DOROT Jewish Summer Teen Internship Program

Intergenerational social connection

DOROT

New York City

Multiple national and regional funders, including Jewish Federations, foundations, and private donors

Target Population

Jewish teens who are rising high school sophomores, juniors, or seniors

Jewish Knowledge/Engagement Level of Participants

Participants come from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds, from teens who have attended day school all their lives to 20%–40% of participants who have never had a bar or bat mitzvah. “The diversity adds to the pedagogy.”

Primary Goals

The overall goal of DOROT is to relieve the social isolation and loneliness of older adults to help them to live lives that are both independent and socially embedded. The summer teen internship works toward that overarching goal at the same time as it aims to empower teens to connect positive feelings to being Jewish while developing meaningful connections with older adults.

Brief Description

This four-week, unpaid internship runs approximately six hours/day, four days/week for approximately four weeks and takes place at a community setting for older adults. Teens join older adults in their daily programs. In addition, interns lead and plan weekly intergenerational workshops that range from discussion groups that explore Jewish identity or other Jewish issues, Legacy projects, tech coaching, and playful activities. Some of these activities also operate virtually. For sites that have home-based programs, teens are paired and matched for a weekly visit to connect and build friendship with an older adult. At the start and end of each week, the teen cohort has service-learning and reflection sessions which are framed through a Jewish lens. Lastly, the program, which is both free and unpaid, includes an expectation of volunteering for a minimum of 15 hours with DOROT during the following academic year.

Characteristic

Characteristic & Implementation

Implementation

Internalization

Deep intention in the building and scaffolding of the program helps teens take responsibility for their own experiences, but careful pedagogy assists them in connecting their experiences, challenges, and successes to Judaism and/or Jewish identity. “The educators in the program are skilled enough that when someone shares a difficulty, like an elder going in memory loops, they reflect that in Jewish language to them to contextualize and deepen the reflections.” In this way, experiences and learnings are rooted in Jewish values in a way that helps teens reinforce and internalize them.

Mentorship

Mentorship is not an emphasis of this program. Instead, there is an emphasis on mutuality. Teens are not “mentees” or “little helpers” for their older adult counterparts, nor are those older adults intended to be mentors for the teens. Instead, mutual relationships and exploration are emphasized. Indeed, in this program mutuality sets a high standard for interaction between teens and older adults. Sharing their life experiences, benefitting from one another’s wisdom and coming to see each other as assets to be treasured is the aim.

Ownership Opportunities

One of the primary emphases and strengths of this program as an empowerment program is the emphasis on ownership. Teens are given true responsibilities to actual people in the real world in which they can succeed or fail, rather than a curated set of “practice” responsibilities where there aren’t consequences for failing to show up. This encourages a deeper sense of accountability and ownership around what is accomplished. Teens must apply on their own—parents do not apply for their children. DOROT does not talk to parents. This combines with the real responsibilities teens are given to create a space that the teens must occupy and own wholly by themselves. Teens are mentored by staff in their responsibility for creating, planning, and managing logistics to facilitate their own workshops or other activities like trips to museums or a talent show.

License to Experiment

The license to experiment in the DOROT Jewish teen internship is less about wholesale innovation than opportunities for participants to practice a kind of ownership over their activities and decisions that is often not available to teens. For many teens this level of ownership and responsibility is leadership, a role some teens are just beginning to experiment with.

DOROT Jewish Summer Teen Internship Program

Target Population

Jewish Knowledge/Engagement Level of Participants

Primary Goals

Brief Description

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