October Update

This past month has gone by so quickly. When I first arrived in New York, I was a bit skeptical about the stereotypes of New Yorkers as constantly busy – but it’s so easy to be busy here. My fellowship is going full speed ahead, and when I’m not at work, I never lack for things to do. I feel much more comfortable with my busy schedule than I did when I first got here, now that I’m falling into a routine. I’ve figured out the shortest paths to and from the subway stop, the best places to grab a cheap slice and the exact length of a wash cycle at the Laundromat – being familiar with these everyday aspects leaves me with more time to explore my surroundings, and the confidence that I am, slowly but surely, becoming a legitimate New York resident.

One of the best aspects of my fellowship is that my supervisor is so supportive of my professional progress – I’ve been taking time to meet with other professionals in both the nonprofit world and the business world, taking classes to develop new skillsets and attending conferences. People often have the impression that learning stops once you graduate, but in my experience, that hasn’t been true at all. Learning in the professional world, however, is much more open-ended, and you have to be skilled at asking the right questions. I feel like I’ve come so far since beginning this fellowship, but there’s still so much further to go! I’m looking forward to the opportunities and challenges that the rest of my fellowship year is sure to bring.

I hope you’re all having a lovely fall!

Foster Care Emergency Removal

"Can you meet KC at penn station at 8:45am? The plan would be to head to LI, move the child to FR. Lmk thanks!!"

It was a little after 10 PM last Thursday when I received the text above in an e-mail from my supervisor.

My supervisor provided no other information surrounding the case. (I knew this was a true emergency because my supervisor usually does not e-mail me work assignments late in the night!)

All I knew was that I had to help KC (the Foster Care Social Worker supervisor at my agency, NAC) remove a foster child from her current foster home and place her in a new one. I also knew that this emergency removal was tied to the foster child's medical needs. That night I went to bed trying to put two and two together.

What were this foster child's medical needs and why was the current foster home unable to meet them? The LIRR train cut through the crisp fall morning air as KC and I sat wrapped in our scarves and fall coats. "So did your supervisor tell you what's going on yet?" I looked at KC blankly and shook my head. "I bet you must have felt like you were on a covert operation, like you were a CIA agent!"

We both laughed and the train zoomed onwards into the morning. During the train ride, I learned that the medical staff and supervisors in Foster Care had studied this case closely and decided that moving this foster child was the best choice for her health.

When KC and I arrived, Shayla (name changed for confidentiality) sat at the bottom of her foster home's stairs with her head down next to her foster mom. Surrounded by trash bags full of clothes, I had a feeling she knew quite well why we were there. When Shayla burst into tears before KC or I said a word, my suspicion was confirmed. Shayla knew. And I also knew that this was just the beginning of a tough day.

My interest in learning about Shayla's medical needs faded upon seeing Shayla so sad. Foster Mom comforted Shayla, assuring her that this was not their last time together. In the meanwhile, I moved Shayla's trash bags into the agency van, eyes cast downward, moved by Shayla's sadness.

The van ride to Shayla's temporary foster home placement was long, cold, sad, and bumpy. Shayla, a 16-year-old immigrant, came to the United States on a medical visa to treat what doctors initially diagnosed as Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Over time, doctors ruled out Cystic Fibrosis. Shayla instead has Non-TB Mycobacterium and Bronchiecstasis.

These two conditions make oxygen uptake into Shayla's blood much harder than for a person whose lungs are functioning normally. Shayla has to breathe more often to get the same amount of oxygen that somone with healthy lungs gets in one breathe.

(Interesting fact, especially for pre-meds out there: If a person with healthy lungs breathes 20 breathes per minute on average, Shayla breathes about 32 breathes per minute. If a person with healthy lungs breathed at Shayla's rate, he or she would be classified as hyperventilating.)

Now the question still remains, why was Shayla removed from her foster home on an emergency basis? Earlier in the week, Shayla went to the ER for severe respiratory distress. The ER doctors were not sure what triggered the distress but thought something in the home (e.g. air freshener, lit candles) could have been the cause.

The NAC medical team met together after learning about Shayla's ER visit. At the NAC medical staff meeting, the doctor, nurses, and some foster care staff decided that Shayla would be better off in a new foster home that was more sensitive to Shayla's medical needs.

