The Mason Spirit

Student: Lisa Chill, senior
Major: Social Work
Internship Site: Action in Community Through Service, Dumfries, Virginia

In August 2018, Lisa Chill began interning at Action in Community Through Service (ACTS), a nonprofit that offers those in Prince William County, Virginia, an entire menu of services ranging from housing assistance, hunger prevention services, and sexual assault and domestic violence crisis and trauma services.

For Chill, who was excited to apply what she’d learned in her social work classes to real-world scenarios, the sheer breadth of ACTS’s services was a perfect fit. “I wanted to intern at a place that was dynamic and offered me the opportunity to learn case management within a multitude of client needs and wants,” she says.

As an emergency assistance intern case manager for ACTS, Chill does exactly that. Describing her day-to-day schedule, she says, “I might help rewrite a resume, coach [clients] on interviewing skills, assist in a housing search, request a referral for them, or guide them on resources such as educational, hunger prevention, [medical] assistance, [and so on].”

Chill plans on beginning her master’s in social work as she pursues her goal of becoming a licensed clinical social worker. She says the experience she has gained at ACTS has been invaluable, especially because of the support she has received from those in the organization.

“I walked into my internship feeling enthusiastic, yet overwhelmed,” she says. “Nearly a year later, I will be leaving ACTS completely confident in my abilities to assist clients within any organization that I work for.”

Support students with a gift to the Unpaid Internship Scholarship fund.

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