FCS students receive awards during internship experience
Jan. 5, 2022
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—FCS students Amyrillis (Monet) Payne and Emily Homrich both completed their internships within WMU's Health Promotion & Education's FIRE Place Resource and Support Center & Sexual Health Peer Educators (Sexperts) programs. The Family and Consumer Sciences department regularly has students complete successful internships within these programs, but these students are the department's first awardees.
The following are excerpts from the awards, written by the students' supervisor evaluations:
"Monet not only met our expectations, but exceeded them! She provided our office with such consistently fantastic work. What's even more impressive is that she didn't do work with just one of our programs, but two! Being able to maintain the tasks of both a sexual health peer education program and a sexual assault survivor resource and support center is nothing short of outstanding. Because of her work, Monet was [awarded] the Above and Beyond Award. I have never met a student with such passion, self-motivation, and empathy. She is going to go on and do such amazing things for this world!"
"Emily was the recipient of our Storyteller Award this year. She absolutely blew me away with her presentation skills. It genuinely shocks me that Emily did not have any formal workshop experience prior to this internship. She is a fantastic facilitator and I have highly encouraged her to pursue a career that includes opportunities to facilitate conversation/presentations. One project she worked on this semester was the development and implementation of a topic presentation. I have expanded the expectations of this project work to not only include a pilot run with the FIRE! Sexual Assault Peer Education team, but to also re-implement with a new audience later in the semester. Emily's re-implementation was such a success. Not only did she have double digits attend her workshop, but she also created a space (virtual, mind you!!) where workshop participants could be vulnerable and authentic without fear. It was truly amazing to witness and be part of!"