I was a junior in college in Spring 2020. Outside of school I had spent all my free time working and interning in direct care settings for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). I was watching the adults with ID who I had cared for get sick, and sometimes die. I felt like I was failing the people I cared for, because there was nothing I could do to protect them from COVID. Around the same time I began writing my thesis, which was on the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities in my home state. I couldn't save people from dying, but I knew I couldn't live with myself if I allowed their deaths, and the situations that contributed to their vulnerability, to remain unseen and unheard. For me, this thesis was both a work of love and a work of intense grief, and writing it was an extremely taxing process. Through the year it took me to write this, I turned to the same thing over and over for comfort. Every day I would spend hours walking by myself, listening to BTS’s music. They were the first thing I turned to, when the weight of the work I was doing got too heavy, and when I could no longer carry it alone. For me, BTS’ music, and all of their other content was a safe place. It may be cliché, and overdramatic, but putting into words the light they brought into my life is almost as hard as putting into words the way it feels on the first real day of spring. With BTS, even when I couldn’t feel hopeful in the face of the work I was doing, I could at least feel warm. I’ve always been a happy person, and so at times I felt like with BTS I could be myself again for the first time in months. I’m now in graduate school and working a job I love with adults with ID. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as lucky with my physical health. In fall 2021 I was diagnosed with two severe autoimmune diseases, after suffering from constant symptoms for years. BTS and their music have been there for me. When I was first diagnosed, the first thing I did when I came home was to watch my favorite episode of Run BTS, and to cry to a playlist of BTS songs. I think sometimes I’m self-conscious of how much they mean to me. People seem to brush it off as childish. But there’s not really a price that can be put on the comfort I have been able to find with them, and I’ve gotten tired of feeling self-conscious, because I have nothing to be embarrassed about. Just to have something there, something I know will make me smile, or at the least that I know I can just sit with to process my emotions has been absolutely life changing. To have something to turn to, no matter how frightened or hurt I am. Caring about things, about people, can hurt. So to be able to put my heart into something, to care, and to have it not hurt despite all the other things happening in my life was incredibly important. BTS are central to how I have been able to cope with grief, both on the micro and macro level for the past few years. The importance of being able to find joy, no matter how dark life is, can’t really be understated, and BTS have been that light for me.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) that I continued for the next 3 summers. While this was not the first time I had worked in a program for adults with I/DD, it was my first experience with the complicated realities of day-to-day caretaking work with people who had suffered significant institutional trauma suffered while they grew up in state facilities infamous for warehousing and neglecting the physical, social and emotional needs of those who lived there. After the onset of the pandemic I was to go in, and unable to remain in contact with them as none were able to use the phone to communicate, so I began to monitor state-provided data on COVID-19 in congregate care so that I could, however remotely, have a sense of their well being and maintain a connection to their lives. This monitoring eventually led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. While writing this thesis, in addition to having to bear the weight of finishing a college degree as a person with ADHD and autism during a pandemic, I developed a severe and likely life-limiting auto immune disease, that I did not seek treatment for for over a year due to the rural location of my college. After graduating from college in 2021, I immediately began working as a clinical case manager in a day program for adults with I/DD. Balancing this work with my personal experiences of disability further illuminated the failures of the current systems to provide humane care for people with many different types of disabilities. Both myself and my clients often felt unheard, frightened, and isolated as we attempted to navigate the large administrative systems that stood between us and proper care, and unfortunately no amount of caring and attentive direct support workers or doctors could address the systemic challenges. These realizations lead me to apply, and then gain acceptance, to Boston College in their master's in clinical mental health social work program. I plan to continue supporting my clients, and have chosen to pursue my degree over 4 years rather than 2, to maintain continuity of care for the people I serve, for whom I am ostensibly getting this degree. While I am pleased that I will be able to remain in my current role, as someone with a significant chronic illness I am not able to take on more work to supplement the costs of tuition not already covered by federal student loans, and as is unfortunately extremely common, I am paid a meager amount as a front line healthcare worker for adults with disabilities. This scholarship would help me lighten the burden of seeking a master's degree to take care of my individuals, without forcing me to put myself at risk of physical harm by attempting to take on more than I can carry due to my poor physical health.