My Internship At The Richland County Public Defenders...

Introduction My internship is at the Richland County Public Defender’s Office and I work directly with two juvenile defense attorneys. My office is at the Richland County Judicial Center. This position is very new and I am the second person to have this internship at USC, so defining my position is very complex. I do not have an on-site social work supervisor to turn to when I have questions, so, I have to figure out a lot of things on my own. Being that I work directly with the attorneys, a lot of things I see on the daily are on the legal side and not the social worker side per se. However, the attorneys involve me in the entire process when working with each client to provide a social work perspective to better help the clients and increase the quality of their services. Some of my duties involves researching client information, searching for services and resources for the clients and families, examining IEPs for the attorney and clients, visiting clients while they are in secure locati ons, attending interagency staffing for clients, advocating for clients and the services they need, and many more tasks. Every day is different and provides multiple opportunities to meet with other professionals and clients. Clients’ Case Summary Since I started in August 2015, 100% of my clients have been Africa America teenage or youth adult males in Richland County of Columbia. All of them had or have some criminal charges against them: some are awaiting trial or hearings while in