Things that didn't happen

At the beginning of the summer, we had to fill out some "mutual expectations" sheets and create objectives for the summer.  I understand the value of objections and expectations - the former give directions, and the latter avert problems down the line.  But now that I have just three days left, I'm a little anxious about these things - some of them aren't going to happen.  I don't feel bad about that, because things just went in a different direction, but I'm not clear on how bad the Peace Institute is going to hit me for not fulfilling my goals.

1. "Intern and mentor will meet every two weeks to discuss progress." - That happened exactly once, and there was no discussion of progress because there were four of us at lunch together for the meeting instead of just the director and me.  I know Joann is way too busy to bend over backwards for my paperwork and such, so I wish we hadn't agreed to that one.
2. Creative component - I think I was being overly zealous about finding great objectives to put in on the paper.  I planned to set up an art workshop in collaboration with Big Car gallery, where my housemate Ben worked this summer, for the students.  It looked less and less likely as I realized there was a rather specific format for Academy, and while I probably still could have squeezed it in (maybe instead of our "education" day, since the entire discussion basically consists of "get one"), but nobody returned my calls.
3. More meetings - Joann was going to set up meetings for me with Roger, the guy who started AIM, and with another IUPUI professor who does the statistics tracking for the program.  Those meetings never took place.
   
4. A final report - This I can still do.  I said I'd write a report for AIM evaluating their practices and making suggestions.  I'm becoming less and less confident that I have any standing to do that.  I had a pretty specific role for most of the summer, so while people made sure I got a good feel for how the program worked, I was mostly just exposed to the Academy at any real depth.  Also, without the meetings I was supposed to have, I don't have much information on this stuff.

I think my real frustration here is that the internship was great.  My mentor made sure I was doing things that I could learn from, participate in, and use for academic advancement - to an extent beyond what other interns' mentors did for them, in some cases (for example, I suggest this research I'm doing might be intended to give me something more "academic" than Academy facilitation).  I managed to find a role in the organization and work my way to the point where I was chipping in quite a lot - I know Stacy was really glad to have me.  Yet I have to keep reminding myself of all this because things turned out different then I'd planned, which makes me feel as if I didn't do a good job.

My best day

The Friday before last (just over a week ago now) I got to ride along with one of the home-based counselors instead of doing my normal Academy duties.  I loved it.  This is the stuff that really, really interests me - counseling psychology.  Obviously I couldn't do an internship in that, because not being trained and certified I'd just be observing all summer, and I don't think I'd be getting credit for that.

I spent the day with Mike, a Cuban-American (habla español!) who somehow knew my family background despite me never having talked about it to my coworkers.  He had me sign a confidentiality notice and let me come along to talk with three of the kids assigned to him.

I was worried it would be weird, but I guess by this point in the system the students are used to having lots of people sticking their noses into their personal lives.  None of them seemed to have a problem with my presence, and one of them was even a former student of mine who actually missed coming to Academy ("it's boring at home").  Be still my heart.

We took one kid out for lunch at a delicious Mexican restaurant, which was good for my stomach but not my wallet; between food and gas, I've been in the red for a few weeks now.  Mike told him to eat some of the green salsa, and for some reason he did.  "Te pica dos veces," Mike said.

The last meeting was my favorite, because both the student and his mother seemed to love having us there.  I could have stayed and chatted with them forever, but soon we were off.

I was going to call Mike to ride along again this week, since the Academy was going to close for a couple weeks during training for the new volunteers.  It's staying open, though, to finish out a couple of kids.  But I might call him anyway.

Success and failure

On Friday, one of our students was expressing some frustrations with family issues during our drive home.  Stacy and I let him vent and talked with him a while, offering him some options for dealing with the situation.  All told, it was probably the best I've felt all summer about my job - I really felt we were getting through and helping this kid with an issue.

His mom called and told us not to bother picking him up yesterday.  He's in deep trouble and on the run.  Sometimes you can't help feeling your effort was wasted... at least in terms of AIM's stated mission, which is to prevent recidivism.

Meetings, research, and more top-secret stuff

Today I met with Tedd Grain, an IUPUI graduate research assistant who knows everything there is to know about the nonprofit industry.  I can't really discuss what the meeting was about, unfortunately.