Shayla smiled and laughed upon seeing her replacement foster mom because she had previously met with her and gotten to know her in another context unknown to me. I helped Shayla move her clothes into her new room and helped her throw out old school work papers, or artwork she didn't like.

Out of a trashbag, Shayla pulled out two half folded images of bunnies she colored. She gave one to me and one with googly eyes to KC. I felt a sense of joy that I had been able to make Shayla's emergency transition slightly more bearable. I helped her move her things and let her vent to me during the van ride!

Ever since that day, Shayla's bunny hangs on my office wall. Despite how dramatic and sad the experience initially appeared to be, Shayla was upbeat in her new foster home. Her optimism was illuminating. And whenever I look at the picture of Shayla's bunny, I will remember Shayla's optimism during her difficult times.

A Fall of Firsts

It’s officially fall.

If the changing tree colours weren’t enough to tip off everybody here in Chicago, the highs of about 10 degrees C this week should do it (50 F for all you Yankees). And as I started to pull out all of my sweaters to deal with the new chill, it finally hit me – I’m really not at school this year. I know, I know, for most people that realization would have come back in September, but I guess it took the important changes that come with the fall season – the weather, the acceptability of eating pumpkin pie, and the start of the hockey season, of course – to really enforce the fact that I’m starting my post-college life. It’s the first fall I’ve worked full-time, the first fall in 4 years that I haven’t had a mid-term menacingly creeping up on me, and the first fall in about 15 years that I haven’t been training for hockey season. Needless to say, a lot of changes at once.

That being said, those changes have already brought about some great experiences. I’m on my third month of work at the Better Boys Foundation, an out-of-school program that works with youth in the North Lawndale area of Chicago. We provide typical after-school services such as mentoring and tutoring, but are also home to an awesome and unique apprenticeship program for the older participants. To avoid an epically long and detailed post I think I’ll leave the full explanation of the program for next time, but suffice to say the kids are happy and actually eager to work in their apprenticeship field. It’s nice to see. My official job title is ‘Volunteer Coordinator’, but in the last month or so I’ve been segueing into the development side of things to work in Agency Marketing and Communications. There’s been somewhat of a learning curve that has come with the transition, but it’s good to have a few challenges thrown my way from time to time. The most frustrating part so far has been mastering the waiting game, since a lot of my tasks seem to depend on outside processing. In particular, the processing times for our volunteer’s background checks have been less than reliable (aka extremely long), and it's left most of my volunteer recruitment efforts at a standstill. I guess that would be a lesson in itself – I’m here for a whole year, and I need to resist the urge to get instant results and satisfaction. The impact I want to make may take a while.

Outside of work, the city itself has been great. Really. I love it. Now that I feel more settled with work and my apartment I’m trying to take more time to explore, to find my favourite places before it gets too snowy, and to work on remembering how to find and make new friends (yes, after college you have to go out and make friends, they don’t magically live next to you anymore. Very tragic). Will I eventually hang out with more than just my roommate? Will I find my token “spot” in a coffee shop or bar that I frequent like all cool movie and tv character seem to do? Will I be able to survive not just the fall but a whole year of firsts?

I guess I'll let you know!

Fall in NYC

To be honest, I was skeptical of moving to New York City. I come from a small (and quite quaint, might I add)town in the Great Midwest and the idea of moving to this noisy, busy place downright scared me. In multiple ways. I had a great summer, don't get me wrong, but still never had the groundbreaking realization about why 8 million people have also decided to live here. And then, just recently, I figured out.

Fall in New York City is spectacular. Seriously. It is a different sort of autumnal experience. It is not the sort of experience where you can go on deep-forest nature walks in dew-soaked grass, colored leaves around you, and a scarf around your neck. No, this sensation is crisper and, yet, harder to describe.

This is the time and the place where you can go to a farmer's market on a Sunday morning and pick from a dozen apple varieties with people from all over the city and the world. And then walk 200 feet over to the Museum of Natural History and learn about the history of the solar system.

This is the time and the place where you can spend an evening at the MET and learn about almost every facet of world culture over the past 800 years. And then you can walk 500 feet over to Central park, scarf around your neck that you just bought from a street cart for $5, and observe all of the colored mini sailboats in Conservatory Park--knowing that this may be the very last weekend for some time that these boats will set sail.

