The Deutsch Institute is a nonprofit organization located here in the Northeast Region of Pennsylvania. The Deutsch has been working in this area since 1979. They are a group dedicated to developing and expanding resources and opportunities that help improve the health and wellbeing of those with special needs. They make this possible through utilizing existing resources and faculty as well as volunteer services and cooperative ventures with social service agencies.
The Deutsch Institute has various events planned throughout the month. One Saturday every month the Deutsch meets in the Marywood Art Therapy Studio located in the Shields Center for Visual Arts. Each month when they visit with us, both graduate and undergraduate art therapy students will come up with an experiential to complete with the clients.
This semester we are taking our Art Therapy Internship course where we were split into groups and assigned a “Super Saturday,” when the Deutsch comes to Marywood. For these “Super Saturdays,” each group is assigned to create an experiential.
Our group had our Super Saturday this past weekend, September 24th. For our experiential we wanted to create a fall scene with trees, leaves, and whatever they wanted to add. As preparation, we drew tree trunks on pieces of paper that they could color in and draw on. We created an example of the trees as well as an example of our leaf stencils. We also copied some leaves on pieces of paper for the clients to color in or put on their tree. The preparation stage of creating an experiential for the Deutsch takes a lot of consideration. We need to take into account the clients’ mobility and what supplies they can and cannot use.
This experiential was executed very well and was extremely beneficial for the clients. I have done the Deutsch experiential before, but I think that this experiential was executed in a better fashion and had more benefits for the clients. We are very happy with how this worked out and the directors of the Deutsch were grateful and thought that this experiential was the best yet. It was very fulfilling to get this experience and see a positive reaction from the clients. It was awesome to see them walk in and immediately interact with the artwork. I loved building relationships with the clients and engaging in positive conversation. I love working with the Deutsch Institute and love that Marywood allows this opportunity for both the clients and their students, I cannot wait to work with them again!
If you would like to learn more about the Deutsch Institute, do not hesitate to reach out to their Facebook, email at support@deutschinstitute.org, or phone numbers at 570-348-1968 or 570-348-0891, as well as their office hours and visitation hours. You can also contact me if you have any further questions!
Thank you guys for reading! Till Next time!
