Purdue University Fort Wayne partners with Fort Wayne Community Schools for graduate internship program

Purdue University Fort Wayne has partnered with Fort Wayne Community Schools for a paid graduate student internship program to provide students in middle and high schools with mental health support. The partnership program is funded by a five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

According to an article on Purdue University Fort Wayne’s website, Toni Harmon, who is a supervisor of Fort Wayne Community Schools and a graduate of Purdue University Fort Wayne’s counseling program, explained the program and the benefits for everyone involved. Harmon is quoted as saying, “The success of this program is rooted in ongoing collaboration. FWCS and PFW worked together to establish clear structures for supervision, communication, and role coordination between graduate students functioning in the mental health counselor role and current school counselors. Because this program was built collaboratively, PFW interns are not simply added into schools—they are integrated into existing support systems. This has made it possible to sustain the program while meeting real and growing mental health needs among students.”

As part of the internship program, graduate students within the university’s counseling program will spend their third year inside one of Fort Wayne Community Schools’ middle or high school buildings, serving as guidance counselors who provide the younger students with real mental health assistance. The graduate students will spend their first year receiving classroom education in their program. Then, during their second year, they will work in the university’s Community Counseling Center to prepare them for their upcoming internship.

Trevor Helmkamp is a third-year graduate student in the counseling program. He is currently working in his internship as a guidance counselor at Snider High School. Helmkamp said of the preparation he received for the experience, “I could have walked in here and been like, `I don’t know what I’m doing,’ but I was well-prepared. PFW’s influence on what I do here and how I’m using my education is instrumental to even be able to do a position like this. To see kids walking into my office crying and then leaving with a smile on their faces just makes my day. It kind of shocks me to my core that I’m able to have that sort of impact.”

Brooke Sellhorn, who serves as the clinical director of the Department of Counseling and Graduate Education, said, “Students are what we call dual-track so they are eligible to be licensed as a school counselor or a mental health counselor, so this internship is perfect for those that want to do both. There’s a shift toward more mental health counseling in schools, so our students have been part of that transition of being able to work in either capacity. This has been very affirming to our students.”

Adding of the benefits for all of the students involved, Kerrie Fineran, the PFW chief of Campus and Community Wellbeing, said, “It’s very hard to find paid internships. They are responding to so much that students are bringing to school, and now they have someplace and someone to look to for help. Many of them have nowhere else to receive it. It’s really a great opportunity for our students to get this level of training and support. We continue to have regular meetings with FWCS to study how we can improve this partnership and build a template that might end up affecting hundreds of schools. This is how the system is supposed to work.”

Sellhorn noted that in the three years the program has been running, the university has supplied the school system with 29 paid interns to serve as guidance counselors, many of whom were later hired by Fort Wayne Community Schools for full time positions.

For more information about Purdue University Fort Wayne, visit the school’s website.