Poverty Simulation 1

SW 602 Poverty Simulation

D’Corey Sullivan

The University of Mississippi

Poverty Simulation 2

Step 1: Describe

On Thursday, October 24th at 8:15AM I walked into the Student Union with my cohort and

friend Lexi for the poverty simulation the University of MS was hosting. As we waited for it to

start, Lexi and I began to see a lot of people wearing white coats and we immediately made the

assumption that those must be the pharmacy students because the simulation was

interprofessional. Finally, they were ready to begin. I walked up to the sign in table and was

giving the name tag with a name and age of a person who was not me. The lady at the sign in

table said, “Welcome to the poverty simulation. When you walk into the room you are to find the

place on the floor that matches your last name and wait for the rest of your family members to

arrive.” I then walked into this huge classroom with the tables and chairs outlining the room. I

was the first person in my family to sit in our designated area on the floor. A couple minutes go

by and more of my “family members” show up. We all introduce our selves and share what

schools we are apart of. Minutes go by and the facilitator starts the simulation. In my family I

was a 7-year-old Latino boy named Xander with ADHD. My family consisted of my 10-year-old

sister and my grandparents. My abuela worked but, my abuelo did not and he also had diabetes.

My role in the family was really to just go to school and that’s it. It was really hard for me to stay

in my role because I had a lot of ideas. I guess you could say we kind of cheated because my

other family members didn’t have a clue what to do at times. So, I found myself taking the reins

for a bit but, then I remembered I’m only 7 and not supposed to know these things. As stated

early, I had ADHD and my abuelo had diabetes, we had to go without our medicine until the last

week because we just simply didn’t have it in the budget to get it. All of our other bills always

got paid like our mortgage and car note. We had some food but not a lot because we used most

of money to ensure a roof over our head and transportation.

Poverty Simulation 3

Step 2: Examine

One of aspect of academic material that came up was that of predatory loans. We’ve been

learning about this in Dr. Soifer’s class. It was really interesting to see how and what happens

even though this wasn’t a real scenario it felt like it. I watched so many people go to try to get

pay day loans and then weren’t able to pay it back it was really sad to see. Also, people would go

and try to get their checks cashed and these same places would charge an absurd percentage just

to cash them. I feel like this was really important for me to see because this is exactly how poor

people fall into debt. By the time they try and go back and pay their loan off the interest has

made the pay off jump so high that they can’t pay it. Most of the time these people put things up

for collateral like their cars. So, when they’re not able to pay the loan back they get their vehicles

took and that adds another layer of problems.

Step 3: Articulate Learning

I learned that interprofessional work is very necessary. There were a lot of things that I knew that

the pharmacy students didn’t know and there was stuff that they knew that I didn’t. I knew about

predatory loans and collateral and how poor people a targeting. The pharmacy students knew

how long a poor person, well any person could go without there insulin because of my abuelo.

Those two things were important in the case of my family. Interprofessional work matters

because we could all work together to help so many people if we pulled together and used all of

our knowledge and different resources that each profession can bring to the table. In light of this

learning I will speak to some of my professors to see how much interprofessional work has

benefited them in their careers and any of their client’s lives. I will also ask how they went about

forming those interprofessional relationships and if they have any tips for me on how I could

form those relationships.