3/25/2020 Topic: COVID-19-Ways to Engage Interns Sandy Finnimore	Hello Everyone, We are keeping the interns engaged by using Zoom. I send out a daily assignment for them to complete. When the assignments involve editing, for an article or email mentor email, we are going to be using Zoom to edit together using the share screen option. I have also learned that Zoom has a white board. I am working on all of us playing pictionary together on Zoom. We currently have a lunch video date scheduled for this Friday. We are getting all of our interns and coaches together on Zoom to eat lunch and chat. It should be very interesting with 7 of us on together. As for the assignments that the interns are working on. We have written an article about COVID-19, I shared the AMAZING document that someone shared here, (I'm sorry I don't remember who it was) with plain language with all of my graduates, interns and even our Residential, DDS and Schools we work with. The feedback was that it was perfect and very helpful for them to understand. We have continued with our weekly topics for the email mentor program. We are continuing to work on grammar, job searching skills and of course job searching. The interns have created a check list that meets their needs for a job. For example, Is this job located within ____ miles of my house? Yes/No, Do I meet the education requirements for this job? Yes/No, etc. I have discussed with them the expectations that I have for them while they are at home. I explained to them that the expectation is for them to stay active and maintain as much of their routine as possible. Of course, I want them to relax as well because that is super important during this stressful time, I have noticed that with my group of interns this year, they need to stay busy. They are to wake up within an 1-1.5 hrs of their usual wake up time for PS, by 10 am they are to check their email for the day's assignment. They then work on the assignment and submit it to me for review by 3pm. We work on edits together or I send another part of the assignment if applicable. I have also explained the importance of helping out around the house. This will give them great adult living skills, as well as, help keep them and their families safe. They are to do chores around the house and maybe even help with meals. I have also suggested to them to journal when they need something more to do. Like I mentioned, these interns need to stay busy, they can journal about how they are feeling, what is going on, anything that is on their minds, etc. Thank you all for sharing what you are doing with your interns! Sandy
4/15/2020 Topic: COVID-19-Ways to Engage Interns Sandy Finnimore	Hi Everyone, Just adding a few thoughts that I shared with Erin and the CT Group.... We are including some of our graduates in our zoom meetings, we have weekly lunch meetings every Friday and we have played Pictionary! We are offering cooking lessons, and we have started digging deeper into technology by using text replacement on phones and with word. With word, you want to search the help section for create reusable text snippets. This allows the individual to save frequently used/misspelled words for each access. The text replacement on phones are very helpful to help the individuals type in a more professional manner. Thank you! Sandy
1/6/2022 Topic: January 2022 Virtual Groups Sandy Finnimore	Hey everyone, My program and most of my state's programs are virtual for a few weeks. It might be fun and a good way to break up the virtua learning to have a zoom lunch/goggle meets lunch with another program. I have scheduled a lunch with another CT program, Maybe comment on this thread an others can reach out to schedule the virtual lunch with you. Just a thought! Another idea i had in the past was inviting one or some of my graduates back for a zoom session and the current interns asked questions to the graduate about what it was like job searching, working in the real adult world. It was great for them to get their questions answered by someone who was in their shoes at one point and know what the current interns are going through. edited by sfinnimore@favarh.org on 1/6/2022

---