Internships » Children & Youth Services
Abraham Lincoln Center
The Abraham Lincoln Center provides services – including child development, adult and youth, special education and mental health, education/training/employment, technology, and residential services – at 30 sites throughout the south side of Chicago.
Alternatives Inc.
Is a developing peer review processes for youth, with the goal of conflict resolutions.
American Indian Health Service
Non-profit organization administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that provides a clinic, health services, and prevention programs along with after school programs for children.
Better Boys Foundation – Family Center
BBF programs help North Lawndale youth break the cycle of poverty through activities that foster academic achievement and help prepare for careers. BBF offers youth participants tutoring and mentoring for academic enhancement and high school graduation, leadership training, cultural diversity and social skills training. Programs support an atmosphere that value academic preparedness and career development. By exposing participants to academic and cultural stimulation, BBF services discourage delinquency and lower high school drop out rates.
Boys & Girls Club of Chicago
The Boys and Girls Clubs serve at-risk young people, ages 3-18, and their families; in Chicago, there are 13 full-service clubs, 7 head start programs and 5 After-School Day Care Centers each offering numerous services. Programs focus on character/leadership development, health and life skills, the arts, sports and recreation, education, and career development.
CYCLE
Organization that provides after school and summer programs for children.
Casa Atzlan
Established in 1975, Youth Program offers different components to the Pilsen youth including mentoring program, delinquency intervention, summer employment and leadership development. After School Program has two components, the Youth in Action and the Chicago Area Project which provide academic support, field trips and support counseling. This program is in charge of the Summer Youth Employment program and day camp in the summer.
Health Education
This program offers home visit translation, interpretation, and transportation services as well as community workshops on health issues. The program also coordinates community health fairs.
Center for Communication Resources
Promotes fair access to communication resources. Interns can teach assist and work with youth in various environments.
Chicago Children’s Museum
Only institution in Chicago dedicated specifically to children. A multi-faceted children’s museum that is an extended classroom which provides a variety of opportunities for creativity in many fields.
Chicago Department of Children & Youth Services
Manages programs that serve Chicago’s children and youth through a citywide partnership of more than 300 community organizations, social service providers and institutions.
Chicago Youth Centers
Provides a safe place for recreation, socialization and many other activities. Centers are located in low-income neighborhoods and respond to local needs.
Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra
Brings together high school musicians from 50 communities for a strong program in performance training in orchestra and chamber music.
Child Serve
Child Serve is a non-profit, private child welfare agency that helps children and their families build better lives. Their wide range of programs and services, for over 4000 children, include daycare, tutoring, foster care and adoption, early childhood education and parenting support.
Children’s Memorial Hospital
Since its founding in 1882, the mission and vision of Children’s Memorial Hospital has single-mindedly focused on the needs of children and their families. CMH specializes in pediatric care, research into the diseases which affect children, education for physicians and nurses (it is the main facility for Northwestern Med School), and advocacy for children.
Children’s Place
Mission is to improve the quality of life for children and their families who are affected by HIV/AIDS or other life-threatening or serious health conditions. The core program is a 10 bed residential facility that provides short-term care and housing for children who have been separated from their homes.
Chinese Mutual Aid Association
The CMAA, first begun in 1981 in response to refugees from Vietnam of Chinese origin, helps recent Chinese immigrants and refugees by sponsoring literacy, employment training and community organizing projects. There are also seniors program, adjustment and counseling services, Chinese language school and Chinese art classes for children.
Community Television Network
Empowers low-income children and young adults by teaching them the use of media arts through video instruction classes. Students produce, with the supervision of the educators, “Hard Cover”; a cable access TV show.
Co-op Image Group
Creates public arts education groups for youth from communities in need. Organizes Chicago-area artists and youth to work together to build community through arts education
Ekhart Park
Camps for children, including Campsign, for hearing impaired and deaf kids.
El Hogar del Nino Cuidar
Is a social service agency day care. Its services include an after school tutoring and mentoring program.
Elliot Donnelly Youth Center
Elliot Donnelly Youth Center is on of the location of Chicago Youth Centers founded to serve children in Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods. It provides many types of academic, athletic, and counseling programs.
Fellowship House
Social service organization working with at-risk youth in positive programming after school and in school including a head start program, after school and teen programs as well as gang and drug prevention within a family atmosphere.
Free Street Programs
Creates original theater shows with children in schools, parks and community centers, runs job programs in the arts for teens, has two theatre programs for parenting and pregnant teens, clown doctors and senior theatre.
Girls in the Game
Formerly A Sporting Chance Foundation, founded in Chicago in 1995, provides and promotes fitness and health opportunities for girls to enhance their physical well being, self-esteem, leadership and team-building skills, as well as promote academic excellence, goal-setting, and conflict resolution skills.
Horizons Community Service
Community program that deals with gay and lesbian issues. They also focus on youth and help facilitate programs in schools. Midwest’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender social service and advocacy agency. Includes a help line, anti-violence project, educationa nd support services, psychotherapy and youth services.
HuTech
Human Service Technologies works to stabilize and secure permanent family living arrangements for children who are in or at risk of entering the Illinois child welfare system by helping the caregiver to meet children’s needs without the intervention of the child welfare system.
Jane Addams Center/ Hull House
Non-profit organization which strives to help the community in numerous ways. They have an after-school program for children along with a summer camp, numerous recreational options for all ages and provide under-privileged teens with job training and socialization.
Latino Youth Inc.
Provides quality programs and services that are sensitive and address the lack of educational personal development and leadership opportunities in the community that foster excellence, the acquisition of skills, community awareness and cultural pride.
Merit Music Program
Music school serving 3,000 students with a mission to serve economically disadvantaged youth.
Music Theatre Workshop
Program dedicated to bringing theater and music to children and teens through the schools, museums, recreation centers and juvenile detention centers.
Neon Street House Crisis Center
For teens; primarily homeless youth.
Southwest Youth Service Collaborative
The Southwest Youth Collaborative (SWYC) is a community-based network of youth and community development organizations working together in five diverse neighborhoods on the southwest side of Chicago: Education, College Preparation, Career Preparation and Workforce Development; Arts, Sports and Culture; Health and Life Skills Education; Leadership and Community Organizing
Street Level Youth Media
Street-Level Youth Media educates Chicago’s inner city youth in media arts and emerging technologies for use in self-expression, communication, and social change. Street-Level’s programs build critical thinking skills for urban youth who have been historically neglected by government and mass media. Using video production, computer art and the Internet, Street-Level’s young people address ommunity issues, access advanced communication technology and gain inclusion in our information-based society.
Teen Living Program
Is Chicago’s only social service agency that serves exclusively homeless and runaway teens, and helps them transition from homelessness to complete independence.
Whirlwind Performance Company
Non-profit education organization dedicated to changing the lives of public school students through the arts. The company gives students the opportunity to create their own music, drama and dance.