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Internship Reflection

Katie McKee

KINS 4306: Internship in Public Health

Dr. Ernest Kaninjing

9 April, 2021
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Introduction

My name is Katie McKee and I am completing my Spring 2021 Public Health Internship

at The Bright House in Milledgeville, Georgia. The Bright House is a division of the Southern

Crescent Sexual Assault and Child Advocacy Center located on Broad Street. The Bright House

officially opened in early 2020 and currently has four full time employees, as well as one nurse

who comes in once a week. JoAnna Smith is the Program Director here, as well as my main

supervisor. On a scheduled basis, The Bright House sees children of all ages in the Milledgeville

area who have been affected by domestic abuse and/or sexual violence, as well as adults who

have been sexually assaulted. The Bright House offers free services, such as a 24-hour crisis line,

forensic interviews, forensic medical exams, crisis intervention, individual and family

counseling, child and family advocacy, information and resource referrals, and education and

prevention. Every service provided at The Bright House that a victim may need is provided in-

house, so that the victim never has to go elsewhere.The mission of The Bright House is to

provide a collaborative, coordinated community response in an effort to reduce the incidence of

child maltreatment and sexual violence through prevention, intervention, and education. The

ultimate goal is to be able to live in a society that is free from sexual violence and various forms

of child abuse.

Description of Experiences

My role as intern at The Bright House was a general role of helping the office and staff

operate efficiently on a daily basis. The other interns and I have a rotating schedule of tasks that

we sign up for and complete every week. Some of these tasks include answering the office

phone, answering the door and welcoming guests in, sitting in on interviews during breaks,
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cleaning, etc. Aside from these designated tasks, my role also included playing with the children

who would come in and doing some office work, such as scanning and filing case papers.

The most exciting and rewarding part of this experience has definitely been being able to

spend time with the children. All of the children who step foot into The Bright House are victims

to some form of abuse. It breaks my heart every morning of an appointment, when I am told the

stories of these children. While I am not allowed to personally discuss these things with them, I

love that I have the honor of being able to play with them and show them love that they may not

be experiencing at home.

Another aspect of my internship that became the most motivating would be the

relationships that I have built with the other interns. Landry, Allie, and Erin have truly become

some of my best friends. It is crazy to think that I have shared classes with these girls before, but

have never spoken a word to any of them. I am so thankful that we all instantly clicked and got

along, because it has truly made all of the difference. Landry and I are even planning a beach trip

together for this summer! These girls made the hard days better and made me excited to come in

every morning, even when I would much rather stay in bed.

The most challenging part of this experience was the large amount of downtime. I am an

extremely active person and love to constantly be moving and doing something, almost to a fault.

Long periods of time spent sitting and not having anything to do can be very hard for me, and

can even be detrimental to my mental health. On days where we did not have appointments, we

really just sat in our little conference room on our phones and laptops for the majority of the day.

We would occasionally have some small tasks to complete, but never spent our full 8 hour days

with consistent work. Days like these were very hard for me, especially when the weather started

getting nice outside. I felt like I was wasting my time and missing out on opportunities of being
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outside and being productive. It was hard for me to see all of my friends hanging out on front

campus and enjoying the weather, especially since my time at Georgia College with my friends

is quickly coming to an end. Although this was very challenging for me, I am still thankful for

this opportunity and know that it has been very beneficial.

Perception and Evaluation of the Internship

As much as I hate to say it, I do not think that the internship met my personal

expectations. While I do think that overall I had a good experience, many of my expectations

were not met. Much of the reasoning behind this has to do with the amount of downtime and lack

of work that I had. In the past, whenever I thought about an adult working a 9-5 job, I imagined

them being busy and constantly having things to do during that time. I was fully prepared to be

busy and was pretty let down when I found that I would spend most of my time sitting. I am sure

that much of this has to deal with me being an intern and not an actual staff employee, but it has

definitely made me realize that if I am going to work a 9-5 for the rest of my life, I have to do

something that is more active. I would consider a career in this field, but I also think that there

are other things that I am much more passionate about.

Another way in which I struggled and felt like my expectations were not met were with

the staff here. On the first day, they were all so nice and welcoming. This made me very excited

and had me expectant of a very healthy and caring work environment. While this was true for a

while, things started going downhill after a few weeks. The main staff member who would check

in on us was Shelley. However, she was pregnant and left on maternity leave after about a month

of us being here. After she was gone, we did not feel as cared for or communicated with. There

would be days where we would go the full 9-5 time period without having anyone come and talk

to us. There would also be times, which I discussed a good bit in my journal, where we would
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have to sit on the pollen-covered porch for an hour after lunch because the staff would not

communicate that they would not be back at the normal time. Sometimes, I just felt like more of

a burden rather than a helpful addition to The Bright House team.

