Project Narrative

Katie McKee and Landry Simpson

KINS 4306: Internship in Public Health

Dr. Ernest Kaninjing

20 April, 2021
What We Did

For our Spring 2021 internship, we (Landry Simpson and Katie McKee) implemented a

two-part project in order to target the high school population of Milledgeville, Georgia. In order

to carry this project out, our first step was to get information and resources out into the high

schools. We first created two designs of informational flyers that touch on the reality of sexual

assault rates in the high school age group. In addition to a bold statistic, we included the 24-hour

crisis line for The Bright House, as well as other general information regarding the child abuse

and sexual assault advocacy center. We reached out, via email, to the local high schools:

Baldwin, GMC, and John Milledge Academy. We also reached out to Gatewood and Putnam

High School, but never heard back even after follow-up calls and emails. After getting approval

of the flyers from both our supervisor, JoAnna Smith, and the high school principals, we printed

out thirty flyers for each school (15 of each design) and had them hung up in the hallways and

bathroom walls.

For the second part of our project, we worked alongside Young Life to build a bridge

between the ministry and The Bright House. Young Life is a relational ministry that has the main

focus of building friendships with middle and high school students. JoAnna informed us at the

beginning of our internship that she has been wanting to get involved with Young Life, because

of how closely tied the leaders are to the students. In order to build this bridge between the two

organizations, we held a training session with the 100+ leaders on the signs of abuse, what to say

to a victim of abuse, and how to properly make a report. We contacted Derek Hay, the area

director for the greater Milledgeville area, in order to come up with the best strategies on how

and when to present our information. We shared our training powerpoint with the leaders on

March 28th at Freedom Church. At the end of the presentation, we provided them, via text, with
a graphic that has all of the basic information and phone numbers that would be needed to report

a case of abuse.

Why It Was Needed

Our project was needed because of the high rates of child abuse and sexual assualt, as

well as the lack of action taken in these cases. For example, in 2019, “4.4 million reports of child

maltreatment were made, including 7.9 million children,” yet only “3.4 million received

prevention and services” (American SPCC, 2021). Along with this, “1 in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys

under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult. Out of every

1,000 sexual assaults, 310 are reported to the police” (RAINN, 2021). There is too much abuse

and not enough being done about it. Through our training at The Bright House, we have come to

find that many times children and teenagers do not report their abuse because they are too scared.

This fear and lack of knowledge on how to follow through with reporting can be detrimental to a

victim’s life. Our hope in the first part of our project is that the high school students who may be

experiencing abuse will know that there is an option for help and a way out. We hope that they

will see our flyers and gain the confidence to open up about their struggles and get the assistance

that they need and deserve.

The need for building a connection with Young Life is built within the close bonds that

these college leaders are creating with middle and high school students. One thing that Young

Life leaders may not have previously known or fully understood is that they are mandated

reporters. In the daily and weekly interactions that these leaders are having with the students that

they are ministering to, there is always the chance that a student will open up about abuse. This

may be in clear and very direct forms, or very discrete and even confusing cries of help. We

wanted to ensure that the leaders going forward would know the signs of abuse to look out for,
both physically and in behavior, and be able to take the right steps to helping their friends out of

those situations.

Evaluation

Overall, we think that our project was very successful. We believe that the school

hallway flyers will spark something in the minds and conversations between the local high

school students, and that they will feel more open to talking about any abuse they may be

experiencing. We were given great feedback from many of the Young Life leaders after our

presentation, where they stated that they were previously unaware of much of the information

that we shared. They explained that they now understand their role as mandated reporters, and

we have already had two cases reported and worked on at The Bright House since beginning this

project.

What We Would Do Differently

When it comes to doing things differently, there are a couple of things that we wish we

could have changed. The first is that we wish we could have gotten involved with all of the high

schools in the Baldwin and Putnam county areas. Because of the COVID regulations that schools

have in place, we were concerned to just show up to Gatewood and Putnam High School without

approval first. Also because of COVID, we were not even allowed to walk through the doors of

Baldwin High School. We were able to drop off our flyers to the security guard standing out

front, but wish we could have gone inside to hang them up and interact with the students. Along

with this, in a non-COVID world, we would have liked to be able to give a presentation to the

high school students at a pep rally of some sorts. We feel confident in our work with Young Life,

but know that there is always more that can be done. Overall, we wish that COVID restrictions

were not in place so that we could have been even more hands-on with our project.
 Sources Cited

American Society for the Positive Care of Children. (2021). Child Maltreatment Statistics.

American SPCC.https://americanspcc.org/child-abuse-statistics/

RAINN. (2021). Children and Teen: Statistics.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens