Graduate Engagement Stories: GEO Student Makes a Difference for Foster Children
Matilda Stubbs, a 3rd year Anthropology student, spent a significant part of Winter Quarter 2011 working at the Rice Child + Family Center in Evanston, simultaneously contributing to the wellbeing of its residents, and earning course credit through the Graduate Engagement Opportunities Program (GEO), a practicum and seminar series. The GEO program at Northwestern offers students the opportunity to apply their academic knowledge to the surrounding community, promoting active citizenship. “It’s unusual for universities to offer a program like [the GEO] to graduate students: you get course credit, and still get funded,” says Stubbs. “The fact that you receive credits is an institutional gesture that community engagement is valued, not just something you do on your own if you have time, and that that Northwestern supports me. This program has changed my self-esteem about the research work I am doing. I think the experience could be so useful for others to help them develop skills and knowledge to apply their research to their community.”
The GEO program places students with organizations related to their research interests (if possible), and Stubbs was able to work with the exact population that interests her: foster youth. Rice is a treatment facility that provides around-the-clock rehabilitative care, helping youth with their extreme emotional and behavioral challenges. It is home to a maximum of 50 youth from around Illinois, aged 8 to 15, most of whom are wards of the state.
“Part of what I’m trying to do with my research is change the stigma that you’ll have a life of compromise if you’re in foster care,” says Stubbs. “I want to look at anomalies: like what is different among the success stories? How do you create opportunities for similar youth?”
Stubbs contributed to Rice’s day-to-day operations by helping conduct an internal file audit: gathering all required documents for each case file, making sure they are in the right order and signed by the right people. The project has helped her get a better understanding of what individual case files look like and what life is like in rehabilitative treatment. She also taught weekly “life skills” classes to Rice residents, covering different topics that aren’t normally broached in a typical classroom, but that children in foster care don’t always learn, including hygiene, table/phone manners, and nutrition.
“Some of these youth have very disturbing backgrounds, and reading their files is so horrific,” says Stubbs. “Rice provides a positive, safe environment. To see these youth do things like play, after what they have been through, has demonstrated to me the power of the human spirit. I grew up in foster care I have not seen one staff person talk inappropriately or be disrespectful. I’ve seen it many times in other places. For the staff, the primary concern is the kids, which is what is should be.”
The Center made such a positive impression, Stubbs elected to stay on past the end of the quarter to help finish the file audit. The exposure her internship provides to the structure of these files, as well as the personal experience with Rice, has proven to be very helpful for her future research.
“For my dissertation, I’d like to compare the paper files of children in foster care to their own narratives,” she says. “This experience- though I can’t use any specific cases from my work at Rice- has given me priceless exposure that will prepare me for my future research work. This single program has made me believe in what I want to do with my dissertation and graduate school experience.”
