Journal Week 1

Day 1: Tuesday January 19th

During day 1 of my internship with the Bright House, a sexual assault and child advocacy

center in Milledgeville, I was able to meet the other three interns that I would be working with

during the semester and we were able to meet with JoAnna Smith the director to figure out what

our schedules would be each week. During the first day we had to take a few different training

courses to be able to interact with the victims later on in the semester which took up almost the

entire day of work. The training courses included videos about sexual assault advocacy and how

to go about interviewing or engaging with victims of sexual assault or physical abuse in a proper

manner. I found these courses to be very beneficial and I feel as though I gained a good amount

of knowledge from taking them. During the first day we also discussed our roles for the semester

which include playing with the children in the waiting room, sanitizing the toys and couches

after they leave, scanning files and downloading them to the computers, watching victim

interviews, sitting in on different meetings, and helping with any other tasks that any of the staff

members need us to help with.

Day 2: Wednesday January 20th

On day 2, we started the morning off by sitting in on a meeting which is when the staff

discussed with us what all would be happening that day as far as different victim interviews and

gave us some details about each of them and why they would be coming in to the office. I

enjoyed getting to sit in on this meeting because it let us be more involved and learn more about

the things they have to discuss before each victim comes in for either their forensic interview or

their medical exam. After the meeting we got to watch a victim interview about a young girl for

about an hour and a half. After watching the interview, we sanitized the entire waiting room and
made sure all of the door handles, couches, and toys that were played with were wiped and

sprayed down well.

Day 3: Thursday January 21st

On day 3, we started the morning again by sitting in on the morning meeting and learned

about the different victims that would be coming in that day. We then got to watch another

victim interview which lasted around 2 hours total. After watching the interview, me and another

intern were tasked with scanning victim files onto a thumb drive and uploading them to the

computer which took about an hour. After doing that we sat in the conference room and spoke

with the campus advocate about the 3 victims that were being interviewed at the moment in the

office and got more details about their case and why each of them was being interviewed and

how those interviews were going.

Day 4: Friday January 22nd

On day 4, we again started off the morning by having the daily morning meeting where

we discussed that the same victims from the previous day would be coming in again this day to

continue their interviews with law enforcement. We also were able to watch the interviews of

those victims as well as another interview of a different victim from a previous week which took

up most of the workday because each one was around 2-3 hours long. Even though it is pretty

hard hearing what these children have gone through and it can sometimes get pretty emotional,

getting to watch these interviews really helps prepare us interns and shows us how the

interviewing processes are done and how to go about interacting with each child to make sure

that they feel comfortable and safe to speak about what they have gone through.
Tuesday (1/19/2021): 10:00-5:00; 6 hours
Wednesday (1/20/2021): 9:00-5:00; 7 hours
Thursday (1/21/2021): 9:00-5:00; 7 hours
Friday (1/22/2021): 9:00-4:00; 6 hours
Weekly Hours: 26
Total Hours to Date: 26