Currently: 72°F
Madison Willard is working toward her bachelor’s degree in psychology and says, “I always wanted to study psychology because I wanted to understand human behavior.” Specifically, she explains; she wanted to understand how humans navigate in complicated situations.
In the Spring of 2026, Willard took a course called “The Psychology of Drug Addiction” with Dr. Elizabeth Thyrum ’86, associate professor of psychology, that required students to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The class and the experience influenced her to pursue substance abuse counseling as a career.
When the spring semester ended, Willard wanted an internship connected to substance abuse. She landed at The Kintock Group in the Philadelphia area, where she lives, and they received the Susquehanna Bancshares Internship Program Award, which provides financial assistance to students completing unpaid internship through nonprofit organizations or governments agencies.
The Kintock Group is a community-based reentry facility, which is a supervised and structured environment that helps individuals transition from prison to being a member of the community.
“A reentry facility like The Kintock Group provides a buffer for formerly incarcerated individuals,” Willard explains. “This is to make the transition easier for them.”
Willard’s role at the internship was observational; they learned how the program operated and how staff helped the residents. They also “gained insight into how medication-assisted treatment MAT fits into early reentry.”
Willard described MAT saying, “It’s a program used to support people recovering from substance use disorder or opioid use disorder that helps manage withdrawal symptoms, reduce cravings, and keeps individuals stable during early recovery.”
A favorite part of the internship, Willard says, was “seeing the recovery process up close, which was an invaluable experience. At the same time, being relegated to an observational role, it was challenging to watch others struggle.”
Throughout the internship, Willard learned more about observation and interviewing as well as being able to connect research to what they saw on the ground. “This led me to a much better understanding of concepts that I learned in class,” they share.
Willard says, “I would recommend this type of internship to students who want to see the recovery process up close, and meet real people involved in that recovery process. The whole experience helped provide clarity and reinforcement that this I what I want to do.”