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) that I continued for the next 3 summers. When the pandemic hit, my relationship with this home led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. While writing this thesis, in addition to having to bear the weight of finishing a college degree as a person with ADHD and autism during a pandemic, I developed a severe and likely life-limiting auto immune disease, that I did not seek treatment for for over a year due to the rural location of my college. After graduating from college in 2021, I immediately began working as a clinician in a day program for adults with I/DD. Balancing this work with my personal experiences of disability further illuminated the failures of the current systems to provide humane care for people with many different types of disabilities. Both myself and my clients often felt unheard, frightened, and isolated as we attempted to navigate the large administrative systems that stood between us and proper care, and unfortunately no amount of caring and attentive direct support workers or doctors could address the systemic challenges. These realizations lead me to apply, and then gain acceptance, to Boston College in their master's in clinical mental health social work program. I plan to continue supporting my clients, and have chosen to pursue my degree over 4 years rather than 2, to maintain continuity of care for the people I serve. While I am pleased that I will be able to remain in my current role, as someone with a chronic illness and developmental disabilities I am not able to take on more work to supplement the costs of tuition, and as is unfortunately extremely common, I am paid a meager amount as a frontline healthcare worker for adults with disabilities. This scholarship would help me lighten the burden of seeking a master's degree to take care of my individuals, without forcing me to put myself at risk of physical harm by attempting to take on more than I can carry as a disabled person.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) that I continued for the next 3 summers. While this was not the first time I had worked in a program for adults with I/DD, it was my first experience with the complicated realities of day-to-day caretaking work with people who had suffered significant institutional trauma suffered while they grew up in state facilities infamous for warehousing and neglecting the physical, social and emotional needs of those who lived there. After the onset of the pandemic I was to go in, and unable to remain in contact with them as none were able to use the phone to communicate, so I began to monitor state-provided data on COVID-19 in congregate care so that I could, however remotely, have a sense of their well being and maintain a connection to their lives. This monitoring eventually led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. While writing this thesis, in addition to having to bear the weight of finishing a college degree as a person with ADHD and autism during a pandemic, I developed a severe and likely life-limiting auto immune disease, that I did not seek treatment for for over a year due to the rural location of my college. After graduating from college in 2021, I immediately began working as a clinical case manager in a day program for adults with I/DD. Balancing this work with my personal experiences of disability further illuminated the failures of the current systems to provide humane care for people with many different types of disabilities. Both myself and my clients often felt unheard, frightened, and isolated as we attempted to navigate the large administrative systems that stood between us and proper care, and unfortunately no amount of caring and attentive direct support workers or doctors could address the systemic challenges. These realizations lead me to apply, and then gain acceptance, to Boston College in their master's in clinical mental health social work program. I plan to continue supporting my clients, and have chosen to pursue my degree over 4 years rather than 2, to maintain continuity of care for the people I serve, for whom I am ostensibly getting this degree. While I am pleased that I will be able to remain in my current role, as someone with a significant chronic illness I am not able to take on more work to supplement the costs of tuition not already covered by federal student loans, and as is unfortunately extremely common, I am paid a meager amount as a front line healthcare worker for adults with disabilities. This scholarship would help me lighten the burden of seeking a master's degree to take care of my individuals, without forcing my to put myself at risk of physical harm by attempting to take on more than I can carry due to my poor physical health.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) that I continued for the next 3 summers. While this was not the first time I had worked in a program for adults with I/DD, it was my first experience with the complicated realities of day-to-day caretaking work with people who had suffered significant institutional trauma suffered while they grew up in state facilities infamous for warehousing and neglecting the physical, social and emotional needs of those who lived there. After the onset of the pandemic I was to go in, and unable to remain in contact with them as none were able to use the phone to communicate, so I began to monitor state-provided data on COVID-19 in congregate care so that I could, however remotely, have a sense of their well being and maintain a connection to their lives. This monitoring eventually led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. While writing this thesis, in addition to having to bear the weight of finishing a college degree as a person with ADHD and autism during a pandemic, I developed a severe and likely life-limiting auto immune disease, that I did not seek treatment for for over a year due to the rural location of my college. After graduating from college in 2021, I immediately began working as a clinical case manager in a day program for adults with I/DD. Balancing this work with my personal experiences of disability further illuminated the failures of the current systems to provide humane care for people with many different types of disabilities. Both myself and my clients often felt unheard, frightened, and isolated as we attempted to navigate the large administrative systems that stood between us and proper care, and unfortunately no amount of caring and attentive direct support workers or doctors could address the systemic challenges. These realizations lead me to apply, and then gain acceptance, to Boston College in their master's in clinical mental health social work program. I plan to continue supporting my clients, and have chosen to pursue my degree over 4 years rather than 2, to maintain continuity of care for the people I serve, for whom I am ostensibly getting this degree. While I am pleased that I will be able to remain in my current role, as someone with a significant chronic illness I am not able to take on more work to supplement the costs of tuition not already covered by federal student loans, and as is unfortunately extremely common, I am paid a meager amount as a front line healthcare worker for adults with disabilities. This scholarship would help me lighten the burden of seeking a master's degree to take care of my individuals, without forcing my to put myself at risk of physical harm by attempting to take on more than I can carry due to my poor physical health.