This course by Prof. Sangeeta Prasad pertains to theories of human development from infancy to young adulthood. Dominant psychosocial, cognitive, and physical competencies; motivational changes; coping styles; and normative and non-normative behaviors. In addition to lectures, students served at least three hours per week in an appropriate agency, but many did more.
Prasad, a psychologist who teaches in the Human Services and Social Justice department, is also one of the founders of In the Streets, a D.C.-based nonprofit with a community-first approach to dealing with trauma. Rather than bringing outsiders in to help people in Black, underserved communities, the nonprofit creates a space for community members to work through trauma affecting their physical and mental health altogether.
Students serving with In the Streets built close relationships with participants through weekly calls and group meetings. In doing so, students were able to share resources, support, and learn directly from participants about social services. This semester, In the Streets, was also featured in the Washington Post, a testament to the organization’s growing presence.
For information about Community Engaged Scholarship at GW: https://go.gwu.edu/cesc
Fall 2023
Professor: Linda-Jeanne Mack
Students Reporting: 34
Time Reported: 697.54hrs
Community Partner: Little For Peace
Student Comments:
“I worked with an older group yesterday, and it was interesting to see the different needs that different age groups need.”
“I love working with the kids, they always teach me something new. One instance really tested me because I had to run after a kid who tried to storm out of the school because he was mad. We talked through the problem, but it was difficult to have him open up to me. Luckily the janitor go through to him and everything worked out."
“What was really interesting was the way that children and adolescents have different learning patterns and it's really fun to be able to adjust according to their learning style. Also, seeing how she was able to pick some things up by asking her friends, watching and the language that is used between adolescents made it easier for her to understand (she came back and told me). Making the connections between what is being told on both ends. She put her cognitive learning skills to use and also did many other things like the "monkey see, monkey do" or mimicry; trying to do certain things the way I did in order to try and understand hard-to-grasp topics. Overall, I really enjoyed being able to be a part of this and analyzing those social skills of adolescents to see how they learn and how they adapt to be able to learn new concepts.”
Fall 2022
Professor: Sangeeta Prasad
Students Reporting: 19
Time Reported: 413 hours
| Community Partner | Student Involvement |
| Horton’s Kids | Students provided one-one tutoring, literacy intervention, homework help, and educational advocacy with Horton’s Kids. When not working on school though, volunteers got to engage in fun activities centered on social-emotional learning. |
| In the Streets | Students fostered close relationships with participants throughout the semester, serving as mentors and tutors. In weekly calls, and group meetings students worked directly with participants offering ways to support emotional, mental, spiritual, physical and relational health. |
| Latin American Youth Center | Through opportunities in academics, arts and recreation, job readiness, safe places to live, and healthy and wellness, the LAYC strives to address many of the barriers to success low-income youth face. Volunteers engaged in programming and provided tutoring services for students. |
| Little Friends for Peace | Students had the opportunity to either participate in virtual peace circles with D.C. Public School students, or with incarcerated citizens in Alexandria, VA . As trained volunteers, students were able to get the chance to learn about peace and conflict resolution through direct service. |
| Marie Reeds Elementary School | Students worked directly as classroom assistants, tutors and mentors for students ranging in age between K-6. Activities ranged from creating engaging teaching plans for their classrooms, to making arts and crafts with students. |
Quotes from students:
“I enjoyed working with [redacted] this semester and being a part of the work In the Streets does as a whole. It was great to learn about how to better be a part of change in terms of mental health and opportunities for individuals in D.C. as well as get to know all of the other pairings better. I learned most in this class through this service-learning opportunity.” - A student serving with In the Streets
“The children were kind to each other and very cooperative. They also shared information about themselves and seemed excited about the Horton's Kids program.” - A student serving with Horton’s Kid
“My second semester volunteering with Marie Reed has been incredible and I am so glad I have had the opportunity to work with this school and people!” - A student serving with Marie Reed Es
“Throughout November, [redacted] and I got significantly closer. Our calls tripled in length, and we opened up to each other much more. I was able to help him find a French tutor and talked through the other things he had going on. His responses to my texts became much more consistent as well.” - A student serving with In the Streets
Spring 2022
Professor: Erica Walls
Students Reporting: 30
Time Reported: 752 Hours
| Community Partner | Student Involvement | How many students served here? |
| Pathways to Housing | Students spoke to individuals living in homeless encampments and conducted interviews for Pathways to Housing’s marketing efforts. As part of their project, they wrote summaries for the organization/ led a final presentation as part of the group’s effort to shift the narrative people have about unhoused people. | 4 |
| Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development | Students worked on a variety of marketing and design projects in partnership with the CNHED. Projects ranged from creating informational handouts on topics like digital equity for DC’s wards to developing digital deliverables to the organization’s comms team. | 4 |
| DC Action for Children | Students conducted outreach through calls to community members and educators, blogging, and research. As part of their project this group worked to build infographics; backgrounders on policy, past articles, and educator compensation; and slides presentations to aid the nonprofit’s marketing efforts. | 7 |
| Latin American Youth Center | Students visited the LAYC throughout the semester organizing workshops/discussions and developing mental health toolkits to share with the students who attended. Students aimed to help the teens further their understanding on the importance of mental health and destigmatize mental illnesses. | 4 |
