INTRODUCING SKYLER WOLFE
Hi everyone! My name is Skyler Wolfe, I am a Senior at Portland State University in which I will be graduating in June. My major is Social Sciences and I am minoring in Child, Youth and Family Studies. During the fall, I had decided to take on an internship at Kartini Clinic as an assistant school teacher, where I helped students with their homework while they were going through treatment for their eating disorders. The reason I chose this organization was because I had some personal experience with an eating disorder in high school, and I thought that learning more about the treatment and facilities such as this one, could be a great experience. When I entered Kartini, I truly enjoyed the aesthetics behind this artistic/minimalistic look of the clinical, and the HR Director was incredibly kind to me. I started my internship a the end of November and ended in March. This internship was unpaid, I helped out every Friday from 9-3pm, and I was able to do some shadowing with some therapies within the clinic. Kartini was such an incredible, eye-opening experience and I am so happy to be sharing a little bit about Kartini, and my time there as an assistant teacher. My end goal after I graduate is to take a couple of years off, and then participate in a graduates program for counseling. Kartini has helped me to gain a little bit of insight regarding HIPA, health, and trauma-informed care within this type of work, which will only help my future opportunities! I feel very fortunate to have been involved with this program in which they are evolving for future internees.
Hi everyone! My name is Skyler Wolfe, I am a Senior at Portland State University in which I will be graduating in June. My major is Social Sciences and I am minoring in Child, Youth and Family Studies. During the fall, I had decided to take on an internship at Kartini Clinic as an assistant school teacher, where I helped students with their homework while they were going through treatment for their eating disorders. The reason I chose this organization was because I had some personal experience with an eating disorder in high school, and I thought that learning more about the treatment and facilities such as this one, could be a great experience. When I entered Kartini, I truly enjoyed the aesthetics behind this artistic/minimalistic look of the clinical, and the HR Director was incredibly kind to me. I started my internship a the end of November and ended in March. This internship was unpaid, I helped out every Friday from 9-3pm, and I was able to do some shadowing with some therapies within the clinic. Kartini was such an incredible, eye-opening experience and I am so happy to be sharing a little bit about Kartini, and my time there as an assistant teacher. My end goal after I graduate is to take a couple of years off, and then participate in a graduates program for counseling. Kartini has helped me to gain a little bit of insight regarding HIPA, health, and trauma-informed care within this type of work, which will only help my future opportunities! I feel very fortunate to have been involved with this program in which they are evolving for future internees.
Kartini Clinic
WHAT IS KARTINI?
"Kartini Clinic was founded in 1998 by Dr. Julie O'Toole, at the time a general practice pediatrician in Portland. Originally designed as an outpatient program, it soon became clear to Dr. O'Toole that most seriously eating disordered patients could not be treated adequately on an outpatient basis. The Kartini Clinic Day Treatment Unit was created in 2004 to provide medically necessary and clinically appropriate eating disorder treatment for children and young adults. From the outset our program has been family-centered with a strong medical emphasis on prompt, adequate weight gain as a prerequisite to a resumption of normal growth and development. Since 1998 Kartini Clinic has treated more than 3000 patients and their families from around the country and around the world, from every walk of life and every conceivable socio-economic background. Since the beginning, our clinical work has taught us that parents don't cause eating disorders and children don't choose to have them. Scientific evidence has since proven this to be true."
Kartini is family-centered and evidence-based, and focuses on weight restoration before all else, incorporating pediatric help, and therapies to help with their disorders. This program also provides housing at the Ronald McDonald House during treatment.
SCHOOL INTERN DUTIES
-Assist school teacher with daily activities
-Assist in filling out the daily school staffing notes throughout the day for each student
-Read over school staffing notes before participating in next intern day
-Understand student assessments and assist them with questions about homework
-Creatively work with students who are not currently enrolled in a specific school system by developing school-related activities
-Create a comfortable environment for the children
-Abide by all Kartini rules and regulations associated with employee responsibilities
SHADOWING
I was fortunate enough to shadow the "MOON" and "SUN" group; the MOON group is kids ages 13/14-18, while the SUN group is kids ages 6-12/13. During these shadows, I was able to eat with the kids during their lunch time, participate in their group therapies and art class, as well as stay in the classroom with them. While in their group therapy they had "check-in," on Friday's, where they would discuss their week, and talk about some goals for the weekend or for their next group session. Kids would even express their next goal in regards to their eating disorder, if they felt comfortable. Some children were on Kartini's meal plan, so they would often be doing this plan with their families while outside of the Kartini Clinic, in which they would talk about with the Milieu therapists. This type of therapy allows the kids to express themselves while in a safe environment where they are being heard. This experience was much different than in the classroom, where no talk about the eating disorder was allowed.
EXPERIENCE WITH KIDS
One of my favorite things during this internship opportunity, was experiencing the kids and their personalities. There is no doubt that going through treatment of an eating disorder while enrolled in school, is very hard. Throughout my psychology, and child & family studies classes, there has been an emphasis on the health of children correlated with education. Since Kartini is an evidence-based clinic, they focus primarily on treatment and ensuring the child is healthy before getting too worried about academic, although it is still very important to them, which was why the school was developed in 2004. I was able to assist kids in developing ideas for writing prompts, encouraging them to start their homework, help them organize, and present certain deadlines for them. We could not be too forceful when it came to doing school work, but we did nicely encourage them and use positive reinforcements once they did start. It was always a small classroom, so being attentive to each student was quite easy, except for the fact that the attendance would fluctuate due to kids being discharged from the school. The discharging would happen often because they were considered ready for outpatient services instead of being partially hospitalized.
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Here are some examples of what I had been working on with the students, and also a little art piece that a student had drawn for me! The last picture is a Friday check in for the students to talk about goals and how they're feeling, during their milieu therapy.