I am a second-year undergraduate student in Antioch College. I am currently doing my second internship for an organization called the Crotched Mountain Foundation. This is a non-profit organization which is dedicated to serving individuals with disabilities and to help their families.
Crotched Mountain was founded in 1953. It sits a top a mountain and includes a school, hospital, outpatient clinic, aquatic center, residences, athletic complex and the nation’s longest accessible trails in a mountainside environment. My title for this internship was Para-Educator and I work in Crotched Mountain School and Rehabilitation Center. The training week was very demanding with long hours of training on different topics. Some topics were basic and others were more challenging. Before I started to work with the clients (Crotched Mountain Foundation refers to those who they serve as “client”) I had to have to trainings completed and have my certificate for CPR.
I started working after I finished all required training and my days were surprisingly busy. I had to be at the residential area in the morning and I was assigned a client and I had to get that client ready for school/ classroom and get them to school on times and have them eat breakfast and finally follow their morning schedule. After 8:30am I would get a different client for the remaining of school hours. I was assigned in a classroom that had children that were very different from each other on their needs and their behavioral issues. I worked with all the students one-on-one. During the day, I had to make sure that the client was following his or her schedule and being safe. I provided personal care for those clients as they needed. In case of an incident I had to make sure the incident was reported properly.
Some days are easier than other days but every day was a new challenge to face and those challenges helped me gain a lot more perspectives and experience. All in all, it was a decent workplace experience.
