Another GREAT Testimonial from one of our Practicum Students!
Ivorne Elliott is a practicum student who worked with us this year. We sat down with her and wanted to ask her about her experience.
Ivorne is in her 2nd year in the Child and Youth Care Program. She heard about our agency through her Practicum Leader. “I wanted a practicum with some good variety so I thought working with Big Brothers Big Sisters would be a good option.”, she said. Ivorne worked at Park Avenue as well as Georgia Avenue Schools this year doing both one on one mentoring as well as facilitating a Go Girls Group at Uplands School.
She mentored 4 girls and found it to be an exttremely rewarding experience for her. “I had one girl with a lot of behavior issues but I found mentoring really allowed her to open up and her teacher said that her behavior in school improved as well”, she said. “I found In-School Mentoring to be an amazing experience for the kids as well as myself. The important thing is to be reliable and dependable as many of these kids are missing that in their life. Overall it is a great gift to give a child!” She said.
When we talked about her experience facilitating the Go Girls Group she said “Go Girls is an awesome program. I really benefited as it gave me some great experience facilitating a group.” she said. “The girls learned a lot from all the different topics we talked about and made some really great friendships as well!”, she said.
When asked what advice she would give someone who is interested in mentoring, she said,”Just go into it with an open mind. Try to gauge where the child is at and meet them there. Mentoring really lets you give back to a child and you will benefit as much as the child does!”
For more information on our mentoring programs, give us a call at 250-756-2447 or visit: www.bigscvi.ca