Australian Internship in School Psychology

My name is Arthur Dietz and I am a Junior Psychology major who is currently participating in an internship with a program called MAD. The program is based in a TAFE School in Nambour, Australia. The purpose of this program is to take teenagers who have dropped out of school, have continuous problems in school, or are "un fit" to be in school and show them a multitude of different positive pathways that are available to them. The students range from 14 to 17 year old males who have been through an interview and screening process before being accepted into the program. The program opens doors to certain opportunities and advantages that will help the students in everyday life as well as the future. My role in this process is to help them stay in tune to what the program offers and to help them through the basic everyday classes that they will be involved in as well as providing assistance in assessing the students and sometimes counselling them when needed. Throughout this internship I have written weekly journals to keep everyone up to date with my internship.

The first week of the internship has proved to be an interesting start. My supervisor’s name is Pav and I am working with him throughout the program to help observe how the group interacts with each other and the program. I will also try to maintain a certain academic atmosphere while also keeping the students comfortable enough to participate and stay on track. I have been placed in a MAD program that consists of 10 troubled teenagers. These teenagers have all been assessed and interviewed before they were admitted into this program and all have either dropped out of school or have been expelled. Throughout the assessment and interviews they were asked certain questions that relate to what career they are interested in, the “character type” they fall into, their anger management strategies, as well as a multitude of other questions pertaining to how they will react in the program. They were also given certain tests to see where their academic capabilities were. These tests consisted of basic criteria on mathematics, reading and writing. They provided academic criteria to show what areas the students need help with the most and what areas we will need to focus on.
The program started off with the students at camp for a little less than a week. This camp was created to bring the students together in an atmosphere that would allow them to get to know each other and get comfortable with the group that they will be working with for the next 17 weeks. For this second week of the program the students were learning what it takes to be a cook. They work in a kitchen preparing foods and cleaning. During this week is when I came into the program and was introduced to everyone. One of the students actually took it upon himself to introduce me to everyone else. So far this week the group that I am working with seems to be a pretty good group of students who are mostly well behaved. They have been keen on getting their tasks done and performing them as best they can.

This week they concentrated mostly on fitness and self-defence witch almost all of the students enjoyed doing very much. They would all run circuits with multiple exercise areas that teach them common knowledge about fitness, endurance, and how they can stay in shape and keep fit. Although a lot of the students smoke they did do pretty good on the circuit. I even participated in the circuit and found myself to be a bit out of shape as a lot of the students surpassed the efforts that I put into the exercise.
This week also turned out to be a great opportunity to gain experience with the assessment area of my learning objectives. Pav, my supervisor, asked me to take one of the students, who’s name will be Neo for the sake of confidentiality, aside and talk with him about any of the problems he may be having with some of the other students. Recently it has been brought to Pav’s attention that one or several of the other students may be ridiculing Neo throughout the day. As a result I took Neo aside to speak with him on anything he might feel to be relevant. Whether it is having problems in the program with the other students or anything else that is on his mind. I started off by asking him to tell me a little bit about him self such as where he came from, what he enjoyed doing, what his hobbies were, etc. I did not get much of a response from him at first and I think it is because I have not had the opportunities to establish a relationship that would allow him to open up to me. After getting to know a little about Neo I asked him about the program and what the thought of it. He began to tell me that he thinks the program is good and he hopes to get an apprenticeship from it. As I asked him what he likes and dislikes about the program he immediately broke into conversation about how two of the other students involved in the program are making fun of him. He began to tell me that he is friends with one of them and knows he does not mean anything by the statements that the makes but he does tend to go too far sometimes. The other student however was being relentless with the vulgar statements he was making towards Neo. Neo went on to tell me that the student would not stop when asked and that he even told someone about it without any effect.
After consulting with the student I had a meeting with Pav about what was said. I proceeded to tell him everything that was going on with Neo and the other students and then we came up with a plan to attempt to get the students together and learn about the effects of ridiculing others.
This will be our last week at this facility because we are now going to be attending Nambour TAFE for the rest of the program.