The meeting was scheduled for 12:00, and I was to meet see the secretary on the fourth floor of the SPEA (School for Public and Environmental Affairs) building in room 4032T.  I got there ten minutes early, but that and more was eaten up by the fact that it took twenty minutes to find a place to park.  Ultimately I stashed my car in a loading zone, flashers on, hoping nobody would notice that it was there longer than twenty minutes and no one was loading anything.

I found the fourth floor of SPEA without too much trouble, but was a bit frustrated by my search for 4032T.  You see, while one side of the hallway stretches from 4026 to 4060 or so, the other side is just 4032A, 4032B, and so forth.  That is not how it's supposed to work.

Anyway, I caught Tedd on his way out to lunch and was able to join him and a couple of other grad students in some good conversation (and the remains of a delicious sub), marking what was probably the least work I've ever done on the clock.  He was able to point me in the right direction (he told me the phrase I needed to know to do research, basically), and then took me back to his office and gave me a massive binder, with a tab on the exact subject I needed to learn about.  Jackpot!

After that I called up Stacy to see if she needed me to join her at academy, but she said it wouldn't be necessary.  She's trying to help one of our students get his state ID (something the mentors would usually do, I think) and told me she'd just see me tomorrow.  So I'm back at the house to do some research, and I decided that I'll take breaks here and there to catch up on some of the blogging I haven't been doing enough of.  Look out for those posts throughout the afternoon.

(As if enough people read this frequently enough for that kind of comment to be helpful.)

More high stress

The students really didn't want to focus on Monday. They were distracted, disruptive, and at some times downright defiant. Then we took them to a career fair that was going on at the IUPUI campus, and they disappeared... I'm pretty sure they didn't spend one second actually looking at the booths. They wandered around campus doing who knows what until 4:00, which was half an hour after we wanted to leave.

When Stacy told them they weren't getting counted for the day they started shouting about every complaint they could think of. We ended up canceling the Academy yesterday, and Stacy and Amy went to each individual student to talk with them. I was supposed to go to court but was miserably sick, so I stayed home. I went in today and went with Amanda to check in with truancy court kids at their elementary schools, but ended up coming home early to just do some research because I wasn't feeling up to finishing the day.

I'm still feeling pretty icky, but hopefully I'll be able to handle tomorrow, since I have some things I really do need to get done.

It must be a Monday. Oh, wait.

Today was probably the most stressful day of work I've had this summer. For starters, one of my students was re-arrested last night, which is always a bit of a disappointment. Then, though I wasn't actually leading the class today, I still managed to become incredibly frustrated at the constant disruptions. The students were just not in a mood to be focused today.

It's difficult, trying to figure out how to deal with this stuff. While we could tell them to shape up or we won't count their attendance, or that we'll tell probation that they're not behaving themselves, I figure that having spent three to nine months (or more) in a juvenile facility, they're all too used to the idea of punishment. I don't want to punish them, but I don't like to just let them get away with everything either. I've been trying to strike a balance, and from their point of view I'm probably not doing too poor a job, but sometimes I feel pretty helpless here.

Despite my rather bad day, it's occurred to me that I fully understand many of my (former) house mates, who found relatives willing to pay the Indy Peace Institute program fee for them and came to work this summer to earn nothing. While I couldn't have afforded that, I've realized that, if I could, I would happily do this job for free. It's not easy, and not always fun, but it is always good work.

I'm glad to be here.

Change of plans

It looks like I won't be going up to Logansport to help lead job readiness classes on Saturdays after all. Joann (the director of AIM) says she's having trouble getting clearance for me. We were at lunch with a couple of other co-workers and she said we'd talk about it later, so I'm kind of assuming it's because of my arrest last year.

"That's ridiculous," said Laura, one of my house mates. "It was civil disobedience!" I told her that's probably worse because I can't (and won't) say it was a mistake.

I'm a little disappointed, since I was looking forward to shaking up my daily tasks a bit, but I'm also kind of relieved: if I did the Logansport thing I'd either be working six days a week, which I didn't rule out, or skipping a day of Academy. It seems I've reached a level of importance such that they actually have to replace me when I can't do Academy, so I feel guilty about any time I have to miss it (or, more commonly, drive separately from the van, since Stacy still prefers to find someone else to ride with her). Now I just have to get to the point where they can't replace me and I'll have it made.

