Beginning this fall, eight first-year MSW students will participate in a program that gives future social workers hands-on experience helping communities across New York City and the Hudson Valley.
The Frances Perkins Fellowship, offered by Episcopal Charities, provides MSW students with internships that focus on critical issues like food access, housing, and youth education. Named for the New Deal-era workers’ rights advocate, the fellowship pairs interns with partner organizations—such as soup kitchens, after-school programs, and churches—where they can earn the 450 first-year field education hours required for licensure. Funded by a donation to Episcopal Charities from a retired Manhattan social worker, the fellowship provides participants with a $3,000 stipend.
Shared Values and Mission
Judith Douglas, director of programs at Episcopal Charities and a Fordham alumna, said she wanted to host interns from Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service for a few reasons: First, because GSS was able to provide supervision for the interns from its remote field instructors. And second, because she remembers learning about Catholic social activist Dorothy Day when she was studying at Fordham.
“[Day] … reminded me a lot of Frances Perkins,” said Douglas. “So I thought the ethos of Fordham, Dorothy Day, Episcopal Charities, and Frances Perkins would be a great fit.”
Shemara McCaw is one of Fordham’s Frances Perkins fellows. She’s spending her internship at Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie, where she’s assisting parishioners with tasks such as accessing SNAP benefits, securing housing, and navigating legal matters. She’s also helping to prepare a warming center at the church, which will open in November.
For McCaw, the wide range of tasks is ideal for her first year in the MSW program—known as the “generalist year”—as she considers the kind of setting she’d like to work in after graduation.
“I’m helping out with a lot of different things and I’m getting to know the community more,” said McCaw, who lives in the Poughkeepsie area and takes classes at Fordham’s Westchester campus. “So far, I love it.”
The ‘Epitome of Social Work’
Throughout the fellowship, the interns come together for advisement sessions, where they can share their challenges and successes and learn from one another under the guidance of a GSS faculty member. According to Gwenith Mitchell, associate director of field education at GSS, it’s the perfect experiential complement to the in-class material, and exactly the sort of on-the-ground experience MSW students need.
“[The fellowship] is the epitome of social work—working with the underprivileged, food insecurity, youth programs, supporting communities, and being out there with immigrants too,” said Mitchell. “They really get the basis of what social work is.”
