Lighthouse New Beginnings

Tessa Benanzer, Summer 2016

The community garden at Lighthouse Youth Services that our interns helped with — Our interns at two Lighthouse Youth Services sites worked with adolescents who had faced extraordinarily difficult life circumstances. A major summer project involved collaborative work between these sites on a community garden where the youth were able to cultivate a variety of plants and sell some of the resulting produce to support further work on the garden.

This summer at Lighthouse New Beginnings, I was introduced to the complex and dynamic work of the foster care system. I was given the opportunity to see firsthand the lives of teens who struggle with mental health issues and are victims of difficult and often abusive pasts. This summer, I acted as a mentor and supervisor for the girls at the house during the day. Also, for the girls that worked at the Lighthouse school garden in Madisonville, I supervised them during their time at work. Working at the garden helped enhance my relationship with the girls that worked there and allowed me to meet some of the young boys who are residents at the Youth Development Center. Around noon each day, our work at the garden was complete, and I would go back to the house and hang out with the girls. I was able to help the girls fill out applications for summer jobs or assist them with summer school homework. On many afternoons, we would go on outings such as the movies, the mall, go-cart racing, and the Newport Aquarium where I would help the staff look after the girls.

The project that I introduced this summer at Lighthouse New Beginnings dealt with learning to live a healthy lifestyle by focusing on nutrition, exercise, and stress management. After working at New Beginnings for the first few weeks, I noticed that the girls could really benefit from learning how to become healthier through food, exercise, and stress relief. I helped the girls make healthy and easy snacks with vegetables from the Lighthouse school garden so that they could use these recipes in the future for better snack choices. I introduced the girls to new exercises, like a cardio workout, yoga, and dancing exercise videos to help encourage them to be more active. I also helped to introduce positive stress management strategies so that their anger and frustration from their stressful and sometimes difficult lives could be channeled in a more positive way. My hope is that all of the girls have learned at least one important strategy, lesson, or workout from this program that they will use now and in the future to help them maintain healthy lifestyles.

Overall, I had a fantastic experience at Lighthouse New Beginnings. I have learned as much from the girls as they hopefully have learned from me. I value the relationships that I was able to build with these girls. Being in the house every weekday, I got to see firsthand how these girls live in the foster system, got to hear their stories, and understand more of how it feels and what it is like to live with mental health issues. I believe that by understanding the everyday life and struggles of individuals who come from difficult socio-economic conditions and those who deal with mental health issues, I will become a better physician in the future. This experience has been invaluable to me and my journey to become a physician.