Lighthouse Youth Development Center

Kaleb Boggs, Summer 2018

My summer experience involved working with a Cincinnati social service organization, Lighthouse Youth Development Center (YDC). YDC is a long-term care facility for boys' ages 11-18. Lighthouse YDC serves a wide variety of clients, but generally, many of the individuals have a history of childhood trauma, significant behavioral problems, and/or sexual offenses. It functions as a group home for their clients which offers a wide range of rehabilitation services ranging from therapy to job/life skills training. As a summer intern at YDC I got to interact with the boys in their day-to-day activities. In conversations with some of the youth supervisors, one of the biggest needs that was identified for the facility was improving the teaching and development of life and job skills for the residents. To address this, Lighthouse YDC implemented a summer work program the residents could participate in to learn job skills and earn money. The program is 8 weeks long and the boys earn up to $100 a week for participating, 25% of the earnings being placed into their savings. Four mornings a week the boys work to help maintain the garden located at the Lighthouse Community School. The garden consists of 72 beds, a greenhouse, numerous compost piles, and a chicken coup. A great variety of plants, fruits and vegetables are grown in the garden beds. Eggs are collected and washed daily from the chicken coup. The greenhouse contains a self-sufficient hydroponic system that fertilizes the plants and prevents mosquito infestation. All of the produce, eggs and compost are sold and/or donated at the community gardens very own local market which is open 2 days each week. My role as the UHP intern at the YDC site was to help supervise the work program and develop teamwork and communication skills among the boys that they can take with them to apply in their lives as members of the community.