CASA BRIDGES Intern, Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children of DC
Major: PSYC & CCJS
Class Year: 2024
What was a typical week like in your internship position?
The BRIDGES Program works with the juvenile youth involved with CASA DC. As the sole intern for this program, I assist my direct supervisor and the rest of the BRIDGES team with their caseloads and workloads. My week is typically 10 hours which consisted of many different tasks this semester. This included editing court reports before sending them to the court, sending emails to CASAs, and creating a BRIDGES Google Classroom for the CASAs. I also had the opportunity to attend the training that the CASAs have to go through and have been sworn into the DC Supreme Court as a CASA. Once I graduate in 2024, I plan on returning as a CASA to advocate for a youth.
What do you enjoy most about your current position?
I definitely enjoy the people I work with the most. Everyone who I have met at CASA genuinely cares about the work that they do and the youth we represent and I think that is incredibly important. They are always coming up with new ways to improve the organization and include me in the discussions -- valuing my input. My supervisor is amazing, understanding, and very accommodating when I have to change my internship hours on certain days. Internships with CASA DC are currently virtual but whenever there has been an in-person event/workshop that they have reached out for help with, I have jumped at the opportunity to go into the office and interact with the rest of the CASA team.
How did your coursework help you in your internship?
When I graduate, I want to work with special victims -- crimes against children to be specific. CCJS360 Victimology's unit of Child Victims has been a huge help during this internship. I have been able to relate a lot of case information to material I learned in that class. As the Spring 2022 Teaching Assistant for CCJS360, it is interesting to attend this class at the same time as this internship. Both CCJS360 and this internship have definitely helped me gain a better understanding of the criminal justice field in regards to children. Even though some of these youth have committed crimes, many of them are also victims of other separate crimes.
How did you locate your internship position?
I had heard about CASA during one Victimology (CCJS360) class Spring 2021. During my internship search throughout the Fall 2021 semester, I remembered learning about CASA and Googled their website to see if they had any summer internship positions. I saw that they had multiple programs and I applied for both the BRIDGES and EMPOWER internship positions. I emailed the required materials to the provided email and we scheduled an interview. Afterwards, I was offered the internship position for the Spring 2022 semester and was then was later asked to return for Summer 2022.
Advice for students:
One piece of advice would be to definitely start your internship search early. Many criminal justice related internships for the summer have deadlines during the fall semester or early spring semester and you do not want to miss them. I also recommend applying for as many as possible because you are not going to be offered every internship and it is better to have options. With that, do not be discouraged if your top choice of internship denies you. You can always apply again the following year. Finally, apply for both paid and unpaid internships. Having a paid internship may be preferred, but an unpaid internship will be just as beneficial. My internship with CASA DC is unpaid but it has been a great and rewarding experience nonetheless.