For the past nine months, we have been serving as LAJF’s social work interns as part of our degree program in social work at New York University. This is the second year that LAJF has welcomed social work interns, the first year being in 2019. The organization hopes to continue to have social work interns in the years to come. Now, as graduation approaches, we want to reflect not only on the work we have done with the organization, but also the impact this organization has had on us.  

Part of our job this year has been hosting virtual community events for alums of the 2019, 2020, and 2021 Camp Rising Sun and Virtual Camp Rising Sun seasons. As a way to maintain the relationships built during camp, we offer opportunities to connect alumni of different years and give them the opportunity to share their experiences in the different programs. We also offer various ways to reconnect with CRS and LAJF, as well as allow 2020 and 2021 alumni to meet campers from 2019 who can speak on CRS pre-pandemic. Many of the sessions are loosely topic based social hours for alums to share their thoughts on our posed topic or simply interact with the CRS community. For instance, we had a session earlier this calendar year where many alumni were speaking on frustrations with their school schedules and how meals were staggered. One alum shared that their lunch was scheduled at 10 in the morning due to their class schedule. Another alum chimed in and said their lunch period was not till 2 pm so they were hungry most of the day. This became a cultural discussion where alums talked about school systems, how they were all preparing for the end of the academic year, and eventually the importance of breakfast (an apparently very contentious topic). As the social work interns at LAJF, we hold space to show our younger alums that they are part of this network.

We also had the pleasure of joining in on two staff retreats during our internship at the Rhinebeck campus, where we facilitated two workshops on adolescent development for full time staff. In addition to the social work curriculum, both of us completed minors in Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Olivia focused her minor studies on childhood trauma, sexuality, and gender, and Leo focused his studies on mental health issues requiring higher levels of care such as eating disorders and personality disorders, as well as family and parent counseling. We were able to bring our different sets of studies together to create a workshop to teach and work with staff to create programming that centered development for adolescents. This included both more technical education as well as conversations on how to best support emerging adults during their time at camp. 

Continuing our internal organizational support, we recently created a restorative justice pamphlet that will be used by the summer team during the 2022 camp season. Although restorative justice’s roots are in the criminal justice system, the values and principles can be applied to work with campers, and are a regular part of how many schools deal with conflict. The pamphlet we created highlights techniques, such as restorative circles, that center accountability and responsibility. When using these practices at CRS, campers will grow and adapt as empathetic and compassionate leaders.

In preparation for the upcoming season, we have had the pleasure of assisting with application organization, camper interviews, and virtual informational sessions. As part of the New York and New Jersey interviews, we got to facilitate group activities where applicants came together to build a classic CRS instruction. Those interviews, as well as the hundreds of applications, are evidence of how impressive CRS campers are. We were frequently blown away by the talent within our community.  

As our final way to support the upcoming campers, we facilitated a workshop for our Virtual CRS 2022 campers on diversity, equity, and inclusion within the camp space. We recognize that our upcoming campers are coming from all kinds of backgrounds, and so this workshop will both help bring everyone to the same base level of education and allow us to orient the group to conversations that will happen at camp. This workshop touched on creating collaborative understandings of identity as well as hands-on program planning exercises as a group. 

Since we are not alumni, this internship has been our first interaction with LAJF and CRS. Our work has allowed us to see how incredible the CRS family is and all the wonderful things LAJF does for their community. As we wrap our internship with CRS and LAJF, we want to acknowledge the impact the work we’ve done has had on us. Our time with this organization has helped us further explore our career goals, as well as brought us into the wonderful LAJF family and network throughout the world. Our work with LAJF has also reinforced our own individual commitments to cross-cultural work and learning. As the academic year comes to an end and our graduation approaches, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to the Louis August Jonas Foundation and Camp Rising Sun community for welcoming us and helping us to become better social workers. 

Thank you for welcoming us into this community.

Leo and Olivia