Week 1

Hi all! My name is Emma Kennett, I am a rising senior from Burlington, North Carolina. I am a double major in Politics and International Affairs as well as Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. I will be interning with CrossRoads of Alamance County in Burlington this summer. CrossRoads is a sexual assault response and resource center. This organization has services for adults and children in advocating people who experience sexual assault and harassment as well as providing them therapy and any other forms of support they may need. The organization also has a 24-hour crisis hot line which I plan to become trained to be able to work before the end of the summer. I found and chose this internship by connecting my passion with something that would complement my Women’s Gender and Sexuality studies major. I reached out to CrossRoads and they were very enthusiastic for me to come on board for the summer!
When I met with the person who will now be my supervisor, Julie Budd, she told me to find a project that I could create and help enact that the organization could use even after I leave at the end of the summer. I focused on figuring out what I really would like to work on. I discovered, through talking with people who also work in sexual assault prevention, that I was passionate about finding a way to educate people on sexual assault and all the different areas that are encompassed in sexual assault education such as consent, being a bystander, and healthy relationships. I’m a member of PREPARE on campus, Wake Forest’s student led sexual assault prevention group. Through my time in this organization I have noticed that there is a great deal of people who struggle in the comprehension of consent and understanding what a healthy relationship looks like. I decided that I would like to focus on this and figure out ways in which to educate students before they go to college on gaining a better understanding of consent and healthy relationships. Over this summer I will be working to develop a curriculum for high school students on consent, sexual assault, and healthy relationships. I also hope to be able to have a presentation in which I can use the curriculum I create during my time at CrossRoads. I plan to track my accomplishments and impact of this curriculum by comparing it to other curriculums as well as presenting it to Julie and Steph Trilling, the Wake Forest sexual assault counselor through the SAFE office, to receive their feedback on the curriculum. I will also be helping Julie, as well as the other people who make up the staff at CrossRoads, with any projects being implemented or needs in the office over this summer. I am excited to get started and to start learning about the important work of sexual assault advocates and prevention work!