180 Degrees Group Home
Kailyn Anderson by Sign
180 Degrees is a local group home for youth between ages 12-21. They are a non-secure facility that houses up to 12 residents at a time. The residents are all there for a variety of reasons, some are victims and others offenders. Mostly the residents are there for short periods of time, but there are a few there on extended stays. At 180 Degrees you will work very closely with the youth at the group home, gaining conflict resolutions skills and applying the appropriate punishments for behaviors. I have gained great insight into the inner workings of a low-security group home. I was challenged to quickly pick up on the daily schedules and rules in order to properly assist the staff. I was tested to really work on my interpersonal skills as well as my assertiveness. The staff are mostly all young and really easy to work with, I really enjoyed getting to know them and working with them. The residents can be a hand full at times, but it was very eye opening to get to know them all, and you can form very meaningful and positive relationships with them.
The most rewarding part of the internship for me was getting to know the residents and building a relationship with them. This aspect of the internship was something that I never anticipated developing, and I learned a lot just by simply listening to the residents and hearing their stories. It is very rewarding to see some of the residents grow and find success at the group home.
180 Degrees Group Home
The group home is a non-profit organization, so they do rely on volunteers and interns to help out at the home. This is what led me to my project volunteer outreach. I personally interviewed each of the residents to see what traits they value and look for the most in a volunteer. Based on the most frequently requested traits I added them to a flyer. The flyer had those traits and other basic information about the group home. I then got it printed in a large quantity to be distributed around the St. Cloud area. I went to various volunteer locations such as United Way of Central Minnesota and Volunteers of America, and I also put the flyer on the SCSU campus and Career Services website. I hope this flyer can be used as a way to get the community more involved with the group home, and with the residents struggling to find success. The flyer will be able to be used and redistributed long after I am at the home, and I hope they can get more volunteers involved with their cause.
If you are interested in working for at the group home I suggest you get in contact with Katie, she runs the internship portion of the home. She’s super easy to talk to and gets back to you very quickly. She is very flexible with your schedule and works with you to make sure you get the hours you need. I really recommend 180 Degrees as an internship because you can use your sociology skills in a variety of ways. Each day at the home is unique and keeps you on your toes. You also learn a lot about how our juvenile justice system works and get to work very closely with the youth. If you are interested Katie’s email is Kathrine.Madison@180degrees.org, or you can call her at (320)259-6764.
Update: July 2018: Hired as a Child Protection Worker 1 for Stearns County. I believe the Critical Applied really prepared me for this, and everyone was very curious about what the critical applied meant in my interview!
