Charlotte Weber (Silver ’13, ’14)
Women's Services Coordinator, Hidden Victims Project, Center for Court Innovation
Landing the job:
Everyone in social work has to do two field placements for clinical hours before they graduate, and NYU's field office links you with those internships. I was really interested in doing reentry work, and I ended up at Midtown Community Court, which is part of the Center for Court Innovation. I had a strong connection with my supervisor there, who ended up teaching me everything I know about trauma-informed work. Once I graduated, she let me know that there was an opening up in the Bronx, and I've been with CCI ever since.
You have built-in support, particularly in the undergraduate program. There were only 40 people in my graduating class, so we were a tight cohort and really got to know each other well.
A typical day:
We're a project that's based in Queens criminal court, and we do advocacy, counseling, and alternative to incarceration work with survivors of trauma in trafficking court, mental health court, and drug treatment court. Depending on the day I might be in court, standing advocating for people to have more trauma-informed treatment as opposed to traditional drug treatment. Or I might be just in my office doing assessments with clients to figure out what their needs are. Or I might be out in the community meeting with other organizations or doing training on trauma and trafficking. It's split between clinical work and community outreach and training.
What I miss most about NYU:
I miss having the opportunity to check-in with a group of people who were learning alongside me and could help me process my cases. You have built-in support every week, particularly in the undergraduate program, which is really small. There were only 40 people in my graduating class, so we were a really tight cohort and got to know each other well.
Favorite part of what I do:
My clients obviously are why I do it and what I love. They're just super cool, amazing, resilient people and it's humbling to be able to work with them and have somebody put so much trust in you in this crazy system. But then the other thing is that I work with a lot of really, really smart, passionate women. Mostly everyone I work with—the other social workers, the judges, the attorneys—are awesome women. It's a cool field to be a young person in and have these people to learn from and look up to.
Alumni @ Work
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