreach plan. Although the WLP receives a lot of calls to our Telephone Counseling number, the WLP knows that there are more people out there with issues that we are just not reaching. The goal of outreach is to increase consumer awareness of the WLP’s free service.

During the spring, a graduate student at the WLP began doing community outreach around Fairmount Park. We took her original outreach plan and further developed our goals and outreach strategies. Then we analyzed caller data to identify target neighborhoods. This involved several afternoons of staring at an Excel spreadsheet as numbers swam before my eyes. Finally, we identified key locations in the previously identified neighborhoods to specifically target with our flyers. (Thank goodness for Google maps).

This week was our first time going out into the community with our newly designed action plan. On Thursday, we walked all along East Passyunk Avenue, which bisects South Philly. Overall, we got a really positive response from local business owners. We even had people run after us on the street to ask further questions. On Friday, we started outreach on South Street. It was horribly hot and we didn’t get that far.

I actually had quite a bit of fun walking around and talking to people about the WLP and Telephone Counseling. My feet, on the other hand, did not enjoy the experience nearly as much.

Next week, we will continue outreach in South Philly. Hopefully, my feet will have recovered by then.

Today, I graduated from being a counselor-in-training to a freshly minted counselor. This means I can offer basic information to our callers without going through my supervisor first. Although it happened with very little fanfare, the transition was quite exciting. It’s amazing how much I’ve learnt in just over three weeks. Before I began this internship, I had no idea how someone went about getting a restraining order –I didn’t even know what the proper name of it was (in case you’re wondering, a restraining order against a current or former household or family member is called a Protection From Abuse order or PFA ). Now I can probably tell you in my sleep.

Over time I think this job must get easier. Certainly I’ve picked up the technical aspects quickly. I can now use our caller database, the automatic postage machine, and the very finicky paper shredder with a high degree of certainty that I’m doing it correctly. For “simple” calls, callers’ whose questions are very common, I know the answer off the top of my head. Some calls definitely still bamboozle me. I’m sure, however, the number of bamboozling calls will decrease as the amount of time I’ve spent at my internship increases.

Sometimes, however, working as a Telephone Counselor is just hard work. There are calls when you don’t have any good answers. As one of my professors likes to say, there is no “right-answer machine” to life. And there are some calls where you do have an answer, but the caller doesn’t like it.

The WLP Telephone Counselors provide legal information and offer potential solutions to callers. We can’t tell them what to do, however, even if we really want to.

If a caller is experiencing domestic violence, we always offer to tell them about various safety tips.  The WLP has a comprehensive booklet that explains about safety planning. For those in abusive situations, it can be crucial that they have what is basically an escape plan. Most callers readily accept this information (of course, whether or not they utilize it is their own choice).

It is almost heartbreaking when a caller flat-out refuses to listen to information pertaining to his or her own safety or, after hearing the options, state that they won’t follow them. Some people aren’t ready to leave their home and/or family and “run away.” My natural impulse, which I’m sure is shared by many counselors both at the WLP and other hotlines, is to practically beg these callers to at least consider taking some of the steps. Have a bag packed, plan an escape route out of your home, have a safe place you can go to in an emergency. The only person who can decide to do this, however, is the caller.

As a Telephone Counselor, all I can tell you is what you can do, not what you should do. But sometimes, I really wish I could do more.

The Women’s Law Project has had many interns from the Bi-Co over the years, and this summer is no exception. Currently, there are three Haverford students interning at the WLP for the summer.

The Haverford Interns

Over the last two days, I have spent my mornings at Family Court. It is quite an overwhelming experience. People are dashing back and forth waving papers. The court officials are trying to be heard over the general din of people. At one point, an official was reduced to bellowing in order to get the attention of the waiting room.

All of the court staff were super friendly and welcoming when I introduced myself as a student coming to observe court. Also, I spoke to several lawyers in the waiting room who were equally friendly.

It was a good job that everyone I met was obliging. The thing that struck me the most was how complicated the whole process seemed. I have no idea how plaintiffs or respondents navigate Family Court without help. Yet, the vast majority do not have representation: they have to work it out somehow by themselves.

Philadelphia’s Family Court is certainly very different from what criminal courts look like on TV and in the movies.

I began my second day of counseling in the same manner as I did yesterday: I returned calls, asked for additional information, and then talked to my supervisor before I gave the callers information. So far, so good.

In the late afternoon, I took my first Priority 0 call. A call denoted 0 means that the caller is facing an emergency situation in which she is facing real danger.

I knew before I returned the woman’s call, this would be a hard conversation. I perhaps, however, underestimated the difficulty. As the caller’s story unfolded, it got worse and worse and worse. I’m not sure what part got to me more: the fact that the justice system had failed this woman time and time again or her quiet dignity when talking to me about the whole terrible situation. She was so grateful that I was even willing to listen to her story.

As I scribbled a note asking for help and passed it to the Telephone Counselor sitting next to me, the WLP staff sprung into action looking for resources for my caller.

