Training at Sarah's Inn

Still playing blog catch-up from the first two weeks in Chicago. Week One was all about being introduced to Chicago. Week Two was all about being introduced to my Tuesdays-Fridays work placement at Sarah's Inn. (Click to check out their website -- they're relatively small in staffing but AWESOME in services offered)

Currently I'm 16 hours into my 40 hours of volunteer required volunteer training, arriving at 8:30am each day and putting in four hours of training before completing my afternoon tasks (which have varied each day so far). My commute to Oak Park isn't very difficult by train, but goodness knows what sort of shenanigans I'll have to pull when the trains go out and I have to finagle bus routes. There are three other young women my age going through training with me, 2 Dominican Volunteers (a Catholic service year type organization) and 1 MSW student at Dominican University (which is also located in Oak Park). Everyone I've met on staff is very professional and all have amazing histories in the non-profit world. I'm surrounded by years and years of combined experience and wisdom and I hope I absorb at least some of it throughout the coming year! It's stranger than I anticipated adjusting to being one of the adults on staff -- with my own desk and e-mail address and work computer and everything. Stranger still that I am allowed to just come and go, sign in and sign out, without having to ask for permission or authority clearance all the time. Very strange indeed.

Friday I finally got to sit down with my direct supervisor, Chris, who's in charge of the Teen Prevention Program. We discussed my job description and the long term and short term projects I would be responsible for, along with the prevention curricula we'll (I'll...) be teaching in local middle schools starting next week. Effectively, I am co- (and single-handedly) creating much of my position and future training materials for Teen program positions that don't even exist yet. Lots of innovation and newness and independent working and outside research. Hopefully that doesn't become overwhelming as the year goes on, but right now I'm optimistic. It's still new enough to be shiny and exciting, and a large part of this year was intended to push my boundaries and force me to grow, and so far, so good.

We'll see how I feel after my first day in schools with the 8th-grade curriculum, which will be Tuesday afternoon.