Shadowing

On Wednesday, I shadowed Carolina who is one of the Program Coordinators for the Juvenile Justice program at the Girl Scouts. Her job encompasses a wide array of responsibilities, including but not limited to completing paper work including budgeting items, girl scout registration, office orders, developing and coordinating the programming for about 4 groups of girls included in under the Juvenile Justice umbrella of programming, over seeing the interns and other program specialists, attending various workshops and seminars and doing miscellaneous jobs that need to be completed e.g. gassing vans and calling girls for program.

She began her work day promptly at 8 am. She organized her appointments and started off with any paper work that she needed to have completed. I then helped her box the donated items that the girls from Adelante Jovencitas collected the night before during their community service "Can or Treat program". We then hopped into one of the Girl Scout vans and drove to a warehouse to pick up some diapers that Carol had ordered for the upcoming "Baby Camp" weekend next March. After we stacked the boxes in the back of the van, we headed back to the office, to pack carts for the program at Durango Juvenile Jail. We left for the jail at 11 am and were cleared to enter at about 11:40 am.

We entered a large room decorated with Halloween drawings, colorings and crafts with about two visible floors. In the center of the room was an opened area where about 12 girls dressed in the same grey sweater, blue pants and blue tennis shoes sat in a semi circle with their heads down. Carol asked the officers if we could begin program and then started talking and joking around with the girls. She pitched out Adelante Jovencitas program to the girls, encouraging them to join when they were out. She showed me how to take attendance and register the new girls. She then continued with an icebreaker. She asked the girls each to share something that they liked about themselves. When the girls were all done sharing, We passed out plates and makers for the plated designing activity. Both Carol and I went around and monitored the girls progress and discussed their craft with them. When they were done, we collected our materials, answered the girls questions and packed up to leave. We then drove back to the office.

When I got back to the office, I stacked the diapers in the store room, while Carol and Melissa started making calls for our DIVINE and Girl Scouts Beyond Bars programs on Thursday and Saturday. At about 5pm we got ready to go home. It was a pretty long day but I enjoyed it. I learned jail procedure and all the rules associated with interacting with the girls. Carol and I also had a lot of time to talk about the different programs and I discussed with her the issues that I was having adjusting to some of the demands placed on me by my internship. She educated me on how to handle certain situations and disclosed to me that she would be handing off the Durango program to me in a few weeks. I was very excited but a little scared also. I really do love this kind of work and empowering this population of young women. I can only hope that they will benefit from the work that we do.