I attended Glen Allen High School in Glen Allen, Virginia, and graduated with honors in June 2019. That same August, I enrolled in Longwood University as a Cormier Honors College Scholar and proud Lancer. I initially began my education as a Nursing major. However, I quickly found that Nursing life was not for me, and I changed majors to Social Work in Spring 2021.

A junior and senior internship must be completed to graduate from an accredited program with a Bachelor of Social Work. The junior internship must consist of 180 hours completed across one semester. In the Spring of 2023, I fulfilled this requirement by interning at Sadler House, a subset of the YWCA of Central Virginia in Lynchburg, Virginia, providing a safe house for women affected by domestic and/or sexual violence and their families. There, I participated in intake paperwork, filing, creating client files, and providing support and comfort to these women and their families. I also had the privilege of leading support groups on Thursday evenings to encourage camaraderie and foster growth.

For my senior internship, which lasted 500 hours, I interned at the Virginia Department of Social Services in the Office of Family Violence in Glen Allen, Virginia. There, my role involved participating in “listening sessions” to improve DOW outcome surveys, notetaking, presenting in statewide meetings, providing technical assistance to agencies, and assessing performance through writing evaluations. My role also included attending site visits with my direct supervisor to analyze overall agency performance over three years.