This summer, I had the amazing opportunity to complete my Practicum Fellowship with Beacon House. I am so grateful that I had this opportunity to work with incredible people and gain skills and experience working for a non-profit organization. The specific project I worked on was the Building Resilient Youth through Connection and Empowerment, or BRYCE Project. This program focuses on providing mental health resources to youth and their parents and families who are a part of Beacon House. The resources are available on the BRYCE website which is what my work focused on.
One of my main tasks was to create a resources directory containing a list of all the resources currently on the BRYCE website to determine which resources were still available and relevant to the community at Beacon House. The website contains many different categories of mental health resources and different types of resources, such as videos, apps, in-person resources, and telephone resources, so I was tasked with several categories, such as bullying, substance use, ADHD, mental health support, and others. For each of the categories I was responsible for, I recorded each of the resources on the website from each type of resource into the resources directory, and while doing this, I made note of whether I thought the resource was still relevant and ensured that it was still available if the resource still existed or link to a video still worked.
Another task was to search online for new resources that could be added to these categories and to find resources focused on promoting mental health and well-being. This is a new section that the team and I wanted to add to the website to provide resources for the community focused on maintaining good mental health. This would provide resources on the website for people who are not struggling with their mental health and instead want to continue having good mental health.
One takeaway from this experience is that I learned the importance of ensuring that resources are applicable to the target population. It is important to tailor the resources listed on the website to the community at Beacon House so that they would be resources they would want to use and would be relatable to them. In addition, I truly enjoyed working with Beacon House because of the focus on community. Being able to center the new resources with the perspective of the community in mind, I gained skills in promoting public health resources that would be the most beneficial to the specific community.
I know that the skills I gained through this fellowship experience will be beneficial to a career in public health. I am very grateful to the Center of Excellence for this opportunity to gain new skills, make connections with the staff at Beacon House, and for the ability to provide mental health resources to the community at Beacon House through this work.