|
news
Program
provides hands-on experience
By Alisha Gomez
On-line Forty-Niner
For Dave Hernandez,
a veteran in the spinal cord injury unit at the VA Hospital,
reconnecting with activities he did before his injury has
been limited.
With help from Cal State Long Beach students, Hernandez has
rediscovered his interest in swimming and computers.
His reconnection is a result of a new lab in the therapeutic
recreation certificate program, part of the department of
recreation and leisure studies.
The newest addition to the certificate involves CSULB students
working with veterans from the VA to access leisure resources
in the city and near them.
"This particular class is called leisure counseling,
and in this class the students work with veterans from the
VA and provide them with a leisure education program,"
said Maridith Janssen, assistant professor and therapeutic
recreation coordinator in the department of recreation and
leisure studies.
"Part of the program is to provide them [the veterans]
with community based resources so that the veterans can go
out and participate in leisure based activities in their community,"
Janssen said.
The last class was held at the Earl Burns Miller Japanese
Gardens on campus Tuesday where the students and veterans
went over the packets of resources they put together. For
10 weeks, 11 students from the leisure counseling class got
together with the veterans once a week for an hour and then
an assessment of the session followed the meeting.
"What happens in the leisure counseling is that students
provide the veterans with a series of assessment tools to
look at what leisure means to them," Janssen said. "How
they fit leisure into their lifestyle and what they used to
participate in before they were injured and what they want
to participate in now."
The program is the closest thing to real life since the students
are doing work very typical of recreational therapy, said
Jane Brittingham, one of the recreation therapists for spinal
cord therapy at the VA.
"You find something that tweaks that individual and that
then becomes a new leisure option for them," Brittingham
said. "Oftentimes it can be stuff they did years and
years ago. Sometimes it's just brand new stuff they've never
even tried before."
Hernandez has found the experience very positive.
"They've done the majority of the research for me as
far as finding leisure activities," Hernandez said. "It's
been helpful for me to know these things. I can start looking
at my long term goals and my short term goals and with their
[the students] assistance it gives me an opportunity to do
that."
He said he can appreciate the program and wishes there were
more students going to hospitals and that such a lab should
be part of curriculum for other majors like psychology and
sociology.
"It should be a prerequisite to participate in any hospital,
not just the VA, any place where there might be people who
need to find guidance with leisure time," Hernandez said.
"They may not know what's out there. I'm finding a lot
of stuff through Angela's [Hernandez's CSULB partner] research
and it's helping me. I'm sure that other people will benefit
from it too.
"There's activities out there I haven't done in awhile
that they've helped me to reattach myself to, and hopefully
I can go and participate."
Brittingham said she agreed that the veterans have found the
program to be a positive thing.
"The program's been great," Brittingham said. "The
response from the veterans has been just fabulous. They look
forward to the students coming and they look forward to completing
their assignments."
Besides being great for the veterans, the students also have
been given a rare opportunity to experience life beyond school.
"Being an outdoor recreation person, and having worked
with people for the last 20 years in an outdoor environment,
this is the first time I've sat down one on one in a small
room and actually worked with somebody," said Mike Adams,
a graduate student in recreation.
Adams said it's been very enlightening and although at first
he was very nervous, he relaxed and got into and had a lot
of fun.
"There's nothing more valuable than hands-on experience,"
he said. "I think that's the biggest shock to all students,
the real world. Sure your instructor had you to do things
throughout the year, you had reports and you had tests to
do and you just thought that was part of the game, but in
the real world that's part of a job."
Adams said that having to do assessments, reports and be at
the hospital on time is part of a job.
Another student, Charlene Bolding, a senior in the program,
found the class very beneficial.
"I thought it was a really great experience since I am
an hands-on person," Bolding said. "We applied what
we learned in class and actually learned what it is going
to be like in the real world."
There is still room for improvement in the lab and, being
this is the first time for the program, Janssen has some suggestions.
"One of the things that we've learned needs to be changed
is that we cannot work on the academic schedule as well as
over at the VA," she said. "So we've actually changed
the course time around to be more suitable for when the veterans
are available."
"The other thing we are learning is that there are so
many opportunities over at the VA and that the students have
access to them and we don't use them enough," Janssen
said. "We are going to start working more on trying to
come up with ways to make those resources more available."
|
|
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Search our site
DEPARTMENT
OF
JOURNALISM
ONLINE 49ER
DEPARTMENTS
ADVERTISING
ADMINISTRATION
DAILY
49ER ALUMNI
SUBSCRIPTION
SERVICE
GIVE
FEEDBACK
|
