5 Questions is our ongoing feature where we introduce you to the people who make Brandywine Counseling run, spotlighting a different staff member every two weeks.Name: Claudette Bell
Job: Outreach Worker, HIV Prevention and Needle Exchange
Time with BCI: 5 years
1. What makes community outreach different from seeing clients in a treatment center?
Every part of BCI is important, but actually going out in the community, when you go out in [drug users’] environment and see what they have to deal with on a daily basis, that makes it just a little bit different. It brings it more to life how people are actually living. When they come up to the clinic, you might see them for an hour if they have groups, or if they’re coming to get dosed, they’re no more than ten or fifteen minutes. But when you go out in the community and actually see how our clients are living, it brings a whole different light and more respect for them. It’s a struggle out there, it’s no joke. It’s rough out there.
2. What are the challenges involved in doing outreach?
We’re just like the postal service with outreach, we work in all kinds of weather. I think we have a good team. Even when we’re out there in the rain, people be like, “Y’all be passin’ out condoms and stuff in the rain?” I’ll be like, “Yo, we just like the postal service - we’re out there in all weather!”
Some of the communities that we go into are bad. We’re always told never to put ourselves at risk. But you never know what can happen, you could just be walking down the street and people start shooting or something. We don’t go out there putting ourselves at risk, but we know that, like they say, stuff happens.
3. What is it about this job that makes it worthwhile for you?
Some clients are here actually to get their lives together, and others are just here so they won’t be out on the street, trying to find dope. Sometimes when they come in, their intentions will be, “Well okay, I’m just going up there so I won’t have to be out on the street.” But something within the program, or something that somebody might have said to them, will turn them around, and then their purpose of being here is to be clean.
A couple clients, I was here when they came, I was doing their case management work, and now they actually work for BCI. And being able to instill in them that there is hope. Just because of where they were as addicts, you don’t have to always be an addict, because you can always turn your life around. It’s just a matter of, if that’s the road that you want to go, and how willing you are to fight for it.
And to me, that’s the joy of it, when you see clients get clean and become productive members of society. It’s just helping people. It’s not that you’re doing it to look for a reward or something like that, it’s doing it because it’s in your heart and that’s what you want to do.
4. You can tell a lot about a person by what they have in their office – tell us what you have in your office.
Oh Lord, I have everything! When I was over at the main building, they used to call me MacGyver. Anything they needed, I had it. Screwdrivers, plates, forks, napkins, feminine products. Anything they needed, I had it in my office. Like I said, it’s about helping people, so you never know what people may need. I go to the store and I’ll be like, oh, okay, here’s some safety pins, get a pack of safety pins. Never know, somebody’s button might pop, they need a safety pin.
5. What is the most fun thing you’ve done with your clients?
Oh, wow. When I was with the Hope program [as an Intervention Specialist], I used to do a lot of fundraisers and stuff, and cookouts, and barbeques. The funnest thing was when we went to Dorney Park. They had so much fun! Because I know, when I went into recovery, that was one of the first things that I’d done, and I’m like, “I haven’t been to an amusement park in so long!” So I kept on asking clients, “Well, when was the last time that you’ve been to an amusement park?” And a lot of them couldn’t remember. So to me, to take them to an amusement park and just to see how much fun they had. They was kids. They had a ball. So, to me that was great.
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