Jake Hughes, a joint Master of Social Work and Master of Theological Studies student at Samford University, recently completed his first field placement at Fairfield Preparatory High School. While placed there, he served as a mental health coordinator intern and took an uncommon step beyond traditional fieldwork by helping secure grant funding to support student services.
Hughes worked one-on-one with high school and middle school students, supported a school-based drug prevention program and helped connect the school system with outside community resources. Viewing the experience through a systems perspective, he identified funding gaps common in public schools and worked to address them through grant writing.
As an intern, Hughes participated directly in the grant-writing process, an opportunity rarely offered at the field placement level. He helped secure multiple grants on behalf of the school, including funding for an expanded robotics program and a grant from Alabama Power to provide grief kits for students coping with the loss of a family member or friend.
Hughes said the experience offered valuable insight into how funding decisions at the government and community levels directly affect schools and student support services. “The experience has been incredible, not just from a career standpoint but as a person,” Hughes said. “It has helped me better understand how the real world works and how systems impact people every day.”
The structure of the program allowed him to connect classroom concepts to real-world practice, deepening his understanding of how policy, funding and systems shape student support services.
“Jake Hughes set a new benchmark for field placement excellence this year,” said A. Christson Adedoyin, PhD, professor in the Department of Social Work and Hughes’ field placement liaison. According to Adedoyin, Hughes’ success in securing two successive grants created immediate, large-scale improvements for the Fairfield Preparatory High School community.
Originally from California, Hughes earned his undergraduate degree from Westmont College and moved to Birmingham to pursue social work at Samford. His younger sister is enrolled in Samford’s Fast Track Master of Social Work program, and the siblings have been able to take all of their classes together since she began the program.
He is currently completing his advanced field placement at Alabama Clinical Schools in Irondale, Alabama.
