Internship | Community Care Cohort

Welcome to Community Care Cohort!

Who are we?  The Community Care Cohort (CCC) internship is an opportunity for undergraduate students to learn about care work, and experiment with co-creating and leading a care project within a supportive environment. Interns will engage deeply with the questions raised in the Community Care Kit Project mission statement. Who is responsible for care? What are the histories and legacies of care that come from our communities?

What will I gain from this experience? 

• Learn about different histories and practices of care work, focusing on disability justice and healing justice.
• Build skills (facilitation, one-on-ones, consensus decision making, etc.), make intentional connections to build relationships, and map existing personal networks/pods of care.
• The opportunity to engage with guest speakers from care work projects from the Chicago-area and beyond.

The CCC Internship is designed to have a two-year structure that CCC interns can choose to continue into. The general themes for the 2-year cycle are:

Year One: Aligning and Connecting
Year Two: Building and Leading

Year One, Fall:

• Weekly readings & discussions about topics such as Disability Justice, Healing Justice, Mutual Aid, Care Work, etc.
• Learning key moments in disability history
• Exploring different manifestations of care

Year One, Spring: 

• Skill building: 1-on-1s, facilitating guest speakers, consensus decision making
• Making intentional connections to build relationships
• Mapping personal networks/pods

Year Two, Fall: 

• Year 2 Cohort Project: As a Cohort, envision a project/campaign/program to work on for the year!
• Co-facilitation of Year 1 meetings
• Biweekly Cohort meetings

Year Two, Spring: 

• Year 2 Cohort Project (continued) with a ‘present back’ session to share the takeaways & wisdom with Year 1 interns & DCC staff!
• Facilitate 1-on-1 practice for Year 1 Cohort
• Biweekly Cohort meetings

Ready to Apply? Join the CCC in Fall 2024!

Application Due: April 5, 2024

Available Spots: 3 to 4

Who Can Apply? UIC Undergraduates. Our internship centers those of us with lived experience of disability, broadly understood as having non-normative bodies/minds.

Time commitment per semester? 33 hours, approximately 2 hours a week.

Stipend: $500 per semester. Stipend will be added to student account–if all fees are paid, you will receive a refund.

Accessible application request:

The Community Care Cohort application is a Google form on our website. But you can apply in other formats, whatever is most comfortable for expressing your ideas. You can submit written answers using above the Google form or Word/Plain Text document, written answers over email, audio answers, or a video. For information about non-Google form submission options, please contact dcc@uic.edu.