The Arc of Philadelphia
Title: The Arc of Philadelphia: Advocacy in Action
Student Interns:
Carissa Van Veen
Drexel University College of Medicine
Academic Preceptor:
Elissa Goldberg, MSS, LSW
Drexel University College of Medicine
Community Preceptor:
Valerie Chadwick, RN, BSN, CDDN
The Arc of Philadelphia
Oreoluwa James, MPH
The Arc of Philadelphia
Shane Janick, MPH
The Arc of Philadelphia
Christine Lederer, LSW
The Arc of Philadelphia
Community Site:
The Arc of Philadelphia is a community organization whose mission is to advocate with and for all children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families to promote active citizenship, self-determination, and full inclusion.” The Arc promotes inclusion across education, employment, housing, healthcare, and transportation through programming and services, including health advocacy, adult advocacy, child advocacy, and legislative advocacy.
Team’s Experience:
The Bridging the Gaps intern collaborated with The Arc’s advocacy programs to enhance data collection systems and expand community outreach efforts. Within the health advocacy program, the intern streamlined data collection processes to more efficiently track student volunteer visits and monitor program growth. For the legislative advocacy program, the intern developed new tools to track meetings with legislators and facilitate ongoing advocacy follow-up. To strengthen community outreach, the intern created informational handouts for each advocacy program: health, adult, child, and legislative. Each handout included an overview of the program, relevant demographic information, and practical services available to help community members better understand how The Arc can support them. Additionally, the intern partnered with nursing students during health assessment screenings for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), helping those students develop their communication, observation, and patient-centered care skills while working with this population.
Reflections
My time interning at The Arc has been incredibly impactful and is an experience that I will carry with me through my medical career. While I came into the internship already passionate about disability advocacy, the team at The Arc taught me how to put this passion into action in ways that directly improve that lives of the IDD population. I have learned so much about disability services and the funding for them, advocacy in healthcare, and how to make medical spaces more accessible, as well as what it takes to make a difference at the policy level. I am so grateful to all of my preceptors and the entire Arc of Philadelphia team for taking the time to teach me and for welcoming me onto their team for the summer, and I look forward to continuing to work with them in the future as I put what I have learned into action.
Carissa Van Veen
