Marion County Commission on Youth

Marion County Commission of Youth (MCCOY) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to champion the positive development of youth by setting a high standard for improving and expanding the quality of youth opportunities in central Indiana.

At MCCOY, I am an Early Intervention and Prevention Intern. At MCCOY, I was assigned a wide variety of tasks in order to be able to assist my supervisor who is the director of Early Intervention and Prevention, Kate Roelecke.

My supervisor and I usually communicate through email anytime I have a simple question, turning something in, or RSVP for Zoom meetings. On every Wednesday, my Supervisor and my colleague meet to discuss what has been happening during the workweek, discuss new projects, and/or follow up on current projects. The last way I communicate with my supervisor is through my cell phone. This form of communication is only used if I need to quickly reach my supervisor and/or to contact my supervisor during her offline workdays.

As an Early Intervention and Prevention Intern, I was assigned a wide variety of tasks and projects. The first task that I was assigned was a dashboard for the Early Intervention Planning Council. I took the lead to compile several data measures of youth and family wellbeing at the county level. I used the data measures that I compiled and created visually engaging graphs for the Early Intervention Planning Council. Apart from compiling data, I also developed creative ways to engage young people in a digital storytelling project. For the digital storytelling project, I also lead an effort to compile contact information of English teachers in Marion County to send them information about this project. During the month of April, I also had the opportunity to help organize a drive-thru event for child abuse prevention month.

From my internship experience at MCCOY, I gained plenty of new skills as well as developed previous skills that I had learned in a previous class. The first skill that I was able to further develop was my knowledge of using excel. During my spring semester, I took SPEA-V 261 Technology and Public Affairs course which allowed me to learn the basics of using excel. I was able to further develop this skill when I led the effort to create visually engaging graphs for the dashboard for the Early Intervention Planning Council. Another skill that I was able to develop was communication. By the end of the internship, I truly felt that I was able to communicate effectively not only with my supervisor but with my other colleagues through zoom and email.

All in all, I am so grateful for my internship experience at Marion County Commission of Youth.