The benefits are endless for IPCC veterans and college interns - Intensive Psychiatric Community Care veterans and college interns brought together by the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Department at the Naval Training Center, Great Lakes

Parks & Recreation, Dec, 1997 by Chris Mohr

The Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MOOR) Department at the Naval Training Center (NTC), Great Lakes has successfully brought two special groups of employees to its workplace: college interns and Intensive Psychiatric Community Care (IPCC) veterans. Both groups have proven to be valuable contributors to MOOR. Besides organizational benefits, these two groups of employees also benefit personally from their MWR work experience.

"MWR has given me a wide range of activities to learn about in my college internship -- publicity, marketing, special events, decisions on staffing. I am learning things that I wouldn't learn in school," said Adam De La Pena-Gafke. Just one of the many benefits for an MWR intern is the variety and flexibility of academic areas to choose from for his or her internship: athletics, fitness-center management, youth and community activities, bowling-center management, special events and entertainment, golf-course management, information, tickets and tour activities, movie-theater management, aquatics programs, outdoor recreation activities, marina/boating management, clubs/food operations, early childhood development curriculum, library functions, crafts/hobby-shop operations, marketing/communications programs and computer science studies. John Prue, recreation division head and internship coordinator said, "Interns can target one or more specific areas of the MWR Department or experience a number of recreational areas. We allow the students to decide what type of experience he or she wishes to receive from their internship. Our main goal is to provide them with a positive learning experience."

"There are many other benefits in performing an internship with MOOR," continued Prue. "One of the most important reasons is that MWR is a worldwide organization." He said that over the past few years, the Navy has been recruiting qualified recreation students for internships at bases all over the world, and a number of these successful interns are then hired as MWR recreation professionals. De La Pena-Gafke added, "This MWR internship will look really good on my resume because it's a worldwide organization. It really legitimizes my previous collegiate experience." Prue said that he personally was the second intern that he knows of at NTC, Great Lakes MWR in 1986. After his internship, Prue was hired as recreation coordinator and has since climbed to the position of recreation division director.

Other internship advantages include a stipend of $75 per week and room and board, which works out to approximately $1,300 per semester.

The organization also benefits from quality interns. "They are eager to learn the business. After all the book learning they have done, they tend to be very refreshing and have very good ideas, giving the organization new energy," explained Prue. Some of the outstanding internship contributions Prue mentioned included a unique fitness competition, "Battle of the Paddle," which brought various base commands together, helping build unit cohesion. Three other interns combined their talents to create a customer-service video production that is currently being used to indoctrinate new MWR employees. There have also been tons of brochures and surveys implemented by interns that have been instrumental in the promotion and analysis of MWR programs.

Another group of employees that has recently joined MOOR's workplace is the Veterans Administration (VA) IPCC Program. This program helps chronically mentally ill patients, who are stabilized, survive in the outside world through the hospital's IPCC Program. This program helps bring the veterans back into the community through various support services, including helping program participants find employment. Some of the program's participants, who are now living independently because of the IPCC Program, were once hospitalized for more than 20 years. The object of the program is not to cure the veterans of their chronic mental illnesses, but to help them live in the community.

The MWR Department at NTC, Great Lakes actively became involved in the IPCC Program after Jerry Hieb, assistant chief of staff, Quality of Life, who is the head of the MWR Department, read an article in The Chicago Tribune (April 1997) about the IPCC Program. Hieb believed that the IPCC veterans would be prospective employees for part-time, entry-level custodial and janitorial positions that are hard to fill with reliable employees. With support services in place, Hieb felt IPCC veterans were dependable enough to fill these vacant positions.

Hieb set up an initial meeting to discuss vocational possibilities for IPCC veterans. The MWR staff then conducted an orientation tour of job sites, followed by meetings determining rules, regulations, and parameters for prospective employees.

After the ground rules were agreed upon, IPCC staff members conducted orientation classes for veterans interested in securing employment with the MWR Department, which included training and education of job sites, description of job responsibilities, assistance in filling out applications and employee etiquette.