INTERNSHIP
On this page, you can find information about my final project as a student- a 560 hour internship. I have completed this extensive internship according to the National Council for Therapeutic Recreation Certification internship guidelines and task analysis. I completed my internship at Salt Lake County Adaptive Recreation while doing some of my hours at Shriners Hospital for Children. Being able to intern at both a community based agency and a clinical based agency was an amazing experience that allowed me to learn about, experience, and appreciate recreational therapy on both sides of a great spectrum.
INTERNSHIP TITLE, DESCRIPTION, AND RESPONSIBILITIES
As I mentioned, I did my internship hours at two agencies. I did the majority of my intern hours with Salt Lake County Adaptive Recreation and this is where I did my internship projects that I'll include below. Here is the internship description that the written plan of operations for Salt Lake County Adaptive Recreation gives:
The intern’s role in this organization is to assist in all aspects of programs and administration. He/she will be supervised by a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS), while performing various job tasks as outlined by the National Council for Therapeutic Recreation Certification. Based on experience, the intern may also serve in a leadership role, as a program leader or site supervisor. The intern will also provide information on current trends in therapeutic recreation services by preparing presentations for the adaptive staff. The internship will be partially paid. Any office hours worked will not be paid, and any work in programs will be paid at $9.00 per hour.
INTERNSHIP REFLECTION
My internship was such an amazing experience that was able to be customized to my interests and goals, and for that I’ll forever be grateful. I primarily interned at Salt Lake County Adaptive Recreation where I learned all about the ins and outs of providing a large area with adaptive recreation services. Though my internship was almost completely virtual, I was able to attend a few in person activities with participants such as the agency’s air gun clinic. Those activities allowed me to see all of the behind the scenes work that I became a part of- everything from the planning, to collaborating with coworkers and outside sources on details, to documenting all of the information, really come together to be something so positive and beneficial for our participants. I really appreciated those moments as they allowed me to see firsthand why recreational therapy is essential in today’s society and why I chose to go into this profession: to provide opportunities of recreation, achievement, exploration, and much more to people of all abilities, cultures, and backgrounds.
I also got to experience this validation with virtual activities. Though doing a virtual internship was definitely not what I was expecting when I pictured my internship, being able to be on the cutting edge of virtual recreational therapy was such an amazing and cultivating experience for me. Along with getting to help out with implementing the first virtual social dances that the agency did, I had the chance to create and develop a virtual adaptive fitness class. Going through each step of planning for and getting to have a say on each detail of it was an integral part of my internship that allowed me to learn how to build a program from the ground up. The virtual fitness class was implemented on a weekly basis for the last part of my internship which gave me the opportunity to observe the program I created, evaluate it, and make the necessary changes to make it even better for our participants.
My supervisor was generous enough to let me do ten hours a week at Shriners Hospital for Children where I was able to learn how recreational therapy works in a children’s hospital and become an asset of the recreational program there. I observed, learned, and eventually became responsible for planning and implementing monthly groups for outpatients, communicating with other departments in the hospital and the treatment team, and implementing the APIED process with patients while interacting and building effective relationships with these patients. Not only did it allow me to see the clinical side of recreational therapy which was incredible- to be able to learn and grow as a future recreational therapist on both sides of the spectrum, it also gave me the opportunity to explore the primary interest I had, and still have, in going into the field which is working in a clinical setting with children who have disabilities. I have Cerebral Palsy and the opportunities of recreation I had in my youth molded me into who I am today, which is why this field and what it stands for has such a special place in my heart. Needless to say, having the opportunity to intern at both agencies created an experience that ever so positively impacted my knowledge and opinions of recreational therapy, my values and aspirations for my career as a recreational therapist, and my own perspectives in life. I will never forget my internship.
INTERNSHIP PROJECTS
Here are some of the projects that I completed during my internship to give an idea of the concepts and tasks that I learned and grew in.
APIED DOCUMENTATION FOR THE MIRACLE LEAGUE PROGRAM
Salt Lake County Adaptive Recreation has a Miracle League program that is very popular. For one of my assignments, I created all of the necessary documentation that staff would need to take participants through the APIED process. Here are a couple of the documents from that collection.
VIRTUAL ADAPTIVE FITNESS CLASS APIED DOCUMENTATION
I also had the opportunity to create APIED documentation for the virtual adaptive fitness class I created. This one was a little different because the class is held on Facebook Live which eliminates the opportunity for staff to observe participants. I took this into consideration when creating these documents, so they are more self reporting for the participants than your traditional staff observation documentation. The evaluation form that can be found below was actually implemented in the program which gave me the opportunity to see how participants reacted to it.