As stated last week we are now in Nambour institute for TAFE. This first week the students went through an introduction to TAFE and what this institution offers its students. TAFE is a form of education that is an alternative to a college or university in witch it provides its students with hands-on experience right from the beginning. The classes are hands-on sessions in which the students will be performing tasks in several different career types such as carpentry, metal work, welding, and computer skills. As well as the introduction to TAFE the students have participated in team learning exercises, relationship building sessions, laughter therapy sessions, as well as learning how to budget their income. The team learning, relationship building, and budgeting were all exercises that were performed in an in-class setting. These sessions consisted of the students working together in groups to solve common problems that they were given as well as working out how they need to spend their money. We went over a budgeting system that showed the students the importance of paying bills on time, saving money, as well as showing the students different ways in which they can cut down on their spending.
The really exciting part of this week was when the laughter therapist came in to get the students involved in a therapy session that would help them relieve some of their stresses as well as show them that laughter is a great technique that can make them feel better about themselves. This experience turned out to be quite an interesting as well as entertaining experience. We performed some exercises in which you had to go up to the person next to you and just make sounds like you were talking in your own language. Some of the students found this part of the exercise to be extremely funny while others chose not to participate. At the end of the day we asked the students what they thought about the laughter therapy that they had. A majority of the students who did participate said that it was fun and they actually felt better at the end of the day. They also stated that laughing itself makes other people around them laugh and it makes everyone feel better about themselves.
This week proved to be a great week that provided me with new knowledge on different types of therapy. Laughter therapy turns out to be more widely spread than I thought. The laughter therapist that I met this week stated that she travels around the world performing these sessions to lawyers, businessmen and women, and even to large groups of people. She even has her own CD that she produced to go along with her session.

I only attended one day of this week’s internship because the school is on its mid-semester break. I currently have 37 of the intended 150 hours that we need by the end of the internship. I only stayed for approximately 5 hours of this day because the students only had a half of a day. This time was mostly spent in the library with the students working on the computers while Pav had several meetings he had to attend. I met with the head of the TAFE program and obtained a large amount of information on what the TAFE institution brings to the community as well as the different careers that it allows its students to specialise in. This information will be entered into the portfolio that I am putting together for the internship.

This week brought an end to the construction sector of the program. The program that once used to be an opportunity for these students to have a second chance, and in some cases even a third, is seeing itself through some bad times. One of the construction teachers approached Pav and I and stated that someone in the group of students has stolen his money from his wallet. This is an unacceptable act against the respect of the teacher, Pav, and the program itself. This program was set in place to help them gain an opportunity to get an apprenticeship and hopefully go on to become a specialised individual in their chosen career and the acts of one or several of the students brought those intensions crumbling to a halt. If the students are not showing improvements in their behaviour and acts such as this continue to happen the program can be shut down. None of the teachers will want to work with students who will steal from them and not show them the respect that they deserve.
After we found out about the stolen money Pav and I gathered all of the students into a classroom and discussed what had happened. While some of the students were angry about the situation because they can see the severity of it others were not so shaken. We all came up with a solution that would hopefully turn up with the money, but to our disappointment the money was not returned. Through more discussion we found that none of them either knew who took the money or the person(s) who did take it would not return it.
While performing the tasks needed to sustain this program it can become very stressful to who is involved. Both Pav and I were feeling stressed to the point where Pav scheduled a meeting with the head of the MAD program to discuss everything that has happened and to figure out what it means for the program. Hopefully he would find out what can be done to help sustain the program and get the students back on track.

To recap on the happenings of last week, some of the students came forward with information on the money that was taken and how many of the students were involved. Pav confronted the students once again and then took them aside one by one in which he found that one of the students took the money and then distributed it with two other students. Right now Pav, the construction teacher, and the students are working out a payment plan to fully reimburse the teachers money.
This week I was informed that we have the introduction of a new group into the program. Group number 3 (consists of another group of ten students) began the program two weeks ago and has started the Nambour TAFE section of their program. Pav had asked me to supervise the students in Group 3 while he supervised Group 2. Group 3 participated in laughter therapy for the first half of the day and then went on to perform some assessment tasks for the second half. Although laughter therapy turned out to be a good event for Group 2, for Group 3 this was not the case. Nearly all of the students involved in Group 3 and laughter therapy did not participate. Throughout the first half of the day only 2 students out of Group 3 participated in laughter therapy while the rest of the group proved to be very difficult to supervise. Throughout laughter therapy the students in Group 3 began to leave until at the end the group consisted of two students. Although the group was down to two students we continued with the rest of the program and got them started on some assessment criteria. The assessment criteria consisted of emotional, skill, career, and anger assessment worksheets. Through this they found out how they handle their emotions and anger as well as finding what they might want to do for a career.