And this is the same city where you can stand at Morningside Drive and 115th street, look East, and drink in the huge expanse of varied Harlem architecture. Surrounding you are the colored and falling leaves from Morningside Park and the beautiful Columbia University campus.

Seriously, if you can look past trash at your feet and smog in the sky, the picture becomes complete: Fall in New York City is spectacular.

A Foundation Center NY blog post

Hey everyone,

For my October blog, I thought I'd share with you guys a recent blog I wrote for the Foundation Center's New York blog.

Here is the link to the FCNY blog if you're interested in checking it out.
And the links to my last two blog posts: Blog 1 (about a survey on nonprofit orgs and Facebook usage) and Blog 2 (about the Millennium Villages Project for Blog Action Day 2011).

Here you go!

Learning All That You Can – Recommendations from a Recent College Grad

Jack Kerouac once said, "You'd be surprised how little I knew even up to yesterday."
All through college, I kept this little pearl of wisdom in my back pocket. With every class I took, every book I read, and every research opportunity I embarked on, I reminded myself that there was always something more to learn, always another perspective or different angle.

Why did I feel the need to remind myself of this? Because I graduated from a prestigious high school, ready to attend Princeton University, thinking how smart I was and how much I knew. And all it took was 10 minutes in the first class I ever sat in at Princeton before that was completely shattered! My fellowship at the Foundation Center has also been an education in expanding perspective beyond what I think I know.

Sure, I had experience in the nonprofit sector before the Foundation Center. I tutored at a charter school; I did some community organizing; I worked at a foundation…In short, I thought I knew about the nonprofit sector. And just like my first class at Princeton, that rosy image too was shattered on day 1 of my job, July 25, 2011. There were so many acronyms, organization names, people's names, new terms, and so on floating around the office, and I had no idea what they were talking about.

But here I was at the Foundation Center, with access to great free and fee-based training about the foundation and nonprofit sectors – and I didn't even need to step outside the building to attend! And believe me, since my extremely confusing day 1, I have signed up for a myriad of courses.

Taking the in-house classes rivals any other training for people starting out in the nonprofit sector and for those transitioning from the for-profit sector. You can't beat the opportunity to be taught the ins-and-outs of a field – your field – by an experienced professional. This is especially true for new nonprofit professionals, who, like me, find themselves trying to absorb as much information as possible to get oriented to the demands of a new career.

The Foundation Center's newly launched seminar, Starting a Career in Nonprofit Fundraising, will be held on Friday, November 4, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. With this seminar and with guidance from veteran development professionals, you will learn what it takes to build a fulfilling and successful career in nonprofit fundraising, understand the roles and responsibilities of fundraisers, and get insight into the various opportunities and career paths available in the field. Our instructors will share their career experiences and insights with you, making for a great learning experience! Plus, attendees get bonuses, like templates of career planning worksheets, a $50 gift certificate toward another full-day grantseeker training course, and a complimentary one-week subscription to the Foundation Directory Online Professional, the comprehensive database of U.S. foundations and their recent grants.

Register today, before the course fills. And if you're interested in viewing our full calendar of courses and special events, click here.

Natasha Benacerraf
Nonprofit Services Fellow
Foundation Center-New York

Highlights from SF and the Breast Care Center

Hello everyone!

I apologize that this blog post is extremely overdue. I have been living a full life in San Francisco and to date haven’t taken as much time as I should to reflect and write about my experience. As I (hopefully) settle into a more steady pace of grown-up living, I will make this blog-writing a routine part of my coming months as a fellow.

I moved to San Francisco’s Inner Sunset neighborhood on July 3 and began work at UCSF’s Breast Care Center (BCC) on July 5. In the past three months, I’ve learned about the work of the BCC at a rapid pace, immersed myself in a couple of different projects, and met some incredible clinicians and staff. The BCC is full of visionary and integrative initiatives and is a wonderful learning environment. Below are a few words about the experiences that have been highlights for me here so far.

