overview of internship

1. INTERNSHIP AT
CLEMSON
EXTENSION OFFICE
Barron Hicklin
Senior-Health Science

2. MISSION
The Accountable Communities program aims to “expand beyond the basic
patient centered medical home to create a platform for community lead
innovation by connecting and utilizing all community resources to have a
collective impact.”
 “strength of GHS behind it”
 Taking healthcare to the community for better access to care
 “takes the concept of medical homes and community resource coordination
one step further by fostering collaborations born of shared responsibility
among clinical and community sector participants to impact overall
community health as well as individual health”
 Committed to transforming the health & well being of the community
 Program hopes to reduce ED visits and train a new workforce that can impact
the future

3. INTERNSHIP SITE
The Clemson Extension Office has many different
roles. All of the people that work in the Extension
Office hold various titles. These titles range from
the Accountable Communities Coordinator, 4H
Agent, Area Food Safety and Nutrition Agent,
Area Horticulture Agent, and many more. We
have had the opportunity to work with several of
these positions and experience various aspects
of the Greenville County Extension Office.

4. OUR SUPERVISOR
Shana has been an excellent
supervisor and preceptor. She
is always willing to help us with
whatever we need and always
has a smile on her face. We’re
looking forward to spending the
next year with her.

5. GREENVILLE COUNTY SQUARE
Most of our time has been spent at the Clemson Extension Office.
We travel to Greenville Memorial Hospital and other surrounding
hospitals on occasion, but our office is located at the County
Square.

6. INTERNSHIP SITE
“Putting knowledge to work”
The Greenville County Square
is located in downtown
Greenville and provides many
different services for the
surrounding community. One of
the many offices located in the
County Square is the Clemson
Extension Office. This is where
we report every morning.

7. THE INTERNS’ OFFICE
We were given our own office space as well as new chairs and a
center work table. Everyone made us feel right at home in our new
space.

8. CANNING WITH MARIE
We’ve gotten to experience many different roles beyond the scope
of our internship description. Clemson Extension is made up of so
many different positions and we have had the opportunity to take
part in all of it. One of the first days we worked with Marie, the Area
Food Safety and Nutrition Agent, and she taught us how to make
homemade strawberry jam. She also taught us the proper way to
safely can the jam.

9. BUTTERFLY FESTIVAL
After we completed our first week of work, we were asked to help
with the Butterfly Festival at Roper Mountain in Greenville. Clemson
Extension was one of the main participants here, and every agent in
the office presented something unique at the festival. Our role
involved helping Patricia, the 4H agent, run the mobile unit. We
helped young children make butterflies out of coffee filters and
clothes pins and we also helped handle some of the insects on
display. We all enjoyed this experience.

10. PICTURES FROM THE FESTIVAL
Handling one of
the Bess
Beetles at the
Festival
Danielle and I
got to try the
different types of
honey provided.

11. SHADOWING WEEK
The second week of our
internship was fun and
exhilarating. We had the privilege
to shadow some community
health workers, paramedics, and
social workers. My favorite day
was shadowing Darin and Roger.
Darin Thomas is a social worker
with Greenville Health Systems
and Roger is a paramedic with
GHS as well. The day started
early and ended around 6:30 in
the evening and there was never
a dull moment throughout our
day. I got to ride along with them
while they visited patients and
we even visited Greenville
Memorial Hospital.

12. EXPANDED FOOD AND NUTRITION
EDUCATION PROGRAM
The Expanded Food and
Nutrition Education Program, or
EFNEP, is another program that
we helped with. We joined Carol
Salley when she presented her
nutrition lesson to Miracle Hill
Children’s Home and also New
Foundations Home for Children.
These are children who were
part of a situation that required
the enlistment of DSS or DJJ.
We helped Carol provide a
healthy snack to these children
and young adults and remind
them of what a healthy plate
looks like.

13. NUTRITION LESSON AT MAUDLIN
MONTESSORI SCHOOL
At the end of our fifth week interning, we taught a nutrition lesson to
the children at Mauldin Montessori School. Danielle, Logan, and I
came up with summer snack recipes that involved fruits, vegetables,
and other healthy items to give the kids ideas of some things they
might have not tried before. I showed the children how to make
“Fruit Pizza.” This involves a triangular piece of watermelon (to look
like a slice of pizza), and toppings such as strawberries, blueberries,
and kiwi. I was surprised to learn that many of the children did not
care for the watermelon but were pleased with the other fruits we
had to offer.

14. RECIPES FOR NUTRITION LESSON

15. COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKER
TRAINING
Most recently, we have been
participating in Community
Health Worker training. The
training is a total of three
weeks, but we have a fieldwork
week in between each week of
training. Darin Thomas is
teaching the course to us,
however he asked each of us to
present one of the chapters
with a PowerPoint presentation.
We followed the outline in the
book in order to teach the class
the essentials of each of our
chapters.
I presented Chapter 11 on Home
Visiting

16. FIELDWORK FOR CHW TRAINING
During our off weeks, Darin assigns us different tasks to complete to
better understand what it is like for our clients to try and access the
healthcare systems, healthy food, and resources such as health
insurance. Someone who uses the SNAP program, previously
known as food stamps, has about $4.50 a day to spend. We had to
come up with 3 relatively healthy meals using only that budget. We
also had to find a store within walking distance of neighborhoods,
because transportation is a large issue with this population.

17. KIDS COOKING CAMP
A kids cooking camp was held
July 20th-22nd at the Extension
Office in the conference room.
Margaret Condrasky, a professor
at Clemson, asked us to help her
out with the camp for the second
half of the week. We had about
20 kids from ages 9-14 who
enrolled in the camp. We helped
them make healthy recipes to eat
and also shared some nutritional
information about the five food
groups. Everyone was very
engaged and wanted to be
involved throughout the whole
process.