Annie Longley (left) and Sydnee Mata (right)
Annie Longley is a full-time intern at Kate’s Club. She will be graduating in May of 2018 with a B.S.F.C.S. in Human Development and Family Sciences and a certificate in Disabilities Studies and hope to continue her education to one day become either a Recreational Therapist or a Child Life Specialist. Using the experiences and knowledge that she has gained through an internship at Kate’s Club, Annie hopes to provide better services and comfort to children who have experienced death at early ages.
Sydnee Mata is a part-time intern at Kate’s Club. In June of 2018 she will graduate from Life University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Psychology. She plans to move into a Master of Social Work program to eventually work with those who have experienced the death of a loved one. She feels that this internship has been a great a great opportunity and has enjoyed working with all of the Kate’s Club staff and kids. She says,“this experience will only fuel my drive to help those who have experienced the death of a loved one.” She is excited to show everyone what a day in the life of a Kate’s Club intern looks like.
Annie’s outline of the day is in regular font and Sydnee’s is in italics.
8:30 AM– I arrived at Kate’s Club and started to set up the clubhouse and the office for the day.
8:30 AM– I arrived at Kate’s Club and began setting out activities for the Clubhouse day.
9:30 AM– I attend the volunteer meeting and discuss the morning activity for the month. This month was about helping the kids know how to talk about what happened so we discussed taking control of the conversation while making Borax crystals.
9:30 AM– Volunteers arrived to attend a morning meeting to go over all of the details for the day. During the meeting, we went over how we can incorporate conversations about February’s theme, “How do I talk about it?”. We also assigned volunteers to different age groups.
10:30 AM– Children have arrived and we sing the welcome song; then split up into groups.
10:30 AM– The Kate’s Club kids began arriving. We joined together in a welcome circle, introduced ourselves, and sang the Kate’s Club theme song. The kids then split up into groups for activities.
11:30 AM– I have walked around the each group to help work through the activity while buddies facilitate some amazing conversations and start getting ready for lunch.
11:30 AM– I walked around to answer any questions, listened in on the conversations going on, and make sure everything is ran smoothly. After the activity, the kids ate lunch.
12:30 PM– We have just wrapped up lunch and the kids are getting ready to head to their first afternoon activity.
12:30 PM– Each group went to their first activity for the day. I had the pleasure of facilitating a pet therapy activity with three groups. We had 3 dogs and 1 cat in the first group. The kids made “Thought Boxes”. Each kid wrote thoughts, feelings, memories, or things they would have liked to do with their loved one who died on slips of paper and placed it in the box. Throughout the activity we had conversations about how talking about how we feel helps us.
1:30 PM– For the remaining afternoon activities, I walked around between groups as an extra set of hands when they need help.
1:30 PM– Groups rotated to different activities and I continued to facilitate the pet therapy activity. In this group we had 4 dogs. The “Thought Box” activity was done again with this group.
2:30 PM– During this block, I remained with a specific group as the kids in that group were having some rough patches during one activity.
2:30 PM– Groups did their final rotation and I continued to facilitate the pet therapy activity for the third group as well. This group did not have any pets. We did the “Thought Box” activity and had many wonderful conversations about our feelings.
3:30 PM– The kids are wrapping up their last activity and I began to distribute snacks to each group while cleaning up where I was able.
3:30 PM– The kids wrapped up their activity and began eating their snack. Parents started arriving to pick up their kids
4:30 PM– The clubhouse was cleaned and all supplies were put away. It is finally time to go home and come back on Tuesday! .
4:30 PM– The Clubhouse was put back together and cleaned. It was then time to go home after a very accomplished day.