Not really. After all, I'm only here for the summer.

Today was one of my less valuable days. We like to do something fun (like a field trip of sorts) on Fridays for the kids, and today we took them to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. I say we, but I mean Stacy, because I had a previously mentioned lunch meeting and had to show up at the IMA later. I was there for a grand total of an hour and fifteen minutes before it was time to go. And since I drove separately, all I had to do was head straight back to the office.

At this point it was only 3:00, and I'd started work at 11:30.

I started some work on a lesson plan for next week but ended up going home at 4:00. I'll devote Monday morning to finishing that up.

I commented to some of my co-workers today that I'm amazed how much I actually look forward to going to work. I mean, I've never had a job I really didn't like (and liked working at Messenger Magazine last summer), but being only 21 most of my work history consists of jobs aimed towards getting gas money (factory, farm, water & sewer, etc). I can understand why those of my house mates who were able to reach into their pockets and pay for this program themselves chose to do so - the work is really fulfilling.

Sadly, my summer is almost halfway over. That's no good.

On me

I was invited to keep a personal touch on my updates.

So far, this summer has been really hard for me. My internship, though challenging, is really good. "Fulfilling," I tell people. And my housemates are wonderful people. Externally, things are great... it's internally that I find challenges. I should invest some learning into the "taking care of me" element of peacemaking.

For some background, since for some people who may read this I might have fallen out of the sky, I spent the last year studying in Mexico and have only been back in the country for four weeks. So I'm probably going through some reverse culture shock, though I don't know how I'm supposed to discern it.

I'm having trouble finding my own space in such a crowded house. I'm really apprehensive about going back to Manchester in the fall (and by apprehensive I mean terrified).

Ironically, the thing that I feel best about is the thing I was most worried about four weeks ago: the internship itself. I'd feared being completely over my head, but I've really surprised myself in how I've been able to work through some of my weaknesses (like anything people-related) and feel really good about how things are progressing.

I'll try and write up some good posts next week, since I have some meetings and lessons to set up and will be really starting to add more of me to my work at AIM.

Day 14

My first few days working at the academy, there was a gigantic elephant in the room: race. At one point, the AIM Academy was Stacy and me, two White people, telling three Black kids how they were supposed to behave. I think it's often taboo for us to talk about race these days - we like to sweep all the race-related problems under the rug, but they're there. And you'd better believe those three kids noticed that they were Black and we were not.

Now, the majority of our mentors are Black. It shouldn't matter, but I think it helps.

The student group is more diverse at the moment.

Interestingly, it seems most of the people working with AIM are also women. One of my tasks this summer is going to be investigating why young men don't seem to be interested in mentoring, and how we can attract them to this job. I'm personally not surprised to learn it's hard for us to get men, but I can't think off the top of my head why that might be.

The last three days have been a sort of breakthrough for me. Things were pretty challenging at the beginning - I struggled to relate to these kids, fought to find a way to work with them. Then, this Tuesday, everything seemed to flip. It was a good day in general, with all the students being pretty engaged in what was going on, but it was a great day for me. Suddenly, I had their respect. Not their grudging deference as someone they had to listen to or go back to jail, but their respect. That was great.

We just got a few new students who seem to be pretty good guys, so I'm looking forward to the next ten days.

Today I had a meeting with my mentor to outline what I'll be doing. I've solidified my role helping facilitate the academy, both by leading lessons and by designing some new stuff. I'll also be doing some research on the side on how grassroots movements grow, which I'm afraid will highlight my stunning incompetence as a researcher. But the part I'm most excited about was an idea brought up by my housemate Ben last night. Ben is an intern at Big Car, an art gallery downtown with a bit of a social mission. We're going to try to work together to come up with an art expression workshop for the students. It will be challenging, but I'm interested to see where it goes.

Full speed into week 3

I've now worked ten full days at AIM, most of them with the AIM Academy. If I were a participant, I'd be done and have my certificate of completion!

