P&P Internship Reflection

My responsibilities included planning and facilitating educationally enriching activities for youths from immigrant backgrounds and managing administrative tasks such as attendance tracking, course instruction, and field trip coordination. Reflecting on this internship, I believe it has significantly enhanced my understanding of poverty and immigration, and how these issues intersect with family education and youth development. For instance, I learned about the profound impact of traumatic experiences on children’s character development and the importance of trauma-informed approaches in teaching and advocacy for immigrant communities. Incorporating a trauma-sensitive approach into our work makes a great difference to our interaction with the children and their subsequent interactions with peers, family members, and teachers. Additionally, I was deeply inspired by how the children and their families support one another and by the strength of the community that has grown out of shared traumatic experiences. For instance, the two staff members I worked with had participated in the afterschool program as children, and now, as adults, they have chosen to return and give back to the community where they spent countless summers growing up. Witnessing this strong sense of bonding and the flourishing community was incredibly moving for me, and it encouraged me to engage more with the local immigrant community when I returned to Middlebury and beyond.

-J.L. `26