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!