The difference between my first couple of days and my last few is astonishing. At first, I felt like I was either drowning beneath everything I didn't know, didn't know how to do, or was afraid of, and I felt just about useless to the organization. In retrospect, I shouldn't have expected to be their most valuable asset on my first day.

I'm still doing a lot of observing, though I'm starting to pitch in a bit with the academy. Nothing major yet, but I've been trying to sense the group dynamic and help to shift things productively. I'm not sure what skill set you'd say I'm using... diplomacy? Teaching? But I've been feeling good about it.

I'm sitting down with someone - either the director, Joann, who's officially considered my mentor; or Amy, the facilities coordinator, who has been sort of my de facto mentor and has more time to meet with me - to more officially figure out my long-term schedule and responsibilities some time this week. I've been offered a chance to start facilitating the academy (not by the actual facilitator, but by her boss). I'm a little scared at the prospect, but I'm also excited. It's certainly something I'd instinctively try to avoid, but I'm making a point to dive as deep into this stuff as I can this summer, so I say bring on the responsibility and I'll just find out whether I sink or swim. Teaching is never something I saw myself doing in any respect, but this stuff does interest me. The thing I really need to work on is two sided: I need to make sure I know how to control a group, especially with these kids, and I also need a little patience for when the environment isn't exactly a stone-silent lecture hall. I definitely can't get angry or aggressive with someone whose go-to solution is to beat someone up.

I also want to take a look at their mentor manuals and such... I haven't really gotten a taste of any of their training yet.

What is AIM?

Alright, let's see how well I can explain what I understand about AIM so far.

AIM was founded by a professor at IUPUI, so for a while it was considered to be under the university.  However, it is now under the umbrella of the Indiana Juvenile Justice Taskforce.  I do not know what that means.

AIM is a "juvenile re-entry and mentoring program" which is largely (but not entirely) a part of the Community Transition Program, which exists in Marion county and (I think) one or two others.  All students assigned to CTP are put on probation and sent to AIM, which gives them a mentor while they're locked up (and afterwards, I think) and, once they get out, a ten-day life skills academy.  Each student is also assigned an in-home therapist, but I don't think we do that.

So that's the rundown on the organizational structure.  Most of my work has been with the AIM academy, which today involved talking about our favorite movies and playing Monopoly.

That's all for now.

My first days

Monday was my "first day" at AIM, though I really just went in to the Juvenile Task Force office and met with my mentor, Joann, for about an hour. We talked about the different things I might do with the organization - I told her I wanted to see various aspects and that I was open to whatever work she had for me. I also got a chance to talk to the director of the task force, who suggested I might come give a presentation about cultural awareness based on my experiences in Mexico.

I also learned that I cannot at any point be a one-on-one mentor for the incarcerated youth due to my arrest last year. Due to training and everything, I wasn't going to do that anyway, but it was interesting to learn.

Tuesday and Wednesday I went along with Stacey, the woman who facilitates the AIM Academy. AIM Academy is a court ordered ten-day life skills class that juveniles going through CPT (the Community Transition Program) must complete as part of their probation. Tuesday we had two students and talked about interview skills.

Also on Tuesday I made a few phone calls to confirm that we would be picking up new students and got to talk to a parent who for some reason had never heard of AIM and wanted to know all about the organization. Other than assuring him it didn't cost anything, I couldn't tell him much. Just my luck that I'd get someone like that on my first day, when even I didn't really know what the organization I was working for really did. One of my co-workers called him back and he told her he had no intention of making his son go through our program. "Be sure to bring that up in front of the judge tomorrow," she said.

Wednesday we picked up a third student and went to a job fair, which was sort of a disaster. The job fair was at the airport and probably had several thousand applicants show up over the course of the day. The students found this very disheartening and quickly gave up on finding a job, and were challenging for me to deal with for the rest of the time we were there (I will withhold details at this point).

The rest of the day we just drove them around to anyplace they were interested in applying for a job, and they each managed to get a handful of applications. One student wanted to apply at a store where he'd been caught multiple times for shoplifting, but we suggested he search in other areas.

Today I went along with Amy, the "facilities coordinator," for her one-on-one (two-on-one, I suppose) meetings with a couple of incarcerated youth. One was new to us and didn't have much to say, but we had a good conversation with another one, with whom Amy was familiar. Again, at this point I'm going to err on the side of not saying much about the kids.