This week has proved to be another hard week for the program. With the introduction of a new group to the program the first group has been set back in their progress.
Before the introduction of Group 3, Group 2 was performing quite well with the exception of a few setbacks. They were coming to the program and attending the classes regularly with an occasional few students taking off at mid-day. The students were beginning to become more focused on the tasks that they were required to perform in that area of the course. They seemed to be enjoying the time spent in the classes working on their projects more and more each day. Then came the introduction of Group 3. As Group 3 was introduced to the program at Nambour TAFE the students in both groups began to fall apart. Attendance was down, if the students did attend they would take off at random times before the day was over or they would all leave at lunch break, they wouldn’t do the necessary tasks to pass the classes, things looked as if the program was literally falling apart.
From my point of view, I think that it might have been too much for the program to take on two groups of students at the same time. There just is not enough staff to keep all of the students in check and to keep them all focused on the tasks at hand. What I think should have been done was to either hire another assistant or counsellor such as my supervisor, Pav, or wait until Group 2 has completed the entirety of the program and then bring in Group 3. At least if they waited to bring in Group 3 there most likely would not have been as many problems as there was when they introduced them to the program while Group 2 was still involved.

This week I am back with Group 2 because Group 3 has been sent to another part of the TAFE program that is in the city of Nambour. The attendance rate is still quite sparse compared to earlier weeks in the course. Although there is at least one student who stays throughout the entire day he is sometimes sent home early because the rest of the group is not there and there is not enough students to teach the class.
Throughout the duration of this program I have established client-based relationships with some of the students to the point where they feel comfortable enough to come to me with any problems they may have within the program, whether it be with other students, the teachers, or the requirements of the class that they are in at the time. I often find out what the problem is and help them to see that it is not as bad as they might think and that there is still a way to enjoy what the class is offering and to finish the required tasks. I have gotten feedback from my supervisor on this topic and he states that I should try to be more extroverted. He stated that I tend to wait until they come to me and instead I should go to them when I notice that there may be something wrong, they need help, or they are getting off task. I should start to approach them instead of waiting for them to approach me.
I have also noticed that when the students are acting out for attention I tend to give into it and give them the attention instead of taking a step back and choosing to ignore what they are doing. This could often become a problem because once they knew what “buttons to press” they knew that they could get my attention and by doing so they would not be focused on the task at hand. Since I have noticed this I have begun to ignore the acts that they put on to gain my and others attention and more often than not they calm down and actually go back to working in the class. I have discussed this with Pav and he agrees that I should continue to ignore their tactics, as it is a good strategy that he uses to keep them on track and involved.

The attendance rate this week has been better than the previous weeks and I think the students have realized that if they do not attend they will not pass and will not be able to get an apprenticeship.
We are now towards the end of Group 2’s program. Both groups were combined for this week’s sessions on computer skills, budgeting, and career choices. They will be going over typing, e-mailing, fax machine uses, and they will type a letter to an organization of their choice. After completing these tasks they go on to a budgeting exercise that will help them to understand the importance of paying bills on time, saving, and the use of their money for recreational purposes. Once they have completed these tasks they then move on to career choices. During this stage the student will go with two career mentors and discuss what they themselves would like to do, the different career areas that they covered throughout the program, and try to construct a plan that will get them an apprenticeship in the area of their choice.
Although this program itself is a fairly new program it gives another chance to many teenagers who might think that there is nothing else out there for them. It is only within its second and third group of students and throughout the program Pav has noticed a continued increase in the attitudes of the students. Throughout my internship I have witnessed the growth of several students who at the beginning were not sure of what they wanted to do. As they progressed along with the program they have come to realize that there is something out there for them to become and now they have an opportunity to get an apprenticeship in a field that they enjoy and want to be in.

As their program seems to be coming to an end my internship is on the last week as well. Throughout this internship I have experienced a great deal of insight into this program and what it brings to the students. The staff members that I have worked with are a well-rounded group of individuals who give their knowledge on each subject without hesitance. Even through some of the setbacks that were involved throughout the program the entire staff kept a high-spirited attitude towards the students and were always ready to help in any way possible.