Ella the Intern

May-02-2022

Employees

Imagine! offers a 15 week internship through Imagine!'s Therapeutic Recreation (TR) division, designed to provide students with a professional, educational, and enjoyable experience in a positive environment. Students from all over the country apply for this one of a kind program as they wrap up final requirements for their Therapeutic Recreation degree. Supervised by an Imagine! Certified Therapeutic Recreational Specialist (CTRS), hired interns gain a variety of experiences. From working directly with Imagine! clients and practicing the application of therapeutic techniques and interventions, to attending administrative meetings, to preparing and implementing a therapeutic activity and lesson plan, interns walk away with a wealth of knowledge and experience.  

 

Imagine!’s latest TR intern is Ella Boeke, who hails from Hendersonville, NC, and completed her internship in mid-April. Ella is studying Recreation Therapy at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW), and will graduate this spring. After completing the internship, we sat down with Ella to learn how her experience was as an Imagine! TR Intern and what comes next post-graduation. 

 

What attracted you to this internship and what were you hoping to get out of it?

When interviewing for internships, Imagine! immediately stood out to me because of the variety of activities and the detail that the CTRS’s put into the interventions. They are always striving to make the program the best it can be and working hard to provide opportunities for the participants to work on goals and participate in leisure activities! Now being an intern here and seeing them in action, I can see the impact their passion has on the TR program and participants. I wanted to be part of this wonderful team and learn the importance of community-based TR for the whole process of intake, planning, writing plans, facilitating, and evaluating outcomes.

 

Is there anything you learned that stands out the most?

I have learned so much about the benefits of community-based TR for the participants and for the community partners we work with. I have learned the importance of building therapeutic relationships and rapport with participants in order to better support and have fun with them in a beneficial and therapeutic way. There are many different aspects and specific tasks, both in the field and behind the scenes that are necessary to make this program great, which I enjoyed learning about and experiencing. I learned the importance of continuing education because this field changes so quickly and there is new important information every day that can help me become a more informed advocate.

 

Any highlights working with the participants?

There are too many highlights to count! The participants are so much fun to be around and hang out with during program. I have been getting to know each participant and love watching and encouraging them to try new leisure activities. I have learned so much from each participant. One of my favorite activities was going to My Nature Lab in Louisville and watching all of the participants hold snakes, lizards, feed turtles, and hype themselves up! My favorite part of this internship was seeing the participants be so proud of themselves for trying something new or achieving a goal. 

 

Is there a “final project” involved with this internship? If so, what does it entail and what is the desired outcome?

There is a final project involved in the internship, where the intern chooses a project that they are interested in and takes lead on it. This could be an administrative task, presentation, planned activity, or anything else the intern is inspired to complete. The desired outcome is for the intern to take initiative and make something happen that they feel is important or helpful to the organization! I chose to plan and implement a cookout for the participants to have fun and celebrate themselves.

 

What’s next after the internship? 

After the internship I will graduate from UNCW, then come back to work Imagine! Summer Camp at. I am so excited to continue working with the participants, meet new participants, and experience the summer camp that everyone has been talking about!

 

Anything else you’d like to add? 

Interning with Imagine! has been an amazing, educational, and fun experience. I would definitely recommend this organization to TR interns or other staff because of the amount of support, encouragement, and quality of the program!

 

We would like to send Ella a big THANK YOU for packing up her things and venturing all the way out to Colorado to support Imagine! through the internship program. We wish you the best on your succeeding adventures and are grateful that you chose to work Summer Camp!

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