Boys and Girls Club Internship Final Report

Laura Gabrielle Rich

Child 498R: Internship

Brother Tom Rane

November 7, 2020
 During these past three months, I have had the privilege of completing my internship at

my local Boys and Girls Club. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience there and am deeply grateful

for the people I met, the skills I gained, and the mentorship I was given. Throughout the course

of this paper, I will summarize the progress I made towards meeting my goals, I will evaluate my

performance based on various criteria, and I will discuss how I was able to further prepare for

my roles as both a disciple of Christ and a professional in my field of study.

During the course of my internship, I worked towards a variety of goals I set for myself.

These goals consisted of 1) improving my ability to lead children in developmentally appropriate

activities, 2) broadening my comfort zone and diversifying the types of activities that I

implement with children, 3) improving my interpersonal skills, and 4) adopting the club’s

philosophy and learning more about how it functions. I am satisfied with my success in meeting

the majority of these goals, but I feel I could have done more to better meet one goal in

particular.

The goal I feel I struggled the most with was the one pertaining to my interpersonal

skills. I had hoped to gain more confidence in my interactions with the adults at my internship-

whether it was with my supervisor, my coworkers, or the parents. While the restrictions relating

to Covid-19 did not allow me to actually physically interact with any of the parents, I do wish I

had done more to form stronger relationships with some of my coworkers. Towards the middle

of my internship, I found myself falling back into my old ways of only speaking when I was

spoken to. I analyzed my goals and recommitted myself to seeking out opportunities to interact

with all of my coworkers (rather than just the girl that I worked closest with everyday). I started

with the basics of saying hello and goodbye to everyone upon entering and leaving the club. I

joined in on a couple of casual group conversations and began offering to stay late to help my
coworkers finish cleaning up. I also began opening up more during my “check-ups” with my

supervisor. I noticed a difference in our team dynamic after making these minor changes in my

daily interactions with my fellow staff members. They began sharing more information with me

regarding the children in our club, and this made it easier for us to brainstorm together ways to

best help these children. I hope to never shy away from opportunities to interact with my future

coworkers now that I have seen the positive impact that strong team relationships can have.

As for my other goals, I am proud to say that I now feel much more confident in my

ability to plan an activity, tailor it to the interests of specific children, adapt it to be more age and

culturally appropriate, and implement it in an engaging way. Doing so on a daily basis at my

internship made the whole process start to feel like second nature to me. I also had ample

opportunities to lead all different kinds of activities with the children. For example, I volunteered

to lead a social emotional activity about expressing our emotions through art, I took charge in the

gym on various occasions to teach the children (and staff) how to play four square, and I came

up with a number of different STEM activities/science experiments on the fly whenever we

needed a fun activity to regain the attention of the children. I’m happy to say that I no longer feel

restricted to solely art activities. Lastly, I can think back and remember several opportunities in

which I was able to model the club’s 5 key values throughout the course of my internship.

Between conversations about showing respect towards each other's interests/passions and

conversations about the importance of not letting our desire to win overpower our desire to have

fun, I was able to contribute to the club’s vision in a way that hopefully left a mark on some of

the lives of the children in our club.

There are four main categories within the Magarrell criteria, and upon evaluating myself

in each of these categories, I have identified my strongest category and my weakest category. I
have also identified the specific areas in which I excelled and the specific areas in which I

needed improvement in each of these four categories. The four main categories consist of job

competence, professionalism, interpersonal relations, and personal attributes. I quickly identified

my weakest category as the interpersonal relations category. As previously mentioned in earlier

paragraphs, I struggled to build strong relationships with some of my coworkers. This had

nothing to do with my coworkers themselves; I have always just had a harder time putting myself

out there when it comes to interacting with other adults. I sometimes struggle to communicate

verbally because of my timidness, and my hesitance in leaving my comfort zone often prevents

me from connecting with my fellow staff members. I fear that my poor social skills are

sometimes misinterpreted and seen as a lack of friendliness. That being said, I can confidently

say that I did always strive to be completely respectful and empathetic in my interactions with

others, including in my written interactions.

