This week of training had me feeling inspired and excited. I’m pumped to start preparing for Eureka! Camp and meeting the girls. I don’t have many expectations or goals, but one of the most important is to keep growing as a person, learner, and mentor. In our training this week, we learned about each other through team bonding, learned about facilitating lessons, mandated reporter training, and STEM lessons for Eureka!
The mandated reporter training day was heavy, necessary, and helpful to a degree. I’m the type of person who likes to have clear instructions for everything, including conversations. I often prepare things I’ll talk about before I go to events. Talking about abuse or neglect is hard to foresee in any conversation. We practiced how to act in an unexpected conversation about neglect or abuse and it helped, but we cannot prepare for everything. I still wish there were instructions but as they said in the training everyone has different ways they like to talk to girls in those situations and only through doing can we figure out what is best for us. The Girls Inc staff also made it clear that there would never be a test and if we needed help with a conversation like that, they would be there.
The training week overall was great. It was very nice to get to know everyone. I still want to know more though, and I am excited to learn more about everyone as we continue through the program. The Girls Inc staff is so amazing and it’s so nice to be surrounded by strong, supportive, and amazingly interesting women. I’m excited to see where the rest of the program takes us!