By Iris Patterson, GCC director of youth development

In the spring, Goodman Community Center recruited, vetted and hired 10 young adult participants as paid summer limited-term employee interns. The young adults will receive training and mentoring from experienced GCC youth program staff while they learn to mentor youth themselves. As mentors, the participants will build leadership skills and learn about working with youth as a possible career path. These young adults will build new relationships, self-esteem and interpersonal communication skills.

The interns will have the opportunity to act as assistant coaches in weekly basketball sessions at Goodman for middle school summer program participants, run by the Madison Mavericks semipro basketball team. These interns will be trained to run additional basketball workshops at Goodman between the Mavericks’ visits and further engage youth participants.

The GCC interns will also accompany Goodman’s middle school staff team on program outings, field trips and activities on the Goodman campus. These offerings include outdoor activities like fishing, boating, swimming, beekeeping and gardening, and skill-building activities like STEM projects or cooking club. The interns will continue acting as youth mentors while also receiving mentoring from Goodman staff at the same time. Furthermore, the interns will be provided opportunities to explore other Goodman Center programs and departments outside of the middle school summer camp, such as child care, food pantry, program kitchen and older adult programs.

This summer intern program is the first attempt at incorporating programming for young adults age 19-26 at Goodman. We believe we can leverage our strengths in relationship building and mentoring to engage a pilot cohort of young adults in a meaningful summer experience. Staff will survey the young adults pre- and post-project to assess confidence and self-efficacy, job skills and work readiness, and progress toward self-reported goals.

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