What it means to intern at Red Cross

Hi Everyone! This is my first post, so I think this is a good opportunity to explain what I do at Red Cross. I work in two different departments, but I have worked the longest in Disaster Casework. A lot of people don't really know about the services Red Cross provides. I work at the Grand Canyon Chapter, so we mostly deal with local disasters, not the large international ones we all associated Red Cross with. The most common type of disaster we deal with are home and apartment fires. Once someone has a fire, a Disaster Action Team member will come out to the scene and gather information on the family, give them a card with money on it for immediate needs and then bring all the information back to Red Cross.

This is really where I come in. I monitor the accounts and speak with the disaster clients regularly (notice we call them clients, not victims). Caseworkers, like myself, try to help clients on their road to recovery by offering them referrals for other organizations that can help and giving them someone to talk to about their plans for the future. We also offer rental assistance to families that need a little extra help getting back on their feet.

It's not always an easy job though. We deal with people during the worst moments in their lives. They are often in shock and scared and some have lost family members in the disaster. However, most of the clients are extremely grateful for the help Red Cross has given them and that makes it a little bit easier to keep going on.