Lessons from My Internship at the Home of the Innocents

Interning at the Home of the Innocents has allowed me to learn the full circle. From forming goals, implementing activities, and looking at the progress made by each child. My schedule has not allowed me to participate in care plans, volunteer and new employee orientation. Along with completing a new admission assessment but they are things I would like to do. Before interning I didn’t realize what kinds of communication I would encounter, I have learned a lot communication practices interning at the “Home”. I have been able to develop specific skills such as communication and creativity that helps me throughout my internship and that could help me in other future job opportunities. I have also been able to implement a lot from my Outdoor Leadership

I have learned how to set goals, implement activities to help achieve those goals and write progress notes to make sure the goals are being obtained by the children. I have been in activities for almost five years and since becoming a certified activities director I now get to see how the full processes works, as an activities assistant I only implemented the activities. I have always known the importance of my work in activities and that it is important to decrease social isolation. I get to see it work from making goals for residents to attend number of individual, group, and special activities. I then get to implement many different appropriate and adaptive activities. Then I get to check up on those children to make sure they are attending activities and if their goals are being met, when I write their progress notes. I get to be a part of each stage of

I am put in a leadership position every day at my internship. I oversee volunteers and run group and one to one activities. Examples of activities I implement are arts and crafts, games, field trips and swimming. I am considered a leader because of my skills, knowledge and experience. I have worked as a previous activities assistant elsewhere, with kids, and have gone through a course for my Activities Director certification. Being in a leadership position I have to be patient, understanding, organized, and responsible. When planning my activities I have to adapt activities so they are obtainable for the different abilities, ages, and interest. When I have volunteers come in for daily in house activities, I have to get know them and asses their ability and figure out how they will best be suited to help. I make sure they know what specific things children like and how they behave. If I have a volunteer who is shy and timid, I will work more with them and lead by example so, they feel comfortable. If I have a volunteer who has been volunteering awhile I will let them lead the activity or let them be one on one with a child. On special activities such as outings I help make a list of kids, check up on those kids and make sure they are well enough to go, make sure our outing bag is stocked with wash clothes, wipes, weather gear (rain