Pictured left to right: Jessie Mao, Lyndis Clarke, Molly Meszaros, Erin Sior, Miranda Hays, Rose Willow Hegfield, and Amanda Moffit
As another program year begins, The Children’s Room welcomes a new group of graduate and undergraduate interns to their training program. This year, The Children’s Room will provide intensive professional training and supervision to seven interns for the entire school year. The interns come from several schools and represent different disciplines.
Our Program Interns assist in facilitating multiple peer support groups, new family orientations, and Family nights, and our graduate interns also help facilitate our Parenting While Grieving series, Teen Program events, do intakes on families seeking TCR services, and provide information and referrals to callers in need of grief support.
As an integral part of their clinical education and training, TCR interns also take part in a weekly seminar, providing an opportunity for didactic as well as experiential learning. TCR’s Program Staff will lead interns in covering topics such as child development and grief, bereavement theory, cultural diversity, religion and spirituality, and expressive arts.
The Children’s Room has been an intern placement for over a decade, first under the leadership of Colleen Shannon. The Internship Program has experienced impressive growth and professional development over the past few years in particular. In 2013, Nancy Frumer Styron, JD, PsyD, joined our staff as Clinical Director. Her decades of clinical experience and her leadership have paved the way for the growth and enhancement of a program that finds a true balance between hands-on experience and academic study.
As word has spread among students and faculty, The Children’s Room has become a well-respected and desirable intern site. Because of this, students interested in our Internship Program participate in a competitive application process.
Nancy shares, “By the time they have completed their year with us, this year’s interns will be able to say that they have studied many core aspects of bereavement. They will also be able to say that they had many hours of face-to-face interaction and phone time with grieving children, teens, and adults who receive support and understanding as they go through part of the grieving experience. We’re proud to be able to offer our interns the opportunity to have important exposure to grief and loss under the guidance and supervision of our experienced, knowledgeable staff members. We want to educate the next generation of professionals working in social work, psychology, expressive arts, and child life in an area that is not often taught in school.”
We welcome this year’s group of interns, knowing that their contributions to The Children’s Room are an integral part of our vision to be a leader in the field of grief support and a catalyst in transforming society’s understanding of grief.