As I mentioned before, I do believe that I had a positive internship experience overall. I

just cannot say that all of my expectations were fully met or that the experience was perfect.

With this being said, I would still recommend and have already recommended The Bright House

to future interns. I know that no workplace is perfect, but I am excited to find the one that is

perfect for me in my future career!

Internship Preparedness

For my personal preparedness level prior to beginning my internship, I believe I stand

somewhere in the middle of being well prepared and coming in blindly. The classes that I have

taken at GCSU do not necessarily cover in depth the issue of child abuse or the legal side of

handling cases like these. However, classes such as Program Planning and Health Promotion

prepared me for the prevention side of The Bright House, as well as being very beneficial when

beginning the planning phase of my internship project.

Something that I think Georgia College does a great job of is getting students,

specifically in Public Health, out in the Milledgeville community as much as possible. With my

previous experience working with the community in my service learning hours for Community

Health and in Program Planning, I felt prepared in knowing that I would be working with the

community at The Bright House as well. Communication and people skills are extremely

important to have, and I felt like I obtained these skills through my previous classes.

One thing that I did not feel fully prepared for was trying to understand and work with

the mental health side of Public Health. While we touch on this to some degree in classes, the
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majority of content surrounds physical health. Every victim that steps through the front door of

The Bright House comes in with trauma that affects his/her mental health. Counseling is a large

aspect of The Bright House as well, and these concepts have been ones that I have had to learn

about while being here rather than having extensive previous knowledge. Overall, I think that

Georgia College sets its students up well to be successful and prepared for future employment,

especially by having an internship requirement to begin with.

Internship Performance

Throughout this experience, I have gained quite a bit of knowledge surrounding child

abuse, sexual assault, and how to be an advocate for these victims. I have learned about the signs

of abuse, what to say to someone who opens up to you about their abuse, and the proper ways to

report said abuse. I have gained office skills and can now confidently scan and file case papers. I

have gained communication skills, specifically when it comes to answering an office phone and

handling questions as best as I can. Prior to this internship, I felt as if I already had pretty good

people skills. However, I learned much about how to have people skills in a serious environment

like The Bright House, and was able to learn how to understand people affected by abuse.

I am very satisfied with my performance throughout this internship experience. When it

came to assignments, projects, and presentations, I believe that I did a great job and really gave

everything my all. I performed every task in a timely manner and was very eager to volunteer for

any assignment. For aspects of my project like designing flyers and creating training

presentations, these were not things that Landry and I just threw together as fast as possible. We

worked on them for days and even weeks, to make sure that we felt we were creating the most

quality work. I would rate my overall quality of work as an eight out of ten. I do not think that I

did everything perfectly while being at The Bright House, but I do think that I worked with
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eagerness and excitement to perform well. One skill that I could sharpen would be to be more

proactive. Much of the time, I would wait for my supervisor to give me a task. I wish that I

would have been more proactive in walking into her office and asking if there was anything that

she needed help with or wanted me to complete. When it came to my own personal work with

the project, I was quick to start and complete it. However, I wish I would have put this same

effort into tasks outside of my own.

Personal/Professional Insights/Benefits

This internship experience has definitely impacted my personal, professional, and

academic goals. For personal goals, I honestly was not sure if I would even be able to complete a

9-5 internship on top of everything else that I do. I am heavily involved in Young Life and am

the team leader for my ministry team. With being team leader comes much responsibility and my

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights are fully booked every week with Young Life events. On

top of that, I work at the Georgia College Wellness and Recreation Center. Along with that, I do

CrossFit every weekday and lead worship for Wesley on campus every now and then. Prior to

having this internship, I already had an extremely busy schedule and was worried that I would

have a very hard time balancing everything. I am glad to say that I have successfully met my

goals when it comes to scheduling and have been able to somehow keep up my personal social

life as well. Things have definitely looked different, but I am thankful that I learned how to

prioritize the things that I care about most.

Regarding the populations that I worked with, I gained insight that anyone and everyone

can be affected by domestic abuse or sexual violence. People of all ages, races, genders, and

socioeconomic statuses walked through the door every week. I realized that the people that may

be perceived as “having it all together,” such as the more rich population of Milledgeville who
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seem to have picture-perfect families and lifestyles, are many times the ones that are the most

broken. There is hurt and pain everywhere, and we can never judge someone based off of their

outward appearance or how much money they may have in their pocket. Overall, this experience

opened my eyes to a completely new perspective of seeing people and caring for them when they

are hurting. Despite the few downsides of this internship, I will forever be grateful to The Bright

House for having me and for being a big step into the rest of my life and future careers.