SWK 405 Social Work Practice: Community Organizations

In SWK 405, students learn how to engage with communities, assess their needs, and intervene to meet those needs. Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project provides a perfect setting for social work students to learn about funding and how to raise the valuable funds to make a REAL difference in the community right here in Northern Kentucky.  This semester, students learned about the experiences and needs of refugee community in our region from refugee community members and director of RefugeeConnect.  They also learned about the importance of private donations as part of the overall funding for non-profits from the representative of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. All of these contributed to students’ knowledge about the community and funding for non-profit organizations.  Using Impact NKU as the platform, our students raised $4,697 (156% of the goal) to help RefugeeConnect meet the healthcare needs of refugee people in Northern Kentucky. 

Reflections from various SWK 405 students:

“During the pandemic, RefugeeConnect was able to increase their services. They went from serving 50 families pre-pandemic to 200 families and from serving families in 1 school district to 10. From RefugeeConnect’s response to Covid-19, I learned that agencies can show resiliency in the face of hardship for the betterment of their clients and agency.”

“Individual donations for non-profits like Refugee Connect is vital to support their work. As Kristen Burgoyne said, ‘RefugeeConnect wants to create a sustainable Community Navigators model...We can’t do that without long term funding.’ That is why future social workers need to be able to organize funding campaigns.”   

RefugeeConnect’s mission is to connect refugees with resources to rebuild their lives as United States citizens. RefugeeConnect helps refugees navigate unfamiliar systems, new cultural norms, and language barriers. RefugeeConnect promotes coordinated services so that this specific population of new Americans, who may be unaware of the patchwork of crucial resources already in place, reach their full potential as individuals,
families, and communities. 

The RefugeeConnect Health Navigator project is a three-pronged approach designed to increase refugees’ understanding of US healthcare systems, increase health literacy, ensure equitable pathways to services through training and consultation with healthcare providers, and ensure that families can access and navigate the healthcare system. Health Navigators are cultural leaders with native language skills, who offer equitable practices and culturally relevant services to the refugee community. We will utilize the student philanthropy project funds to hire a Refugee Health Navigator to assist us in launching this program in NKY.

For more information, https://www.refugeeconnect.org/