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) that I continued for the next 3 summers. While this was not the first time I had worked in a program for adults with I/DD, it was my first experience with the complicated realities of day-to-day caretaking work with people who had suffered significant institutional trauma suffered while they grew up in state facilities infamous for warehousing and neglecting the physical, social and emotional needs of those who lived there. After the onset of the pandemic I was to go in, and unable to remain in contact with them as none were able to use the phone to communicate, so I began to monitor state-provided data on COVID-19 in congregate care so that I could, however remotely, have a sense of their well being and maintain a connection to their lives. This monitoring eventually led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. While writing this thesis, in addition to having to bear the weight of finishing a college degree as a person with ADHD and autism during a pandemic, I developed a severe and likely life-limiting auto immune disease, that I did not seek treatment for for over a year due to the rural location of my college. After graduating from college in 2021, I immediately began working as a clinical case manager in a day program for adults with I/DD. Balancing this work with my personal experiences of disability further illuminated the failures of the current systems to provide humane care for people with many different types of disabilities. Both myself and my clients often felt unheard, frightened, and isolated as we attempted to navigate the large administrative systems that stood between us and proper care, and unfortunately no amount of caring and attentive direct support workers or doctors could address the systemic challenges. These realizations lead me to apply, and then gain acceptance, to Boston College in their master's in clinical mental health social work program. I plan to continue supporting my clients, and have chosen to pursue my degree over 4 years rather than 2, to maintain continuity of care for the people I serve, for whom I am ostensibly getting this degree. While I am pleased that I will be able to remain in my current role, as someone with a significant chronic illness I am not able to take on more work to supplement the costs of tuition not already covered by federal student loans, and as is unfortunately extremely common, I am paid a meager amount as a front line healthcare worker for adults with disabilities. This scholarship would help me lighten the burden of seeking a master's degree to take care of my individuals, without forcing my to put myself at risk of physical harm by attempting to take on more than I can carry due to my poor physical health.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). While this was not the first time I had worked in a program for adults with I/DD, it was my first experience with the complicated realities of day-to-day caretaking work with people who had suffered significant institutional trauma suffered while they grew up in state facilities infamous for warehousing and neglecting the physical, social and emotional needs of those who lived there. I continued to work at the group home each summer during college, until the pandemic shut the internship program down in the spring of my junior year. In the uncertain time that followed, I found myself unable to stop thinking about how the men in the home were doing - I missed my time with them, and worried that COVID lockdowns would leave them without the human connections that I saw animate their lives at times like those when we would go for walks in the neighborhood and, sitting on the porch, strike up conversations with local families . Unable to go in, and unable to remain in contact with them as none were able to use the phone to communicate, I began to monitor state-provided data on COVID-19 in congregate care so that I could, however remotely, have a sense of their well being and maintain a connection to their lives. This monitoring eventually led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. For me, the lessons of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on people with I/DD which I explored in my thesis were stark: people with I/DD died in Massachusetts at a rate at least 4 times greater than that of the general population. The reason for the former was not only because people with I/DD were often intrinsically more vulnerable than the general population (many having comorbidities, including those resulting from use of psychiatric medications), but - crucially - because their lives were systematically undervalued - congregate care settings, underfunded and often neglected, were grossly, but predictably, unsuited to providing residents protection from epidemic disease. My thesis work revealed how a passively disinterested system - even one that nominally sought to treat people with ID/D with respect and compassion - failed to protect against, and failed to accurately record, the effects of the pandemic on people with I/DD. I emerged from my internship and undergraduate thesis work knowing that I wanted a career in serving people with I/DD. Following the lessons I learned in undergrad, through my internships, and now in my role as a clinical case manager at an arts therapy day program for adults with I/DD, knowing that I wanted to continue to work with and for people with I/DD but also that I needed more skills, I decided to pursue a MSW in clinical mental health at Boston College. My goal is to become someone who can function not only as a clinician - providing excellent and respectful care to people who have often not received it, but also as an interface between my clients and the world, facilitating their access to the best possible medical, psychiatric and personal care, supporting them as they navigate systems, and advocating not just for the people whom I serve directly, but for this population as a whole.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) that I continued for the next 3 summers. While this was not the first time I had worked in a program for adults with I/DD, it was my first experience with the complicated realities of day-to-day caretaking work with people who had suffered significant institutional trauma suffered while they grew up in state facilities infamous for warehousing and neglecting the physical, social and emotional needs of those who lived there. After the onset of the pandemic I was to go in, and unable to remain in contact with them as none were able to use the phone to communicate, so I began to monitor state-provided data on COVID-19 in congregate care so that I could, however remotely, have a sense of their well being and maintain a connection to their lives. This monitoring eventually led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. While writing this thesis, in addition to having to bear the weight of finishing a college degree as a person with ADHD and autism during a pandemic, I developed a severe and likely life-limiting auto immune disease, that I did not seek treatment for for over a year due to the rural location of my college. After graduating from college in 2021, I immediately began working as a clinical case manager in a day program for adults with I/DD. Balancing this work with my personal experiences of disability further illuminated the failures of the current systems to provide humane care for people with many different types of disabilities. Both myself and my clients often felt unheard, frightened, and isolated as we attempted to navigate the large administrative systems that stood between us and proper care, and unfortunately no amount of caring and attentive direct support workers or doctors could address the systemic challenges. These realizations lead me to apply, and then gain acceptance, to Boston College in their master's in clinical mental health social work program. I plan to continue supporting my clients, and have chosen to pursue my degree over 4 years rather than 2, to maintain continuity of care for the people I serve, for whom I am ostensibly getting this degree. While I am pleased that I will be able to remain in my current role, as someone with a significant chronic illness I am not able to take on more work to supplement the costs of tuition not already covered by federal student loans, and as is unfortunately extremely common, I am paid a meager amount as a front line healthcare worker for adults with disabilities. This scholarship would help me lighten the burden of seeking a master's degree to take care of my individuals, without forcing my to put myself at risk of physical harm by attempting to take on more than I can carry due to my poor physical health.

In 2017, after graduating high school, I began a summer internship working in an underfunded and understaffed state-run group home for 8 men with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). While this was not the first time I had worked in a program for adults with I/DD, it was my first experience with the complicated realities of day-to-day caretaking work with people who had suffered significant institutional trauma suffered while they grew up in state facilities infamous for warehousing and neglecting the physical, social and emotional needs of those who lived there. I continued to work at the group home each summer during college, until the pandemic shut the internship program down in the spring of my junior year. In the uncertain time that followed, I found myself unable to stop thinking about how the men in the home were doing - I missed my time with them, and worried that COVID lockdowns would leave them without the human connections that I saw animate their lives. Unable to go in, and unable to remain in contact with them as none were able to use the phone to communicate, I began to monitor state-provided data on COVID-19 in congregate care so that I could, however remotely, have a sense of their well being. This monitoring eventually led to over a year of qualitative and quantitative work that culminated in my undergraduate senior thesis, an investigation of the ways in which the legacy of the American eugenics movement impacted the effects of COVID-19 in congregate care facilities for people with I/DD in MA. For me, the lessons of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on people with I/DD which I explored in my thesis were stark: people with I/DD died in Massachusetts at a rate at least 4 times greater than that of the general population. The reason for the former was not only because people with I/DD were often intrinsically more vulnerable than the general population (many having comorbidities, including those resulting from use of psychiatric medications), but - crucially - because their lives were systematically undervalued - congregate care settings, underfunded and often neglected, were grossly, but predictably, unsuited to providing residents protection from epidemic disease. My thesis work revealed in dreadful ways, how a passively disinterested system - even one that nominally sought to treat people with ID/D with respect and compassion - failed to protect against, and failed to accurately record, the effects of the pandemic on people with I/DD. I emerged from my internship and undergraduate thesis work knowing that I wanted a career in serving people with I/DD. Following the lessons I learned in undergrad, through my internships, and now in my role as a clinical case manager at an arts therapy day program for adults with I/DD, knowing that I wanted to continue to work with and for people with I/DD but also that I needed more skills, I decided to pursue a MSW in clinical mental health at Boston College. My goal is to become someone who can function not only as a clinician - providing excellent and respectful care to people who have often not received it, but also as an interface between my clients and the world, facilitating their access to the best possible medical, psychiatric and personal care, supporting them as they navigate systems, and advocating not just for the people whom I serve directly, but for this population as a whole.