University of Oregon psychology professor Jennifer Pfeifer has been teaching an advanced undergraduate psychology class focused on social development for about 13 years. In the past three to four years, Pfeifer added a new project to the course.

Other academics around the country have implemented an approach called community service learning in their curriculum for these psychology students. After hearing about it, Pfeifer said she devised a quarter-long assignment focused on this approach; she said now it’s one of her favorite things about the class.

Pfeifer said that the students in the course are divided into groups and proceed to choose an organization that deals with children in a specific psychology context. The students look at how this context might impact the children’s development — and what they can do to help.

Ava Archer, Matt Benson, Itay Chang, Emily Enriquez and Mia Lejano are teaming up with Every Child Lane County to learn more about how the foster care system affects development. The students are also working with the organization to gather clothing for the kids.

“Everyone knows the foster care system exists, and what we’re doing isn’t anything super insane; we’re just collecting clothes and bringing awareness,” Archer said. “But it brings the foster care system into people’s consciousness.”

Archer said when they reached out to Every Child Lane County, the organization gave them a list of ways they could help. They chose to focus on donating clothes, as Archer said it would be an easy way for more students to contribute.

“Obviously money always helps, but how are we gonna convince college students who don’t have a lot of money to give money?” Archer said. “We know plenty of people who probably have plenty of clothes that they don’t need, and that’s so easy to give and it doesn’t take a lot of effort.”

Benson said he thinks providing clothes is helpful for these children not just from a needs perspective, but from a psychological perspective as well.

“Coming from that sort of context, those kids are already in a very unique situation that most of their peers don’t understand,” Benson said. “They can face some adversity for that as far as social development. What we’re specifically doing, finding clothing for them, hopefully that will give them something they don’t otherwise have and give them a chance to fit in a little better.”

Pfeifer said that while students are able to help out these organizations in an impactful way, students are also able to learn in a meaningful way.

“I think in general when we learn in college, it is often really disconnected from people of everyday life and our community,” Pfeifer said. “The reality is that there’s so many ways that the study of social development is important and integral to so many communities that being disconnected doesn’t make any sense.”

Pfiefer said that helping students see the relevance of what they’re learning in the classroom in the real world helps them understand the value of what they’re learning.

Students in the class can choose from almost any topic related to social development, find many organizations they can get in touch with to focus on for the term and hopefully make a change.

In the past, students in this course have taken on initiatives like completely reconstructing a website for an organization or translating an organization’s material into Spanish so it could have a more diverse workforce. Pfiefer said that one group fundraised and collected around 80% of the blankets for an organization that provides blankets for children who are survivors of domestic trauma situations.

The group focusing on Every Child Lane County plans to advertise on social media to inform their peers about making clothing donations for the organization. Every Child Lane County accepts clothes year round.

“I think reaching out to the kids and giving them clothes, I’ve known from hearing from other people’s personal experiences that it’s honestly the littlest things that make kids in the foster care system feel so good,” Archer said. “Something I can do that doesn’t take everything from me can mean so much to them.”