Spending my days in a monastery

My internship is at The Trauma Centre located in Woodstock, which is just two communities towards the city center from me. I am in the children and violence programme. There are two other psychologists who started working there in February and my supervisor. The Trauma Centre is coming out of a slump and working on getting funding together. You can see more at www.trauma.org.za It is located in an old monastery next to a church. There is a garden which contains plaques placed there by Hilary Clinton and the Queen of Denmark.

At the moment I have been working on various workshops. We are conducting one with 6th graders on preventing bullying. We have had session on empathy, prejudices and understanding why people bully. Another workshop is with 200 parents on topics such as HIV/AIDS as trauma and domestic violence. Another one that starts next week is with preschool teachers on recognizing and addressing trauma in children.

I will eventually do individual counseling with children, but I jumped the gun and came to my internship before all the paperwork was done.