Lydia's Reflection Post

I came here with my topic Bikers vs. Drivers on my mid. But I am now living here with 3 new friends and a new topic. The new topic is the struggle for social workers and families in Vermont's DCF. I didn't even know that this was a problem until Alex and Adrienne brought it up in their own slide show's. And the fact that almost no one in the room (except for the adults) knew what this topic even was or what it was about is just sad. I asked my group at the beginning of the day today this exact question "how do we change things that people don't even know needs change" and that really got us to thinking. And we looked at the DCF website and we saw this same exact problem strike us again. There was no useful information on the website. This could be for many reasons but a possible reason could be that they want people to be in the dark about this problem. But it could as be the possibility of them just not being up to date with their website, and that makes me wonder about others things they might not be up to date about. Again,we can't have the community's support with a problem if they don't even know that the problem exists.

I think that when I leave here today I will be leaving with not just my two bags full of mischievous stuff,  I will be leaving here with a whole lot of new knowledge about things I didn't even know existed along with a  bunch of new friends. I think my new topic and group will go far with the DCF project. I'm excited to work with all of my new amazing group members.

Alex-Reflection Post

Every person that arrived here today is leaving having learned different things, that is the whole idea behind workshops such as this, that everyone gets out of it what they need the most. For me personally that is the solidification of my project. As anyone who may have read my personal blog posts would know, I was rather terrified that upon arriving here there would be zero interest in my topic from the other students and that it would be disbanded. This thought actually effected my work, leading me to have a highly analytical and statistic based blog for the first few weeks, and I did not want to schedule interviews with people in these fragile times in their lives, only to back out and leave them out in the cold, alone. Now that I have completed this retreat however, I am ever more passionate about this topic, as now I have others to be passionate at my side. We have formed a strong group out of people who were originally doing five different topics, coalescing ourselves into one team with one mission, to bring the truth of the foster system and the reality of the inner workings of the DCF into the limelight. Other than that, the biggest discovery for me was in the usage of technology. I was a novice when I came in here, I had no idea of the proper lighting for a picture, and could not have shot a solid documentary video to save my life, but now I have enough knowledge to at least send me on my way into that terrifying void that is "technology" with a fighting chance and you never know, I may love it. Looking forward into the future of this endeavor I see a better project than ever before. The ability to have five people interviewing, five people researching, five people putting their individual voices into this will make it infinitely more diverse, but with this diversity comes problems. With so many voices and so many passionate ideas, it is easy for things to become muddled. Unlike other groups we are spread far and wide across the state, and this sets us up with unique problems. We will not be able to physically meet and talk things over, instead we will have to rely on technology to converse. Sadly though, one cannot truly communicate as well online as in person so we will have to simply deal. Other than that, the biggest issue will be interviews. It is not that we cannot interview people, it is simply that our topic is extremely delicate and personal for many people and we will have to be truly patient.

Marianna Barrett- Overnight retreat: Initial thoughts on our group topic

  What type of learning is happening here?  I think that we are all getting a better understanding of how to work in teams of people that we might not have normally worked with.  We are also learning how we can get our topics out there and really make a difference with them.


    I have learned how a group of people who live in very different areas can work together to accomplish a common goal.  I have also figured out that with all these different ideas, not all of them will come to light, but they should.  The more ideas about how to solve a problem, and the more discussion around that issue, the faster it can be solved.


     I am really looking forward to getting to know the people that I am working with better, and working with them.  I am also looking forward to expanding what I know about our topic. It is a difficult subject to work on, but it should be a lot of fun, and we should learn a lot along the way.  I look forward to doing more research on this topic.


      I am concerned about how difficult it will be to keep in touch during the time we will be working together.  I am also worried about being able to work the technology aspect of this work.  It was not hard to do during the first part of the class, but now that we are getting more advanced with the tech I might have some difficulty.

Adrienne's Reflection

                Over the past day, I’ve learned that we’ll be working in groups. This has changed my perception of WTS as a whole, and also jumpstarted me into developing a new vision for the project I had in mind. I’ve also learned about the topics of others, and what’s important to them. Conferring with my new team members has helped me see many new angles on my topic, the struggles of children living in foster care. Although I had had knowledge about these issues, I didn’t think I’d ever go very in-depth with them. Through the investigations of my team members, I’m sure that I’ll learn more than I planned.

                In the next two months, I look forward to establishing contact with social workers and foster parents and learning from them. I’m nervous about interviews, because I’m concerned that I’ll be unable to work the technology as deftly as I could. I think bringing a more tech-savvy person along with me could help to resolve any of these issues that may crop up. As a shy person, I’m also concerned about the social aspect of it. I hope that my reticence won’t obstruct my objectives. I don’t have many connections relating to foster care, so I may need to rely on my Human Services teacher as a resource. Through her, though, I’m sure I can find a plethora of useful people to interview.

                Before I form a long-term goal with this project, I think I’ll need to gather a large amount of information in order to gain a “big-picture” understanding of the issues surrounding Vermont’s DCF and its foster care system. Only after gaining a more complete understanding of the organization and the people it affects can I hope to start any sort of change.

van stehly post 1

 We started out learning about our own topic we chose, for example my topic was police brutality, but then we started discussing about what topic you guys as the students want to pursue as a group. So i joined the DCF/foster care topic. We as a group are going to pursue this topic and find out why its an issue in vermont. Right now we are learning on how we as a group are going to solve this problem. I learned that DCF/foster system is screwed up. it doesn't have enough social workers, the social workers are good or treating the foster kids like trash or the kids are filing false complaints making there foster parents look like they did the wrong thing. We as young people need to step up and help out. I look forward to learning more information on this and figure out whats happening in vermont. I would love to make change. like when they go screen the soon to be social workers they need to be evaluated more thoroughly and have courses to take so they can apply for the job. I would also like supervision on the social workers so they know not to make bad choices, and to make sure the foster kids are treating the social workers well.