Academic Internship

Position: YMCA of South Hampton Roads Camp Counselor for Camp Red Feather, Outdoor Adventure Summer Camp Counseling Young Girls 

Reflection: At the time of this internship I was anticipating to go into the field of Recreational Therapy. I found this job through an internship fair in the department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism studies and interviewed on the spot. I worked with children ranging from Pre-K to 6th grade but was assigned work with 2nd and 3rd grade girls during the day. I had the privilege of working with children with autism, traumatic history, and anger management problems.

I enjoyed every bit because I felt prepared after working with youth in academic settings and preparing for similar jobs in my major courses (my favorite course had each student mentor a child with learning disabilities for 10 weeks). I had a whole new experience when an entire group of children were left alone to just me for the entire day. I had no possible way of comprehending the range of personalities to manage! The experience was much different than what I was used to in academics with a group of administrators and a small amount of time. Camp Red Feather was very different. I had children of all sorts from 7am in the morning, until 7pm at night every Monday through Friday, with occasional events on the weekend.

I was able to teach young children how to effectively communicate between one another and resolve their problems in healthy ways. I adored working with a specific young boy who dealt with more trauma in his 8 year old life than any college student I know. He had anger management issues and couldn’t tell when someone was trying to protect him. He quickly became my favorite child to mentor because I saw so much potential in him. I wanted to watch him grow every single day and thankfully I did! I adored teaching children that just because someone is acting different doesn’t mean we shouldn’t treat them with kindness. Each child worked well with one of our children with autism, and they all worked well with helping each other when they were put to the test in challenging situations.

I loved coming up with creative solutions to encourage unity in the group. One practice that worked really well was having children pass around a ball of string. When a child had the string, they would pinch a piece and say something no one in the group knew about them that they wanted to share. No one else in the group could talk until they were finished and they then passed the yarn to someone sitting across from them. In the end we had a large web of string that was interconnected as a visual representation of how important it is for everyone to listen to each other and what an important part of the group each and every single kid was.

I had to constantly remain professional and not show frustration or exhaustion to the people I was leading, which could get difficult on a summer day of 105 degrees and humidity, with 45 kids in the woods and only 1 other staff member. I was evaluated monthly by my supervisors and had to articulate my reasons for doing whatever my activities were. I also got to create my own activities three times a week for two hours. It definitely gave me insight into the field and helped me apply youth development practices into my life. While I will no longer be going into Recreational Therapy, the practice gave me unique insight into life of a caregiver and respect for all of those that commit their life to that practice.

Skills that were built through this experience are more than a list could explain. The most valuable I think are the ability to work in a team structure, planning, making executive decisions, problem solving, communicating verbally, and influencing others.

In terms of a team structure, this experience was extremely challenging. Every single camp counselor believed very strongly in their children, and didn’t always agree on what was best for their campers. Each person had to solve conflict amongst each other without showing the campers, to keep a simple authority structure to follow and to trust each other. People in an outdoor camp were easily overwhelmed, easily exhausted and often feeling over worked. The goals were always to help the children and to keep their best interests in mind. I learned how to casually talk to staff without making it apparent that we were disagreeing or changing plans completely. To hide all emotions from kids is extremely hard. I didn’t expect it to be, but I believe it gave me a way to learn professional conflict resolution.

Planning and executive decisions were strengthened through constant daily schedules that needed to be maintained, daily activities to be planned and modified on the go, and to lead young girls in a way where they would be confident in their counselor. I wanted to lead in a way where they wouldn’t question my motives and trust my judgement, as well as they felt they could explore who they are and how they wanted to treat each other. I saw beautiful friendships and hardships overcome by these young girls who had home lives like no one could ever imagine. It was beautiful to see the way making confident decisions without having an authoritarian leadership style led to my girls leading each other and teaching them how to make executive decisions too!

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