Bethany House Services

Colleen O'Neil, Summer 2017

This summer, I worked for Bethany House Services, an emergency shelter that accommodates families. Alongside Amanda Beyer, I worked under the Child/Parent Coordinator, Denise Hill to develop a curriculum for the children’s after-school program, Kidz Zone. We created lesson plans based on hygiene, nutrition, and emotional awareness to help teach skills to promote resilience and coping skills in the children. We developed this project primarily in response to the needs we heard from staff at the office who reiterated over and over the significant factor that mental health was for getting many of the parents into and keeping them in shelter. We then searched the literature for effective strategies for promoting resilience as well as for adoptable aspects of effective after-school programs. We then wrote two lesson plans each on ten different topics based on our research, one geared towards teens and another towards children. In addition to developing a four-week rotation of lessons, we also built a protocol for Kidz Zone, created a library and reading rewards program, wrote additional volunteer training materials, and organized the Kidz Zone space to make materials and prizes more easy to access for volunteers. Outside of our project through Kidz Zone, we also had the opportunity to work closely with the case managers, assisting them with inputting and organizing their notes and files before heading over to Kidz Zone to implement our lessons and spend time with the children.

I am deeply thankful for this experience for the reminder it was of two basic concepts. First, the reality pressed upon me time and again that people are simply people. From Indian Hill to East Westwood, in each person, there exists the same deep longings and desires. The external differences do not change that we each have a need to be loved, respected, and valued; it merely changes how these are experienced. The external expression of some of these needs left many of the residents with a spirit of openness, not hiding behind a mask of perfection but instead living openly acknowledging their needs in a refreshing and humbling way. Second, after watching the tireless and dedicated staff at Bethany House, I conclude that we cannot fix the entire cycle of homelessness on our own. To work to that end is noble and not completely futile, but it is a complex and giant beast that certainly will take far more than one person or even one organization. However, in the meantime, we can make it our aim to impact individual lives, and that I believe to be just as powerful and significant.