Week 0: Getting Started

Let's start with some logistics:

-Who: Caryn Shebowich, undergraduate senior, theatre enthusiast, people-lover, and potential future drama therapist

-What: Administrative Internship with a focus in Drama Therapy, including at least a quarter of my time getting clinical exposure to real-life therapy group and individual sessions in Drama and Music therapy (and potentially art therapy- we're in the process of figuring that out)

-When: Tuesday-Saturday, 9am-5pm. September 26-November 21, 2014, aka when it's BEAUTIFUL AND SUNNY (followed by the beginning of winter.  Trying not to think about that part.)

-Where: Institute for Therapy through the Arts in Evanston, IL, a gorgeous thirty minute walk along Lake Michigan from where I live here

-Why: Drama Therapy is a potential career path for me. I am a "Psychological Well-Being in the Arts" Major (it's an individualized Bachelor of Arts degree, thanks to Cornell's wonderful flexibility and encouragement of academic initiative), and over the last few years I've discovered that getting the title of "chemistry major" on paper did not make me nearly as excited about my not-on-paper life as did choosing classes I was excited about and figuring out how they overlapped. Turns out that this internship in particular is a perfect capstone project for my major  that blends my coursework, my passions, and my skill set.
Check out what DT is:

http://www.nadta.org/what-is-drama-therapy.html

In 48 hours, I:
-Moved states (Took a 3am Megabus),
-Packed and unpacked my life from a dorm room into a new, beautiful apartment where I live with a Cornell alum (who is also a dear friend) and her roommate,
-Started my internship (of which I've already worked a full day and a half),
-Browsed beautiful art at a music and art fair happening right outside of my workplace,
-And slept for 12 hours straight because all of the above was so exhausting.


A little bit about my job: 

Day 1 was a half day so I got to the office at 1:30pm after moving into our apartment Friday morning. We're in a basement, which is kind of sad because we lack windows, but our offices are a mix of admin offices for ITA and MIC (our parent organization), treatment rooms, and a blackbox theatre. After a quick tour and meeting the staff,  my supervisor did a mini orientation and I jumped right in.

In my first day and a half I already went through training on HIPPA rules and Mandatory Reporting through the DCFS (I am now a certified mandatory reporter of child and/or dependent adult abuse),  wrote a letter to myself that I'll get back at the end of 8 weeks, learned the difference between state licensure and board certification in counseling, set up my ITA email account, read the ITA Policies and Procedures, and started in on my admin tasks assigned by my supervisor.

I must have good luck with supervisors. Last year when I worked for Project Transitions I have a fantastic supervisor, and it looks like I hit the jackpot again. The way ITA is set up, all full-time therapists and interns (graduate and undergraduate) also have an administrative role.  My primary supervisor is a music therapist and also takes care of all intern schedules/training/etc as well as coordinates volunteers. While I'm at ITA, I will be taking over volunteer coordination as one of my admin responsibilities. It's a little different than volunteering at other organizations; when people contact ITA with an interest in volunteering, they must go through an interview process because of the sensitive nature of the work we do. If they are accepted, their information is put into a database, which I am now in charge of managing.

The coolest part:
Admin stuff is all great and good, but the part of my job I'm most excited about is clinical sessions.   I am still waiting to hear about what in-house individual client sessions I'll be a part of, but I am definitely going to be a part of group sessions. One day a week I'll be out of the office in drama therapy sessions, split between working with an geriatric population and a DD (developmentally disabled) population. Another day a week I'll be out of the office in group music therapy sessions with a DD youth population. Both days there will be Spanish speaking clients, so I'll be able to practice my Spanish :) Before and after sessions I'll be traveling to and from the main office with the therapists, so I'll have the opportunity to process with them and ask them questions.  I cannot wait to get started on those!!!!

Blessed by angels:

Not only am I working a cool internship, and living in a beautiful apartment, I have been blessed by angels. I am, of course, always blessed by the angels who are my parents, family, and friends who make all of this possible....
and now I have two more angels named Molly and Alec (aka my roommates). They have been nothing but generous and welcoming and have taken me under their wing, fed me multiple times, proved to be great conversationalists, and generally gotten me settled. It appears we will all be wonderful roommates who like to cook delicious food, do dishes,  bake cookies late at night.   I have my own room and live half a block from the beach on Lake Michigan, so basically I live on the ocean minus the salt.

So here I am, finally rested, slightly settled in, and more than slightly excited to be here.   Over the next 8 weeks, I will be living at a huge change of pace from my Cornell life.  When I leave work, I leave; I am not expected to take tasks home with me. After 5pm I will be free to experience Evanston and (thanks to wonderful public transportation) Chicago.  If you have suggestions of "must-see"s or "must-do"s in the area, let me know!   This will be a weekly blog, so stay tuned :)