a. I have come to understand my S-L service sites vision, mission and goals through speaking with Matthew Ratz. We have had numerous conversations about all three of these subjects. On Our Owns vision and mission overlap, what I understand about their vision and mission are to give members a place where they can come and feel safe all while changing attitudes, promoting recovery, and achieving wellness. In the end the goals from all of these visions and missions is for the members to be in a better place and be able to deal with their varying life challenges in a way that works for them personally. This relates back to class because we talked about how disabilities and such as not something that should be ‘cured’, which fits exactly in OOO’s goals, vision, and mission.
2. Academic: How does this experience enhance my knowledge of a specific subject?
a. This experience has enhanced my knowledge on mental illnesses, substance abuse, and how differently they can affect each individual greatly. Although we spent much time in class touching upon different mental illness, having that real-life experience enhance the knowledge even further. By …show more content…
After spending much time at On Our Own and seeing and hearing about all of the members and their different stories, my viewpoints have shifted greatly. For example, a lot of the members do not have permanent housing and some nights do not have a place to sleep when in between housing. Prior to volunteering at OOO I felt like I was ignorant of people in those types of situations, now I feel like I have a deeper understanding of how difficult it is to be in those types of situations, although I could never imagine, I use radical empathy to try to understand how being in that situation could feel. This has made me appreciate what I have much more and made me understand how lucky I have what I have, and how quickly things can