This summer, 59 students from 16 Member Schools participated in SHECP Summer Internship and Policy & Nonprofit Leadership Internship programs. Interns spent nine weeks living together and working full-time with community partners engaged in anti-poverty work.
With placements available across 12 cities and multiple sectors, the SHECP Summer Internship is curated to give students with an academic grounding in poverty the opportunity to deepen their understanding of poverty, including its definitions, causes, and potential solutions, while providing support to community partners. Year two of the Policy & Nonprofit Leadership Internship provided 3 outstanding students work experience in public policy and nonprofit leadership as they consider potential career paths to continue addressing issues of poverty in communities.
Transformational Placements: Relationships between community partners and students power the SHECP Summer Internship, and the intentionality of this connection is a hallmark of the program. This deep relationship begins when students and supervisors meet to create unique learning goals and continues through summer-long mentorship.
"Through working at an organization that prioritizes dignity and respect within a population that is often neglected, isolated, and stripped of their humanity, this internship at the most fundamental level has taught me how to treat people." – Katie Schadler, 2024 SHECP Intern with Miriam's Kitchen
In exchange, interns are able to provide substantive support to their agencies to advance their anti-poverty programming. 100% of the 2024 partners reported an overall positive experience. Many supervisors offered interns continued engagement opportunities, and sites shared countless stories of how SHECP interns transformed the programming they were able to provide this summer.
SHECP Internship Academy: SHECP Summer Interns spent their first week participating in the second annual Internship Academy. The Academy is designed to provide additional preparations for the interns to responsibly engage with host communities and frame the upcoming internship within the larger academic context and current economic, political, and social environment. Their schedules included outside speakers, opportunities to meet with SHECP staff and fellow cohort members, workshops on conflict, and other professional trainings.
On May 30th, SHECP hosted two general speaker sessions as part of the week-long Internship Academy. Dr. Randall Akee, associate professor in the Department of Public Policy and American Indian Studies at UCLA, gave an overview of his work on issues impacting Native and Indigenous peoples and discussed his experiences working with various organizations. Sarah Robertson (SHECP Intern ’03) and Dr. Curtis L. Webb III from Design Impact introduced co-design as a framework for addressing complex social issues, with a focus on fostering community leadership and driving equitable change. Participants had the opportunity to reflect, apply principles to real-life scenarios, and gain tools for equitable community engagement. Click here to learn about the Academy or to watch the recorded events>>
Connections Between In-Class and On-Site: Our summer-long academic programming provides interns opportunities to weave key concepts in and through their on-site experiences, helping them connect theory with practice and develop their civic identities. These opportunities include curated reflections, cohort discussions, and speaker events throughout the summer. Students also participated in a robust Conflict Transformation curriculum intended to explore existing ideas about conflict and build new skills for their summer and beyond. Click here to learn more about SHECP's work on Conflict Transformation>>
During the 2024 Practitioner Insights event series, interns learned about organizations’ strategies for amplifying stories about housing insecurity, providing legal assistance to victims of intimate partner violence, and bringing the community together to support individuals battling substance addictions. Although each speaker represented a different field of work, two major themes emerged from these events – how respecting each individual’s autonomy is a necessary element for respecting their dignity, and the power of storytelling for creating change. Click here for more information about the 2024 series>>
A Strong SHECP Community: When students apply to SHECP, they are agreeing to an internship experience that will place them in a new community, with new roommates, and in a new professional setting. This summer, SHECP alumni, friends, and community partners hosted a total of 22 events to encourage interns to integrate into their temporary cities and connect with the strong SHECP network. From rooftop lunches with community partners to minor league baseball games with friends of SHECP, interns consistently rate these events among their favorite parts of the summer. Click here to read more about the 2024 events>>
SHECP cultivates community among interns by placing students from different schools, working with different community partners, in cohort-based living arrangements. Conversations between roommates often illuminate how interconnected the issues of poverty are, as well as how different agencies collaborate to serve the community. While the day-to-day activities for interns may vary, cohort members are able to capitalize on their shared experience to build space to process their days, to ask thoughtful questions, and to know they are not alone in the highs and lows of their summer.
2024 Annual Conference: In late July, SHECP faculty, staff, interns, program alumni, and supporters gathered together for the 2024 Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
The event, made possible by support from the Frueauff Foundation, included an event featuring SHECP founder, Dr. Harlan Beckley, research and policy presentations by Dr. Latrice Rollins, Assistant Professor of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and Director of National African American Child and Family Research Center, and Emily Claire Torstveit Ngara, Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Immigration Clinic at the Georgia State University School of Law, and workshops led by Break-Away. Each speaker helped interns connect their experience to the larger research work happening in their fields and to prepare them to bring their SHECP experiences back to their home campuses.
The two-day event also provided the opportunity for interns to reconnect with their home institutions, introduce summer roommates to old friends, and listen to reflections by their fellow interns. During Friday night's dinner and Saturday's student panels, students discussed the impact of their summer internship and how this experience informs their future paths. Click here for more information about Conference and speakers>>
A Second Round of SHECP: In June, Policy & Nonprofit Leadership (PNPL) Interns returned to DC to work with the Brookings Institution, National Community Action Foundation (NCAF), and United Planning Organization (UPO). This program offers a unique opportunity for returning SHECP interns to gain greater understanding of the dynamics of organizational leadership and the creation of successful anti-poverty policies.
"There are so many people out there with really good intentions, that want to do good in the world, and want to help people out of poverty. But there are million ways to do that, and what a lot of working in the nonprofit world is like is identifying what works and what doesn't, and trying to move forward to do better...This second internship showed me ways to create my own perspective and advocate for something that I believed in, relying on other people’s experience and knowledge.” – Avani Kashyap, 2024 PNPL Intern with United Planning Organization
Pictured above: Avani Kashyap (UPO), Claire Yang (Brookings Institution), and Maria Elkins (NCAF)
Applicants for the PNPL internship have completed their SHECP Summer Internship and are interested in exploring careers in anti-poverty policy or the non-profit sector. This year, PNPL interns met with federal agencies, networked with individuals from DC-based consulting firms, and participated in workshops designed for future leaders in public service.
“I'm still very uncertain about what lies ahead in the years before studying law, and I think that maybe I want to dive deeper into the world of policy, or maybe I want to do something totally different! But I realized, and I realized this more than ever through SHECP, that whatever I do, I will do that with dignity and compassion and just a deep care for all.” – Claire Yang, 2024 PNPL Intern with Brookings Institution
Thank you to everyone who made the 2024 internship season a success!
"The strength of SHECP’s consortium model lies in the incredible network of schools and community members, and alumni who work tirelessly to build connections with our SHECP interns. In the same way, SHECP programming is so much richer for the continued connections with alumni, who stay engaged because of the transformative experiences SHECP provided." – Professor Matt Lawrence, Middlebury College, in opening remarks at the 2024 Internship Academy
Want to help us make 2025 our best summer yet? Contact us to find out how you can get involved:
To host an intern at your agency, email internshipdirector@shepherdconsortium.org
To host an intern welcome event in your city or to be part of our summer virtual events, email info@shepherdconsortium.org
To make a financial contribution to help SHECP reach as many students as possible, visit www.shepherdconsortium.org/support or email info@shepherdconsortium.org
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