After that we went to the juvenile court, which is in the same building. We ran into one of our mentors there and were able to sit in on a students' court hearing. Since juvenile hearings are not open to the public, I felt pretty important - I even got to identify myself to the court. Nick Kauffman, I'm with AIM.

In just a few short days, I feel like I've learned a lot about our organization and the juvenile criminal justice system. Whereas Tuesday I couldn't even explain to someone what AIM was, today (thanks mostly to Amy) I feel like I'm starting to get a feel for the incredibly complex answer to that question. I'll post that next chance I get.

Also, I already know a workplace secret!

Welcome to Indianapolis

Late this afternoon, I arrived in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. My family used to come here a lot when I was little, but I don't spend much time here anymore. As far as big cities go, this is really a great place.

As it turns out, Indianapolis is the thirteenth-largest city in the United States and the second-largest state capital. (This does not include the outlying incorporated areas that are considered part of Indianapolis but are not technically within the city limits.)

I had no idea that we had such an impressive city in Indiana. Finding this fascinating, I had to see what the twelve cities beating us are. As of 2007, the only cities with populations larger than Indianapolis are:

New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit and Jacksonville.

I'm still getting settled here in Peace House (I really must post some pictures). The bad news is that I got the address wrong when I was playing with MapQuest a while back, so instead of being a mere couple of blocks from my internship site I'm really quite far and will have to drive, bringing me into the fold of people who will be bemoaning our high gas prices. This should start tomorrow, since I just about ran out of gas on my way down from Goshen.

The "good" news is that my minivan suffered some horrible fate yesterday and began literally spraying gasoline onto the road in what I arbitrarily choose to call a "ruptured fuel line" (in reality, I know nothing about cars). That means that, for the time being, I at least have Mom's more fuel-efficient Nissan Altima.

UPDATE - I just loaded the addresses into MapQuest, and I think when my coordinator told me that it would be too far to walk, she was thinking in Indianapolis mode. I'm still thinking in Mexico mode, so I feel like any distance I can walk within an hour is "walking distance." That's probably a really good attitude to have, but I seriously doubt I'll be walking the 0.95 miles to my placement on a regular basis. HOWEVER, my parents are bringing my bike down on Friday, and a mile is definitely within biking distance. Score one environment.

The people here are friendly and outgoing, and immediately put me to work chopping red peppers for a salad. I currently have no spot on the chore wheel, and it's uncertain when I'll get one - apparently it's perfect right now, and as the thirteenth member of the household I'm throwing everything off.

I've just started to meet my housemates and can't really say much about them at this point, but I'll post a more detailed commentary on my living situation at a later time. As for now, I'll just say that I'm here in Indy and I'm looking forward to everything that's soon to come.

An introduction

Hello,

My name is Nicolas Kauffman. I'm (almost) a fourth year Manchester (Ind.) College peace studies major from Goshen, Indiana. This summer I will be doing an internship in Indianapolis, Indiana at an organization called Aftercare for Indiana through Mentoring (AIM), which uses mentoring to work with youth with the goal of reducing the rate of recidivism. I am doing this internship as part of the summer program at the Indianapolis Peace Institute/Indianapolis Peace House.

This is possible because of a grant from the Scout Fuller Fund for Social Justice. Josephine "Scout" Fuller passed away from rhabdomyosarcoma on July 7, 2007, at the age of eight. She is the daughter of Abby Fuller and Neil Wollman, who have been active members of the Manchester College and North Manchester town communities. I am sorry I did not know her and grateful that I've been given the honor of this opportunity.

I am currently finishing a year of study in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico and will be starting my internship July 7 - one year to the day after Scout died. I'm keeping this blog with a few purposes in mind:

1. To provide updates for and share my experiences with Neil and Abby, and anyone else in the community.
2. To keep an account of my summer so as to create a final paper or project for credit at Manchester College.
3. To keep on blogging, because it's just something I do.

I probably won't post again before I actually start the internship, unless of course something of note actually occurs between now and then. In the meantime, here are some links you can peruse for more information:

About Scout
About the Fund
About AIM
About the Indy Peace Institute