Prompt 5

FAME Organization
https://fame.socialwork.msu.edu

By: NaKara Neely


In my field of study, which is social work, we have a campus organization called FAME, which stands for Fostering Academics, Mentoring Excellence. For this prompt, I could not attend an actual meeting but I did interview someone who is apart of this organization whose name is Tamyra Whitfield.  I asked Tamyra a serious of questions to understand what FAME does, and their communication in the field. The following questions were:

1. How does FAME represent themselves to the public? Do you all really represent yourselves to the public, like you do to the people you serve?

•  Tamyra responded and yes they are authentic. They do work all throughout the community and they receive all of their money from donations and funds given from people who see the vision of the program. 

2. What is the purpose of FAME? 

• It was created for students who were and are a ward of the state. This means that they were in foster care, homeless, kinship care, or adopted. It also provides people within the program with scholarships for life outside of school and Spartan Advantage, which covers their schooling. 

3. How often do you meet?

• FAME hosts monthly meetings and plans events between five to six events each month. Also, FAME meets with heir students at least once every two weeks because the students in the organization have to set goals for each semester and the directors of the program want to see their progression. 

4. What is the goal of FAME? 

• The goal is to help students who have been put in those situations to thrive through their lives and to help them be successful. Also, to give back to the community as well through events. 

5. How do you communicate in FAME? ( Codes, Jargons, etc) 

• Communication is done by email and the public is actually a service to them and in return, they host events that give back such as food drives, clothes, and supplies. They have their own language but not with words or tone. They speak with each other through moods and passion. Often, they usually can sense if something is wrong with someone at a glance. 

I learned about a new organization within my field and actually, it's the first one that I heard of! I learned this information through their website and also through interviewing my friend Tamyra Whitfield. This is important because I need to know how social workers actually conduct themselves through actually talking to someone within the field/ organization vs. doing online research and learning about the field. Learning the communication and how they represent themselves is very important because some organizations might not portray themselves to the community to how they really conduct themselves.