Internship at The Arc
During the fall of my junior year at Hamilton, I interned with the Arc of Oneida Lewis County. In addition to attending to secretarial tasks in the office, my main focus was working with young adults with mental disabilities at the Venture Day Habilitation Program. It was clear that the individuals at Venture really enjoyed hanging out with me and spending time together- they loved to play Uno! I had the opportunity to help the staff teach life skills, such as counting money and kitchen safety. Occasionally, I got to go on “outings” with a group of individuals. These outings consisted of going out into the community for a few hours to work. The tasks that the group were assigned to do were generally very mundane and insignificant (such as setting the dining room tables at a nursing home or taking out the trash at a store), but individuals with disabilities absolutely loved every minute of it. For them, as I learned, it wasn’t as much about the task they were performing, but it was about getting out into the community. Outings gave each person a sense of importance and significance and enabled them to have social interactions with new people. I have included my final paper for the Intro to Disability Studies course, which draws on many of my experiences at the Arc, including the work I did at coordination services, at Venture, and with a children's program one Saturday night. Overall, the Arc taught me a lot of important skills needed to properly communicate with and to respect individuals with mental disabilities, which will be extremely useful in dealing with any students with special needs. One of the biggest things I learned from my time working at the Venture Program is that even though many of the people were autistic, their needs and disabilities were all incredibly different. Just because they are diagnosed with the same disorder does not mean that they all need the same services and attention. Understanding one autistic person does not lead you to understand all people with autism. Each autistic person needs individualized attention and instruction.