Decision Services

I devote about 20% of my time working for a program at UCSF called Decision Services. In this role, I work most closely with patients and this service has become my favorite part of the internship. Through Decision Services, we help patients to come up with a list of questions that will help them to choose between complex treatment options with multiple risks and benefits. We then give the list to the patient’s doctor and accompany her to the appointment. After the appointment, the patient receives our typed summary and a CD recording of the appointment, with the hope that these resources will allow her to make thoughtful treatment decisions based on what matters most to her. Through working for this program, I have learned about the diverse factors that are important to women who are choosing, for example, between a lumpectomy and a mastectomy or between different types of reconstructive surgery. Accompanying patients to their appointments also offers a perspective on a wide range of different styles of doctor-patient interactions. I’ve witnessed unusual appointments (such as one where a patient was accompanied by 12 of her family members) and very difficult appointments (for patients struggling with various other diseases or breast cancer that has progressed to metastatic disease).

Athena Project

The Athena Breast Health Network is a project pioneered by the BCC’s director, Laura Esserman. It intends to be a “Framingham 2.0” of breast cancer, alluding to the seminal Framingham Heart Study that established many of the correlations between lifestyle and heart disease. Furthermore, the project is trying to spearhead a culture shift to break down some of the barriers that separate clinical care and research in breast cancer. Ultimately, the Athena network will include 150,000 participants across 5 UC medical centers. Now, I’m working a great deal on some of the nitty-gritty details surrounding a questionnaire that accompanies participation in the network, but I cherished the opportunity to learn about the big picture vision at a conference a couple weeks ago in San Diego.

Tumor Board

Tumor Board is the weekly meeting that convenes all the BCC doctors and staff to discuss difficult cases to diagnose or treat. I find it fascinating to learn through observing the clinicians’ different personalities and clinical approaches at play in interpreting ambiguous cases (often, it seems that the two are linked).

Outside of work, I hang out a lot with my fantastic class of eleven “pre-medical interns.” We are currently making preparations to compete in the annual Halloween costume contest at UCSF – apparently, we have an esteemed reputation to defend. On the less festive end of things, I spend a lot of time these days studying for the MCAT :-/.

In my free time, I try to keep up my violin playing. I’ve joined an orchestra called Symphony Parnassus, which is rehearsing for a November concert. Once a week, during my lunch breaks at the Medical Center, I am starting to play my violin through a music program at the Hospital. Last week I played a song for a man who was on his way being wheeled into the OR. I also love playing chamber music and joined a friend from Princeton ’09 yesterday for a chamber music sight-reading party. Finally, I have been trying to keep up my Spanish-speaking skills through this “Conversation Exchange” program, where I talk with a conversation partner from Costa Rica each week. She is also in the health care field, so our Spanish and English conversations have been really fun.

I hope everyone is having a great fellowship and enjoying autumn!

FORUM TIME

I second everything my co-fellow Carol wrote below me about the National Forum on Character Education, and I want to supplement her comments with an additional plug for her: Carol played a HUGE role in ensuring that the Forum was a success, and she handled that responsibility with grace and ease! Whenever another staff member was unsure about why, for instance, one of the attendees didn't have any registration details, or where a sign was supposed to be hung, or whether a certain speaker was meant to have a projector in his or her room, Carol was the go-to person to ask. She constantly astounded me with her ability to recall large amounts of detailed information, and I know that had anyone else been in her position, the Forum would not have gone as smoothly as it did. So, a big congratulations to Carol!!!

While Carol deserves much more than that brief tribute, I have to move on to the Forum itself, which took place over three jam-packed days of keynote speakers, educational workshops and sessions, and school site visits. Carol and I flew into San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon so that we could be ready to work hard to prepare the conference bags for every attendee and set up the Exhibit Hall the next day. This "set-up" day was the most exhausting for me, but Thursday, Friday, and Saturday went by a lot more quickly as we worked to put into action everything that we have been planning since Carol and I arrived at CEP and that the other fellows planned before us.

Like Carol, the most rewarding part of the Forum for me was finally meeting all of the individuals I had been communicating with via email and telephone for months and seeing for myself the caliber of people who dedicate their lives to a cause such as character education. It was really wonderful to be able to connect with the exhibitors, educators, and scholars who were there. Everyone was thrilled to be participating, and in one of the discussion-based sessions that I was able to attend on the last day (the topic was how character education can help close the achievement gap), I heard many comments from participants who were so happy to have attended such a worthwhile conference and who hoped their schools could send more representatives next year. I was very proud to have played a role in pulling off the Forum, and I'm looking forward to using what I learned to help make next year's Forum an even bigger success! Planning Day 1 starts tomorrow!