Shilpy Singh interned with Quality Behavioral Health, Inc.

"The experience I gained from my internship is something I highly recommend to all the students at some point in the career.  Doing this internship, definitely added a perspective to the degree I am pursuing. Being a design student, and being aware of my natural resources and understanding the complex dynamics between them, I realized that what all contributions, I can make in the real world.  Among the various things, I also got to know and network with different organizations like Greening of Detroit, and learned that, how they can be of major resource to my work.  Overall I really think that it is really meaningful to initiate and do these projects, whenever we get a chance.

Overview of the work/research conducted

Being a part of the organization was a great enriching experience.  I worked with Mr. Naveed Syed and Mr. George throughout summer.  Our goal was to incorporate Horticultural Therapy as an important element of drug Rehabilitation program.  As an effort to achieve our goals we started with a some preliminary site visits and came up with our plan of action.  We started by putting some functional diagrams on papers with the help of the other people in the organization.  I also conducted a design charrattee in which people from the organization and the neighborhood actively participated.  Doing that we were able to incorporate some of the communityí¢â‚¬â„¢s ideas into our site design.

We also visited the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, which is just two blocks from our site in east Detroit and got some great ideas from the work they were doing.  We learned about the various resources and methodologies which they have been preaching and practicing.

In our process we also became members with Greening of Detroit and Detroit Agriculture Network, which proved to be a great resource for us.  Once we had the designs on paper, with their help we started our actual work on the site.  We started with some soil tests and cleaning of the site. Our site is an urban site, approximately one acre in size.  We also have some area adjacent to the rehab.  The people from the community and from the rehab voluntarily participated in the process.  Our cleaning was still going on, in the mid august.

I am still in touch with the organization on regular basis and we have plans to start, by putting in some community garden plots in the areas we have cleaned as a part of the design.  Being aware of our resources, we are also putting in some grants together for USDA and American Horticultural Therapy Association for some grants for our work in the next phases.  I am in touch with some people from USDA too, for guidance as the project progresses.

Explanation of how the internship aided you in your professional development.

I totally believe that the opportunity I had was really a great opportunity for any design or planning student to have.  Being a Landscape Architecture student, I got to work with real people and real site as a part of the internship.  With my knowledge, I understood the process well on paper but planning and designing it in real world added a whole different perspective to my educational career.  Working and co-coordinating with people at different levels in the hierarchy was a steep learning experience.  Trying to put the different pieces of puzzle together, all by myself, and understanding, how to make things work in real world definitely added added an edge to my academic background.

I believe that not only me, but the community also benefitted a lot from this project, which I initiated.  And since we still have plans to accomplish the goals we laid out before, I am still co-coordinating with them and are hoping that we have some vegetables to harvest by next summer."

Internship Details