Hello everyone!
My name is Taylor Louise Morrison. I am currently a senior at Longwood University, pursuing a bachelors degree in Social Work and a minor is Sociology. I currently work at Centra Hospital as a patient sitter, where I monitor the safety of patients facing emergency mental health concerns or fall risk patients.
I previously attended Longwood University in 2014-2016, but left due to my expanding family and having to put my children and working in front of my education. Now that my children, ages 11, 10, 7, and 3, are a bit older, I have been able to put my education as a priority again.
My dreams of pursuing mental health has been since before I can remember. When other children wanted to be an astronaut or the president, I wanted to make sure every child had food and a home. Even though some of my initial goals have shifted, the field I want to work in has never changed. Mental health is close to me in more ways than one, and completing my bachelor’s degree is just the next step for me to accomplish a career in a field I cannot see my life without.
This past summer, I traveled abroad to Ghana for my junior internship. Even though I could go on and on about my experiences and growth there, my main takeaway happened while we held a girls’ conference for a school in Kumasi. The conference was centered around connecting the mind, body, and spirit wellbeing to inform these girls about mental health and the importance of maintaining mental health. We did this by using the empowerment method, encouraged their self-esteem, and assisted them in forming coping mechanisms to use when they are struggling. The response from the students, faculty, and even the Longwood students was so positive and genuinely breathtaking. This fully committed inside myself that this the field I have to work in. Getting to talk about mental health and help a group connect the dots between strategies they already were using without realizing it and their mental health wellbeing was a completely life changing moment for me, that I will forever be grateful to have been a part of.
I am now in my senior field internship at the Department of Social Services in Charlotte County, Virginia. This placement has given me the opportunity to expand my knowledge, client interactions, and documentation abilities. I have also gotten the freedom to start developing the way I want to conduct myself once in the field with guidance from multiple supervisors in the agency. The main hardship for the agency and the clients is the lack of resources, and quality of the resources available, only increasing my passion and drive to create a better system, specifically for mental health and homelessness/housing insecurities once I enter the field. Having the opportunities as an intern to focus on client relationship and really listen to the client about their needs, then devote time towards finding resources has shown me that I hope to make each client feel like they are my only client while I am with them and speak out about case load difficulties before I get burnt out or overwhelmed, something that is often forgotten in the Social Work field.
Being a mother, a readmit student, and a first-generation student has not always been the easiest of routes, but all these roles have created empathy and resilience that many do not have. I truly believe that all these obstacles were placed for me to overcome in order to make me the social worker that I am meant to be and would not be without these life experiences. Finally being able to say that I am a senior and so close to making my dreams a lifelong reality is something I never thought would happen, but I am so excited to say that I am here.
