YOUTH DEVELOPMENT TRAINING PROGRAM
High School Internship Program*
"Traveling Theatre helps you with all aspects of your life. If you want to pursue acting, they'll send you in that direction; if you want to learn about teaching, they'll give you those resources. They are even there if you need someone to talk to about life challenges. The Traveling Theatre staff wants every student to succeed in theatre as well as in life."
-MET student
In 2007, Traveling Theatre first became host to several high school interns from the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical School (MET) in Providence. Each of the interns spends 1-3 years with Traveling Theatre learning to assist our teaching artists. This internship program provides an environment where MET students learn not only skills relevant to dance, movement, theatre, and visual arts but also develop an understanding of classroom pedagogy, cross-cultural communication, youth development, and classroom management. The success of the high school internship program led to Traveling Theatre’s involvement in several other youth development training programs, which are described below.
*2009 Recipient of the Excellence in Mentoring Award*
After School Apprenticeship Program (ASAP)
"[Traveling Theatre] knows how to put youth development into practice by tapping the talents of every youth, building empowered leadership teams and helping youth make work connections to school and their individual career development."
-Hillary Salmons, Executive Director, PASA
Due to the success of the high school internship program, Traveling Theatre was approached by the Providence After School Alliance (PASA), an intermediary that works to expand and improve the quality of after school opportunities for the youth of Providence, to recruit and train 36 high school students to serve as counselors-in-training during the summer of 2008. This led to the creation of the After School Apprenticeship Program (ASAP) for high school students from the Providence area. Youth in this program spend eight weeks training and participating as “master students” in an arts specific content area of their choice followed by six weeks of work, partnering with their teaching artist to co-teach classes to middle school age youth.
WIA Apprenticeship Program
The design of the WIA Apprenticeship program, which is funded through the Workforce Investment Act, derives from our experiences with our internship and high school training programs; however, our target population for program recruitment is slightly different. This training program focuses on young adults between the ages of 18-21 who are basic skills deficient, high school dropouts, youth aging out of the foster care system, or at a high risk of poverty as a result of these circumstances. The goal of this program is to graduate these young men and women with the skills necessary to find gainful employment as part of the after school workforce and to inspire and encourage a desire for lifelong learning.