| Children’s Defense Fund | Over the course of the semester, students facilitated community conversation with participants of the Children’s Defense Fund’s “The Block: Family Narratives for Collective Impact”. The project gathers stories that highlight concerns and challenges of families in Ward 8 directly from community members, who are attuned to the issues affecting their neighborhoods and their own priorities for change. | 4 |
| Latino Student Fund | This service project included working with LSF to create a newsletter for the organization to send out weekly with community members and leaders, Students also created a research-based presentation discussing issues with educational equity and LSF's mission. | 3 |
| Greater Brookland Intergenerational Village | Group members created and ran the Facebook and Instagram pages for the GBIV. Students communicated with the executive director of GBIV to produce content for the pages, including event postings and highlights. To create this content, they researched the Brookland area and held weekly meetings to create graphics and captions. Students also ran a volunteer tabling event in Kogan Plaza. | 3 |
| Serve Your City | Students worked with SYC to assist with grant research and updating some of the group’s community resources. Students updated spreadsheets and informational handouts about the group in general and available resources for guests. | 4 |
Student Comments:
“My perspective impacts the work I do with CNHED by allowing me to relate to some focuses, but forces me to open my mind to other issues, and to learn about them further. I can understand some of the stressors, but not all of them - and it reminds that I have to listen before I think of solutions because if I don’t, I’ll likely miss the problem entirely.” - A student volunteering with the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development
“As my group has continued to meet at least once a week with our organization, we have discussed developing trust building strategies with the communities we are serving, unlearning, and have spoken about white privilege. As an outsider I need to be conscious and intentional with my actions.” - A student working with Children’s Defense Fund
“Reciprocity is important because as students who are going out and spending time contributing to the community, we need to make sure that we are not only doing it for a grade in the class, but to learn from the experience” - A student working with DC Action for Children
“Service-learning is hands-on and is meant to be challenging and unexpected and maybe even messy.” - A student working with DC Action for Children
Spring 2021
Professor: Sangeeta Prasad
Students Reporting: 24
Time Reported: 461
Community Partners
| Community Partner | Number of students | Projects |
| Girlz By Design | 1 | Attended sessions, mentored/engaged with youth. |
| In the Streets | 8 | Tutoring and mentoring youth. |
| Little Friends for Peace | 2 | |
| Marie Reed Es | 11 | |
| The New Georgia Project | 1 | Gathered voting data, content creation and organization. |
Student Comments
“Over the course of the semester, I had the privilege of meeting with two intelligent children who brought my life so much joy. I have seen tremendous growth in our relationship with each other as well as in their studies. I enjoyed being able to work directly with [names of children] and would definitely participate in this experience again.” – A student serving with Marie Reed Es
“The impact that LFFP has in the community and internationally is beautiful. Given the frustration that comes with being online, I still found peace at the end of every session regardless of how I initially entered the session.” – A student serving with Little Friends for Peace.
Learn more about Community Engaged Scholarship at GW
Student Projects Distribution:
Fall 2021
Professor: Sangeeta Prasad
Students Reporting: 19
Time Reported: 413 hours
Community Partners
| Community Partner | Student Involvement |
| Horton’s Kids | Students provided one-one tutoring, literacy intervention, homework help, and educational advocacy with Horton’s Kids. When not working on school though, volunteers got to engage in fun activities centered on social-emotional learning. |
| In the Streets | Students fostered close relationships with participants throughout the semester, serving as mentors and tutors. In weekly calls, and group meetings students worked directly with participants offering ways to support emotional, mental, spiritual, physical and relational health. |
| Latin American Youth Center | Through opportunities in academics, arts and recreation, job readiness, safe places to live, and healthy and wellness, the LAYC strives to address many of the barriers to success low-income youth face. Volunteers engaged in programming and provided tutoring services for students. |
| Little Friends for Peace | Students had the opportunity to either participate in virtual peace circles with DC Public School students, or with incarcerated citizens in Alexandria, VA . As trained volunteers, students were able to get the chance to learn about peace and conflict resolution through direct service. |
| Marie Reeds Elementary School | Students worked directly as classroom assistants, tutors and mentors for students ranging in age between K-6. Activities ranged from creating engaging teaching plans for their classrooms, to making arts and crafts with students. |
Student Comments:
“I enjoyed working with [redacted] this semester and being a part of the work In the Streets does as a whole. It was great to learn about how to better be a part of change in terms of mental health and opportunities for individuals in DC as well as get to know all of the other pairings better. I learned most in this class through this service-learning opportunity.” - A student serving with In the Streets
“The children were kind to each other and very cooperative. They also shared information about themselves and seemed excited about the Horton's Kids program.” - A student serving with Horton’s Kid
“My second semester volunteering with Marie Reed has been incredible and I am so glad I have had the opportunity to work with this school and people!” - A student serving with Marie Reed Es
“Throughout November, [redacted] and I got significantly closer. Our calls tripled in length, and we opened up to each other much more. I was able to help him find a french tutor and talked through the other things he had going on. His responses to my texts became much more consistent as well.” - A student serving with In the Streets
