School of Public Health Student Ambassadors Program, week four

Nicole Shires (on right), volunteered at the Children's Developmental Clinic in Fall 2012

The Little Rascals
By Nicole Shires
Junior Kinesiology major

Last semester was my first semester here at the University of Maryland after transferring. When I first came here, I was so excited about being a part of this university and, specifically, a part of the School of Public Health. I could not wait to get involved and try a variety of new things! However, I had
no idea what to do. Along with school, I was working way too much and had very
little spare time on my hands. I needed to find something I could participate in about once a week on the weekends. Then, one day, we had a guest speaker in my KNES 370 (Motor Development) course. He gave a presentation about something called the Children’s Developmental Clinic, a volunteer training program conducted in cooperation with Prince George’s Community College and the Department of Kinesiology in the School of Public Health. He showed tons of great pictures of undergraduate students working hands on with children of all developmental stages; from infants up to around 12 years old! Although some came to the clinic just to have a safe place to play outside of the community they lived in, most of these children had some type of disability or were behind in development in some way or another. Not only were students just like myself becoming involved with this clinic, but if we wanted, we could sign up for the course associated with it and receive credit for completing 40 hours!

I was sold…

This seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to become more involved with the university.
I love kids, I could get credit if I wanted, it was held right there in the School of Public Health, AND it was on Saturday mornings from 9-12! What more could I ask for? So, of course I signed myself up as a volunteer. I have to say, it was one of the best experiences I’ve had as a college student. I was able to work one on one with a 4 year-old boy who had a speech delay throughout the entire clinic rather than bouncing around from child to child. This was great because I was really able to see him improve each and every week. Not only that, but I was able to interact with his parents and give them valuable feedback about how their child was doing.

I have to admit, I was very nervous at first. So many questions were running through my mind: “What if he doesn’t like me?” “How will I work with a child with disability, I have no experience?” But, I soon discovered just how easy it would be to get him to warm up to me and how much I would be able to help him improve. We had volunteer clinician training before the clinic started in order to gain some knowledge on how to work with these children since most of us had never done anything like that before. Once the children started coming, we had certain “stations” to go to depending on the child. Since my child had a speech delay we would start off at speech and then go to the activity room which was like a giant play ground! He spoke more and more each week and learned how to interact with other children better each week as well. It was really nice to have formed this bond with a child who, before the clinic, did not even know me. I gained so much from my experience at the clinic and would definitely recommend it to anyone. Luckily, they offer it every semester and anyone from the university can volunteer. The Children's Developmental Clinic also has a Facebook page and a website for more information. Their website has a video where you can watch the clinicians interacting with the children.