The newly-renovated guidance office welcomed a new addition: Mr. Lance Swaney. Mr. Swaney, an intern who joined Freedom’s guidance team earlier this month, will be working at the school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays until late May or early June. Currently in a career preparation program at Slippery Rock, Mr. Swaney is gaining his secondary certification to become a school counselor by completing 300 hours of internship time here at Freedom. “I’m supposed to get exposure to different areas, according to Slippery Rock, including personal and social, academic and career,” Mr. Swaney said. However, working in a public school will be a total shift of environment from what he’s used to. Early on, Mr. Swaney studied social work and Christian ministry at Grove City College, going into social services and doing direct care-work with kids in a residential facility. He also worked with child protective services in Allegheny County “trying to assure the safety of kids” in different bad situations. Later, he returned to grad school to receive his degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh, which led to him to his current place of employment: Glade Run Lutheran Services. Glade Run Lutheran Services is a residential treatment facility where kids all over Pennsylvania can stay for any kind of therapy. Here he works as a full-time mental health therapist doing individual, group and family therapy. He also supervises an adolescent boys unit. Aside from housing, the agency offers a school: St. Stevens. Although, it differs from public schooling. “[St. Stevens] is basically for kids that don’t do well in a public school due to behavioral or learning difficulties,” Mr. Swaney said. It was here that he did his first internship and received his first round of school counseling certification, or elementary certification; interning at Freedom will finalize the process. Even though he just recently came to Freedom, he is excited to work here. “Freedom is sort of my model of normalcy; I am seeing what the ‘public school’ looks like,” Mr. Swaney said.