Personal growth through internship in Kentucky's juvenile justice system

¶ … Caring Mind and Helping Hand Made a Difference have discovered a whole new world of resourcefulness, of personal and professional growth outside the relative comfort of my university environment, and I am excited to share that in this essay. Thank you very sincerely for this opportunity.

In these troubled times, there are a limitless number of ways young people can become distracted with, disinterested in, and derailed from their intended outcomes - more ways perhaps than any previous generation. The problem stirs the spirit of alert citizens and awakens the consciousness of communities that listen and care.

In Kentucky, and elsewhere, for myriad reasons and within a diversity of environments, there are ways kids can and do get into trouble. My experience working with the Kentucky juvenile justice system brought me face-to-face with some of those kids and a few of those issues.

They were from dysfunctional families; they had experimented with easily available drugs; they hung out with peer groups locked into violent and mesmerizing electronic games; and they were turned off by overcrowded schools with teachers too busy to tutor a failing student. They got in trouble with the law, and felt like they were hopelessly lost and alone.