NEWPORT — Students from Champlain College Psychology classes interacted with what Champlain’s CAP Program Coordinator, Kimberly Quinn, called “a 14 carat professional panel made up of private practice clinicians, addictions treatment, restorative justice, DCF, NEKLS, and a variety of other treatment professionals,” in the city of Newport.
This unique educational, all-day foray into the Newport human services community and the community at large takes place annually and is a close collaboration between organizers Lisa Daigle-Farney and Suzanne Pelletier, both of Northeast Kingdom Learning Services (NEKLS) and Champlain College’s Kimberly Quinn.
Area human service groups have offered their time and opened their organizations’ doors to the students generously each year.
The event began with an open-forum style of discussion that was two hours long and could have stretched longer.
“I had to actually stop the questions so we could eat lunch,” Quinn said. “The students were so engaged! Lots of very, very real stories from the trenches.”
After lunch, the students were sent into the community for activities around poverty awareness and empathy. When they returned to the Gateway Center, they broke into smaller groups for workshops that they chose based on their individual interests.
Topics ranged from good self-care and the science of happiness to working with people who have experienced trauma, and the effects of trauma on the brain.
Quinn took the students on a visit to the Newport’s Correctional Facility as well, the week before.
“These two days are often life-changing for many,” Quinn wrote to her Champlain colleagues.
The many cooperating Newport services hope that what students learned through this will change many more lives indeed, for the better.
