GOALS InternAt — GOALS

The Teach for GOALS Internship program is an internship program that first launched in 2016, and is now led by our Volunteer Coordinator Jareli Gordillo, with the goal to ensure that college students with a lack of resources have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in their desired career field ultimately leading them to being prepared for employment. Although there are many organizations that provide internships, our Teach For GOALS Internship Program is different in the way in which we aim to ensure that low income minorities are provided the same opportunities and the same level of experience as students from more fortunate backgrounds.

The reason Teach for GOALS has a big emphasis on this is due to the fact that many college students are landing in the unemployed category once they graduate due to, as mentioned above, lack of resources and opportunities. As mentioned in our GOALS mission statement, we aim to “...provide team oriented, free, long term social development opportunities for low income students in areas of high need” which also goes for our Teach For GOALS Internship program in a way that we are ensuring our interns are getting the tools to secure their future and ultimately positively affect them in a long term aspect.

Our program typically runs throughout the fall semester and spring semester serving approximately around 10 to 20 college students per semester. Although our Teach For GOALS Internship program is at its peak during the school year, GOALS also provides summer internship opportunities with our Summer of Service volunteer program giving college students plenty of flexibility and options in order to complete their internship, gain experience, and in time employment in their career field. 

Tasks:

The way that our Teach For GOALS Internship Program provides our interns with the experience needed is by providing in person assistance to teachers, instructors, instructional assistants (IA), site coordinators, program coordinators, and/or other school staff at our various sites and locations.

Teach For GOALS provides services in many different locations and programs including GOALS for ABC after school program, GOALS for Valadez afterschool program, and Everybody Counts, a program where we provide assistance to adults with disabilities in many ways. Typically our interns will be assigned to a different program and location where they are supervised by our experienced site coordinators who have 10+ years of experience working in this field allowing them to provide a proper experience to our interns.

Aside from being able to be in the field and gain experience, Teach For GOALS Internship Program provides the interns with additional professional development classes once a week to ensure they are truly gaining everything possible from their interning experience.

Although as an organization GOALS does everything possible to ensure this, our participants and those that we serve need more and with additional funds, Teach For GOALS Internship Program will be able to ensure we are providing the best and up to date services for all of our participants.  

Training:

Students will receive trainings based on General information on the organization which will also cover the Logistics, Personnel Policies & Requirements, Emergency Operations Plan, Teach for GOALS Internship Program, Mandated Reporting, First-Aid and Safety, Field Trip Safety and Interacting with Students.

Students will also be required to attend and complete activities in our Professional Development Workshops bi-weekly, in order to be informed on how to perform in a professional environment.

Furthermore, students will be placed with a designated Site Coordinator/Supervisor that they will get to shadow and refer to for any assistance needed throughout their internship.

Learning Outcome:

By the end of the academic internship, the student will have gained experience interacting with children of all ages.

Students will also have learned how to develop curriculum designated to specific grade levels as well as how to organize activities for children.

Overall the internship will give students the experience to engage with and lead groups of children in various areas.

Please Note:

Considering we provide services to at-risk youth, our facilities are found in areas of high-crime, however, students are never left alone inside nor outside of these facilities without a Supervisor in sight. Parking for these facilities are located near the entrances of all facilities and students are often walked out with some of our staff. Also, considering we have children present at our facilities, students are provided with the same protection as our participants.