The Bitter and the Sweet: Honoring Our Recent Fellside Interns

Recently departed interns, Dinari, Rachel, and Charlotte.

Fellside, our 11-person transition program in Medford, MA, which includes our extended community of folks living and working independently in the Boston area, has long-standing relationships with Harvard Divinity School (HDS) and regularly hosts graduate interns from HDS, as well as undergraduate psychology interns from Tufts and Brandeis Universities. These interns join our community for about a year and jump in on everything from leading activities to cooking meals to going on outings and running small groups. We always enjoy their energy and ideas and it’s always hard to say farewell at the end of the school term!

This past May, we said goodbye to Dinari, Rachel, and Charlotte as they graduated and moved on to new opportunities. The three joined us at the start of the school year in September 2025 and were our undergraduate psychology interns from Tufts and Brandeis Universities. Throughout the year, they built rapport with program participants, worked up to co-leading our weekly Skills Group, and cooked alongside residents. Dinari supported one resident in getting through their Spring semester class. Charlotte learned the Fellside kitchen dance well and took over Tuesday night cooking. Rachel helped revive our weekly Art Group and displayed participant art on the dining room wall.

The HDS graduate intern, a position that was vacant this past year, often has opportunities for more responsibility and professional development than our Tufts and Brandeis interns. In addition to joining house activities, they lead a weekly non-denominational Spirituality Group, take on a leadership role for holiday events (including organizing our annual Passover Seder), and have the opportunity to serve as a care manager for 1-2 program participants, if they wish to gain that experience.

We’re looking forward to hosting HDS, Tufts, and Brandeis interns again this coming academic year! Our program director, Jo Vendetelli, supervises the HDS intern, and two of our clinicians supervise the Tufts and Brandeis interns. Students often learn of the opportunity to intern at Fellside through their academic advisors at their respective schools then reach out to the Fellside point of contact.

The bitter and the sweet of our transitional community is that we’re always saying goodbye at the same time that we’re also always welcoming new folks into the fold. The Fellside community appreciates the new energy that interns bring each year, and we enjoy matching our interns’ passions and strengths with the program’s and participants’ needs.