Once I got off the phone, I realized that I had a huge surge of adrenaline. I was angry at everyone and every institution that had failed our caller. I was upset by the caller’s story. I felt that the responses I gave to the woman’s questions could never be sufficient. When she asked me why the justice system had failed her, I hardly had the heart to tell her what she already knew: this is sometimes just the way things work out. It is not right, but it is the way it is.

Hopefully, what we told the caller will help her ameliorate her problems. Maybe it won’t, but the best I can do is hope it will.

(After reading my post, my supervisor responded by saying that my “having listened and devoted so much time to this caller may be the one beacon of light in her darkness; it surely helped her to feel a little bit better.  We hear this time and time again from callers.  They feel less alone after talking to our counselors.” As well as making me feel better, I think her words reminded me that an important part of this job is to simply stand witness to our callers’ struggles and let them know that someone hears them.)

Today, my supervisor told me that I was ready to make my first call. Honestly, the first thought that ran through my head was an inarticulate, panicked “woah, not ready.” Then, my second thought was that I had to start somewhere and I would be starting with a lot of oversight.

Usually, when a Telephone Counselor contacts a caller, she can offer the person information in the same call. Then she talks to her supervisor to check the completeness and accuracy of her counseling. When a Counselor-in-Training makes her first calls, she talks to the caller first and then does not offer any information without first verifying it with her supervisor. That is what I did today.

The issues raised by my callers today ranged from custody to divorce to domestic violence. The problems my callers faced were fairly typical of the majority of those who call into the WLP. However, this made them no less hard to listen to.

My initial worry about counseling had been about the information I could provide. My apprehension was that what was I, as a young college student, doing offering advice to mature women who were dealing with some issues that I have been privileged enough to have never encountered? This fear was soon, mostly, alleviated. After perusing the vast manuals the WLP has written, listening in on other calls, and talking to my supervisor, I quickly began to get the hang of what kind of information to offer each caller. The Telephone Counselors provide callers information drawn from the years of experience among the staff members at the WLP; the individual counselor has access to a much greater body of information than their own personal knowledge.

The hardest part, I soon came to realize, was the emotional aspect of the calls. The callers ranged from angry to upset to resigned. Some of the callers thanked me profusely at the end of the call for giving them information. Whilst I am very glad that they felt more empowered by their new knowledge, I also felt a little guilty for not being able to offer them the “right answer” to their problems. All I could offer them were potential options; sometimes none of them were particularly good.

This training process has opened my eyes so much, and the learning curve has been huge. I think it will continue to be hard, but hopefully my callers will benefit from the information the WLP can offer them.

During the last week, I have been settling in at the WLP. As part of my training, I’ve had to do quite a bit of reading. The WLP has very thick training manuals covering family law, no-fault divorces (in its own separate binder), employment law, welfare services, and much more. I’ve also read nearly every resource available to the public on the WLP’s website.

The materials are all really interesting and I’m learning about topics in which I have no previous background knowledge. What is even more educational is listening in on the calls the trained counselors make. As part of every Telephone Counselor’s training, she has to listen in (with the caller’s permission) to an experienced counselor giving information to a caller. Each caller has his or her own story and set of questions that the counselor tries to address. Counselors follow-up with callers later to see how their situations are progressing. Some people seem to have hopeful resolutions to their problems, others do not. (All of the calls to the WLP are confidential, so I can’t write any specific details about the service on this blog. If you’re interested to know what information the WLP does provide to its callers, you can read about the service on the WLP’s website.

As well as being trained for telephone counseling, I have also begun work on the WLP’s Outreach program. Currently, I am working with some of the other interns to identify neighborhoods that might benefit from WLP going out into the community and distributing information about the services it provides and talking to people individually. I’m crunching through spreadsheet upon spreadsheet of data to try and identify key neighborhoods. I haven’t come up with much yet, but I have started to memorize Philadelphia’s different zip codes!

[Written June 4th]

Today  was my first day interning at the WLP. It is about 13 blocks from our apartment, which is an easy walk in the morning. (In the afternoon, it is a very hot walk back).

I met most of the staff today and one of the other summer interns. After receiving my schedule for the summer, I spent the day doing background reading on the various topics I will need to be familiar with as a Telephone Counselor. Digesting all the material about Family Law will certainly occupy me for a while –the binder the WLP gives to its trainees that briefly covers the topic is huge!

Meanwhile, on the apartment front, Lizzy and I are settling in. (We had much better luck with the Drain-O last night). Every day we’re learning a few new things about living by ourselves, mainly through trial and error.

During dinner tonight we made a few mistakes. I won’t name names, but I will say that one of us spent half an hour scrubbing the oven out after dropping her dinner upside down in it while it was hot. The other person had to scrub out her pot after burning her rice pilaf. She also irrevocably reshaped one of our brand-new measuring spoons.

At least we have 3 other spoons!

We now know, however,  how to get melted plastic off a metal pot.