As for my strongest category, I would have to say that I excelled the most in the job

competence category. As I scan through the list of criteria, I can affirm that “organized,”

“productive,” and “proactive” are all words that I would use to describe myself. While at my

internship, I was always the one who would organize the materials, clean the tables, sweep the

floors, diligently check the program schedule, and consistently confirm the day’s plans with my

coworkers ahead of time. Whenever there wasn’t a specific task at hand for me to work on, I

would approach my supervisor or the program director to ask if there was anything I could help

them with. Whenever they weren’t around, I would find my own way to stay busy whether that

meant gathering new supplies, planning new activities, finding something to sanitize, or getting a

head start on preparing for future activities. The only area in this category in which I recognize

that I need significant improvement would be in the decision making area. I’ve always fit the bill
of the stereotypically indecisive woman, but luckily this generally only applies to me when it

comes to the less dire decisions (like choosing between letting the children play hockey or

badminton in the gym).

The two remaining categories are those of professionalism and personal attributes. I

didn’t label these categories as my strengths nor my weaknesses because it often came down to

factors that were either out of my control or factors related to my temperament. While I do

consider myself stable, self-motivated, and persistent, I have never labeled myself as particularly

assertive or energetic. My behavior was likely no different at my internship; I was indeed a

reliable team member who never left tasks unfinished, but I wasn’t particularly bold in asserting

my opinions (unless they related specifically to the developmental appropriateness of certain

activities), nor did I radiate an “infectious attitude.” Additionally, when it came to being punctual

and dressing in a neat, clean, orderly, and professional way, I sometimes struggled because I

would head to my internship straight from my job at a local restaurant. I may not have arrived at

the same exact time every single day because of my inconsistent work schedule, but I always

arrived before the children did, and the majority of the time I arrived with enough time to prepare

and gather the materials for the day’s activities. I also always made sure to let my supervisor

know ahead of time what time I would arrive each day in order to keep him and my coworkers in

the loop. With regards to dressing in a professional way, the dress code at the club for everyone

(including staff members and directors) was casual, so even though I didn’t come in wearing

slacks and dress shoes every day, I made up for it with my adaptability, confidentiality, and

positive attitude. We all had to adapt to constant changes due to the covid-19 restrictions and the

unpredictable attendance of our children, so I did my best to be as flexible as possible and to

encourage my fellow coworkers to do the same. To sum up this self evaluation, I would say that
during my internship I excelled in the job competence category, I struggled in the interpersonal

relations category, and I was moderately effective in the professionalism and personal attributes

categories.

All of this self reflection has allowed me to truly consider the ways in which I was able to

develop my roles as a professional and disciple of Christ. My very first week at my internship

was extremely eye opening for me. I witnessed a lot of behaviors on the part of the staff

members that helped me realize the importance of two Christ-like attributes in particular:

patience and brotherly kindness. When some of the staff members first introduced me to the

children at the club, they said things like, “This is Jack; he cries every day” and “This is Korey;

he’s going to basically do the opposite of what you tell him to do everyday.” I was appalled that

these adults, adults whom the children likely looked up to, would make such statements,

especially in front of the children. After the first week, I made a point to not make any

assumptions about these children and to look for the good in them during my time with them. I

felt that that is what a disciple of Christ would do. Instead of yelling at them for every single

miniscule misbehavior like some of the summer program staff members would do, I committed

myself to exercising patience with these children. I wanted them to feel as if they had at least one

adult in their corner who would validate their emotions and show them compassion rather than

ridiculing them. I took every opportunity I could to show them kindness, and I hope to continue

this pattern in my future interactions with children (and adults) throughout the rest of my career

and life.

When evaluating the steps I took during my internship to prepare myself to become a

professional, I recall many “firsts” that I had the opportunity to experience. I implemented my

first grant-funded activities, I wrote my first incident report, I completed my first inventory of
materials, I attended my first county-wide staff meeting, I participated in my first staff group

project in an attempt to incorporate more diversity into our program, and I was a part of my first

nation-wide organization. All of these different opportunities and tasks opened up my eyes to

what the real world is like in this field. I had gotten so comfortable with the idea of just playing

with children all day every day for the rest of my career, but I see now that being a professional

in this industry is so much more than that. My eyes were opened to the reality of the

responsibilities of a child care provider in a program like The Boys and Girls Club. I learned of

the intricacies of this type of an organization, and I got an inside look at all that goes into running

an after school program. I will be so grateful to have gained all of this knowledge and experience

as I finish my degree, apply to more jobs, serve my community, and establish myself as a

professional in this world. I will reflect back on this experience and remind myself of which

attributes and skills I need to dedicate more effort towards developing so that I can become the

best possible version of myself moving forward.