Volunteering in the community is truly an important to do in today’s society. Many doubt part of my generation, millennials, as community givers. This means that many think that the “youngsters” aren’t helping in the community. Whether it’s by volunteering at the local hospital or at a nursing home, we can be productive and change that ideology. By working together, the millennials of this generation can do more than the expected. We can gain knowledge, touch lives, and pave a better way for those that come after us and service work is the way to do that.
Service Learning Reflection Paper
When I was picking a volunteer site to do my hours, I immediately thought of, The Paramount Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center. I grew font of this site as two of my friends work there as CNA’s. The many jovial experiences they would always share with me made me grow more font of the place. As I’m right now in college to be a future nurse, going to a nursing home also made sense to me. With this experience, I would be face to face to my near future as an RN. The Paramount Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, established its doors on INSERT. This nursing home offers aid with custodial care such as bathing, helping patients get dressed, drink medication and helping them eat. Other than custodial care, they also provide rehabilitation and physical therapy. Patients at this nursing home also have a chance to be recreational and do fun activities with each other
My experience started as soon as I stepped inside the facility. I was immediately greeted by so many patients being absolutely nice to me. The staff was just as the patients as well, they were so caring and helpful as I was learning the facility floors. The day I started to actually volunteer, I was truly excited. When I arrived the patients were celebrating a birthday of one of them. I helped with the party in all ways possible. I had to bring the patients from their rooms to the cafeteria. Some I had to push in their wheelchairs, while others I had to help with their walker. At these celebrations, many were excited to sing and dance while enjoying a fresh lemonade and cake. The facility hired a comedian so the patients would get a good laugh as well. This was one of the common things I did at the nursing home, whether it was a party or bingo night, I was the one to help with recreational activities. Another thing that I loved to do with the patients was doing their manicures. This was a chance for me to get to know them on a one-to-one basis. Some shared with me such sad stories about their lives, while others seemed to have no hardships. One particular story that stayed with me was a lady that said her husband was in the Army. Her husband basically left for combat, but never came back, leaving her with 2 kids and a big house to herself.
Service learning is a truly remarkable “tool” to include learning strategies with actual community assistance. These experiences help to provide new learning skills with urban authority. When different students like myself, constantly volunteer they are becoming devoted to be active citizens in their community. The more they volunteer, the more active they’ll be. Students gain newly skills such as; leadership , problem-solving and critical thinking.
“The benefits of service learning for students are wide ranging. Students feel useful and may experience a sense of personal growth and enhanced self-esteem by becoming more aware of their positive inner resources. Social skills may improve because so much of the process is a group effort. Critical thinking skills may also improve because the students are solving real-life problems.” [1] In other words, when these students become integrated with their community, their whole perspective in learning changes. New ways to learn on a hands on approach is important as it allows students to gain knowledge, but at the same time being completely focused with changing their community. Service learning is truly captive as it is not just community assistance, but service to the community while you are actually learning material. This elevates the success of the students as service and academic learning are both equal in perspective.
By doing this they are able to better connect with the surrounding communities. The service work will help them gain a better understanding of people that come from different sociological backgrounds in tern cultivating a greater impact on not only those they interact with but themselves as well. Individuals that take advantage of these great opportunities are more empathetic and are able to communicate better with those they come into contact with in the future. The volunteer will not only full filled through the knowledge gained but also the lives they've touched through the project.
With this volunteering experience, I was able to relate what I learned in psychology with the psychosocial stages of development of Eric Erickson. By observing the elderly patients’ behavior and by interacting with them, I noticed that the majority of them were on the last stage of “Ego Integrity vs. Despair.” From this majority, about 80% were feeling “Ego Integrity” when we talked about their lives, what they were proud of, and what they accomplished in their lifetime. The other 20% would sadly talk to me about how they feel old and unwanted and how they wished to go back in time to change their past decisions. The minority of the patients there were unconscious of where they were, with difficulties such as speaking and mental disorders. Some of them were living on their past and couldn’t accept that some of their loved family members weren’t here anymore. I was also able to observe the differences between “Intimacy vs. Isolation” most of the patients were very social and loved getting attention by talking to others. While a few of them were very isolated and didn’t ever want to come out of their room. They also preferred to eat in their rooms instead of joining everybody else in the cafeteria.
The experience that I obtained by volunteering at The Paramount, was very satisfying as I have always enjoyed helping others. Ever since I started taking this class, I started focusing more on people’s behavior and trying to apply psychology into it. As I volunteered, I gained more knowledge of the psychosocial stages such as the ones of Erik Erikson’s. Also, I got to experience “Service Learning” hands on. This truly helped me learn and work for my elderly community at the same time. When I filled out the volunteer I put that I was going to be volunteering for an indefinite time. I committed to both the staff and patients that I would continue to volunteer once a week until I give birth to my baby.