Jordyn Dezago (IEM/MPA ’24) completed her practicum at Helpmate, Inc., a nonprofit working to eliminate fear and violence and provide support to survivors of domestic violence. Here is her story:
Helpmate is best described by its mission statement: “We work with our community to eliminate abuse and fear by providing safety, shelter, and support for victims/survivors of intimate partner domestic violence.”
I entered this practicum with the goal of continuing my professional and personal growth in the field of violence prevention through systems advocacy and education. At Helpmate, I was able to supplement and inform my practicum project with a wide range of trainings – from substance use and crisis intervention, to nonviolent communication, to education around supporting and serving survivors of domestic violence.
One of my main projects involved administering a therapeutic support group for families affected by domestic violence or teen dating violence. While the group had been running prior to my arrival at Helpmate, I took on the project of revamping the group to increase participation and widen our community impact. The goal of this project was to reduce community violence by breaking cycles of violence within families and transforming conflict at the micro- and meso- levels. At the macro- level, I also sat on a Child Fatality Review team that met monthly to take a systems-level approach to reducing child mortality in Buncombe County. My role was to offer a domestic violence-informed perspective to any case of child fatality that might be linked to some kind of conflict or violence.
Domestic violence is a deeply misunderstood issue, in that it is not just physical violence; domestic violence is a form of power and control through economic, emotional, psychological, sexual or physical abuse. Because of the complexity of this issue, domestic violence impacts families and young people in many tangible and intangible ways. My role was to address these damaging impacts by providing education to parents and their teens to help survivors of violence better understand – and then break – these cycles.
My biggest insight was the importance of striking the balance between fidelity to evidence-based educational interventions for young people and adapting content to fit cultural and contextual norms of any given group. I learned this insight thanks to my wonderful co-facilitators. The most eye-opening thing to me was the myriad ways in which I applied my MIIS education to this practicum! No one is going to remind you to apply your MIIS education, but it’s good to get into the practice of using the tools that you learned in the classroom. I drew upon what I’ve learned at the Middlebury Institute by developing a needs assessment, SWOT analysis and ecosystem map to better understand my organization, the support group, and the community in which Helpmate is embedded.
One of the personal highlights for me was getting to know and connect with my coworkers and our support group participants. I contributed to this organization by providing leadership, support and evidence to inform the design and delivery of our support group. I found that I was able to contribute significantly thanks to the extra hours I was dedicating outside of my normal workday.
This experience helped me learn how to take a systematic approach to trial-and-error. It also helped me grow professionally because I now have a whole evidence base to inform and support future educational groups like this one.
Reach out to info@helpmateonline.org to learn how to complete projects or internships with this organization!