Community and the feeling of belong is something many people wish to have in their lives. For many people, their community is a part of their personality, and Appalachia is no different. A common practice in Appalachia, especially in the more rural areas in Appalachia use regionalism to describe their communities. Regionalism is used when someone describes where they live. Rather than saying what city or town a person is from, they talk about their county or even area of the state (Rehder, 2004). An example is saying “I live in Boone County” or “southern West Virginia” rather than saying “I live in Madison.” Regionalism was commonly used at the Davis Child Shelter as well. Even after being displaced, and moved from placement to placement, many …show more content…
Many of the child residences would form “families” within the group. They defined roles, such as mother, father, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, etc. The residences also developed de facto rules and structures within their community. While there are many, many arguments among the residence, each child relies on one another for emotional support because in many regrades, the other residence and staff is their only support and relationships. This was interesting, and something unexpected, in an environment where residence changes from month-to-month. Being a new person at the shelter, the residences do warm up to new people fairly easy, and include them into their community fairly quick. One resident even expressed that is what they liked about the shelter, “always having new faces come …show more content…
While Davis Child Shelter has more relaxed policy on a dress code, such as allowing to wear blue jeans, there is expectations that needs to be followed. Such as not wearing provocative clothing, facial piercings, odd color hair, etc. can diminish one’s professional reputation. Not using vaguer language, belittling staff or residences, not enabling fights and arguments among staff or other residence are some of the actions a professional social worker should not engage. While a social worker may be a part of the residences’ “community” and “family,” maintaining the professional role is very important to the worker’s reputation, but also developing a healthy therapeutic relationship with the residence at the