An Internship Experience Grounded in Christ’s Love
Discovering a Passion for Disability
Heidi Swartley grew up attending summer camp at Spruce Lake, a retreat center in Pennsylvania. As she entered her teenage years, she began working there, volunteering as a camp counselor at their day camp. It was at Spruce Lake that Heidi discovered her greatest passion. She has a big heart for the kids—especially the kids labeled as difficult or troublesome.
“Being a camp counselor, I realized that my favorite campers were ones that other counselors had trouble with and struggled to work with. I loved looking at their behavior as a form of communication and thinking about what needs needed to be met.”
Heidi
Heidi’s experience at Spruce Lake eventually inspired her to pursue a degree in Psychology with a minor in Special Education at Messiah College. Now a rising senior, she plans to work in behavioral support, a field where she could use her problem-solving skills and her affinity for one-to-one care to help kids feel safe, thrive in their social circles, and learn how to best interact with their environments.
The Road to Joni and Friends
During Heidi’s junior year, she began searching for an internship, hoping to gain practical professional experience before graduating college. That’s when an old friend from Spruce Lake told her about Joni and Friends internships.
Because Spruce Lake hosted Joni and Friends Family Retreats every summer, Heidi had long been familiar with Joni and Friends. In fact, other campers at Spruce Lake always looked forward to Family Retreat weeks. They loved seeing the joy that radiated from Family Retreat participants! So, when Heidi heard that Joni and Friends offered internships, she knew she wanted to get involved. After contacting Joni and Friends, Heidi was set up with an internship tailored to her professional and personal goals.
Heidi’s internship experience included valuable time in the office, where she cultivated essential professional and administrative skills. However, the pinnacle of her internship was the weeks she spent at Family Retreat.
Professional Experience at Joni and Friends
During her first week at Family Retreat, Heidi served as a one-on-one buddy to a young boy with several behavioral difficulties, including ADHD. A constant life of the party, Heidi’s buddy was a camp celebrity—he was friends with everyone. Serving such a popular buddy taught Heidi a valuable personal lesson about humility. Speaking about her experience, she says,
“I learned a lot more about humility. It’s easy to come into Family Retreat and have a mindset of ‘I’m going to be my buddy’s best friend.’ Sometimes, I had to realize, the best thing to do was just to sit and watch him play with someone else.”
Aside from her specific experience with her buddy, Heidi realized that serving any family requires humility—a reality she will have to keep front and center throughout her career. As Heidi reflected on how she will take her experience into the professional world, she said,
“One thing that was impactful was just getting to know my buddy and his family and to just listen to their story. Every family… has a very unique experience. So I learned to make it personal, to get to know their experience and needs, to listen more than I speak, and to be a friend to my buddy and his mom.”
Hands-on Experience on the Behavioral Support Team
For Heidi’s second week at Family Retreat, she had the awesome opportunity to shadow their behavioral support specialist. As she worked with the specialist, Heidi came alongside one-on-one volunteers, providing their buddies with important tools like noise-canceling headphones, visual schedules, and timers. Heidi loved equipping volunteers, noticing the visible impact she had on their interactions with campers.
“My favorite part of that role was equipping volunteers because when a camper is really dysregulated, those are the moments when our campers need our compassion most. When someone doesn’t understand what’s going on, it can be really hard to have that compassion. So helping volunteers understand their campers and love them well was so impactful… Most, if not all, volunteers learned and didn’t need me by the end of the week.”
Heidi
But while she loved the work, Heidi learned the most as she stepped back and watched the behavioral specialist interact with struggling campers. Testifying to the value of that experience, Heidi says,
“Some of my time was spent shadowing and watching her, especially when there was some kind of emergent need… For Joni and Friends to provide that opportunity was so incredible, to carve out time for me to watch and learn.”
Lessons to Carry into the Future
Heidi’s time at Family Retreat cemented her love for behavioral support, providing her with essential hands-on experience through deeply meaningful work.
As she moves forward with her career, Heidi is taking priceless lessons along with her, continuing her professional life grounded in Christ’s love.
“One of the reasons I wanted to work with Joni and Friends was having a Christian foundation for the rest of my career. Doing behavioral support at Family Retreat was such a great way to ground my career in Christ’s love at the very start.”
Heidi
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