Recreation Therapy and Me

 Hi all!

My name is Cami. I am a Recreation Therapist, practicing since 2017. Recreation Therapy (RT) is the purposeful use of any healthy leisure/recreation activity to improve quality of life, whether socially, emotionally, intellectually, physically, or spiritually. RT is provided by educated and certified Recreation Therapists. The most common way to become a Recreation Therapist is to do a 4-year Bachelor Degree in Therapeutic Recreation and then take the National Certification exam to become a CTRS. That is also the route that I took. There are also Master and Doctorate programs for Therapeutic Recreation. (My Master degree is just Parks and Recreation Management.)

Cami in Antelope Canyon

Recreation Therapy can be used for all kinds of people in several settings. I have worked with children, adolescents, and adults. These clients have had a wide range of needs. They have had mental health and developmental disorders, physical disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, Alzheimer's, and other dementias. I have also worked with many people who are just at a low point in their life due to circumstances, who need a little help to get back on their feet and stay grounded. I have worked in Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs), mental health hospitals, an adult day care center, and county/city parks and recreation departments.

I believe that RT can help anyone. You just have to believe that it can help you. You have to believe that you can change. And let me tell you, our brains are malleable, so we can change. It does take time, but it is possible. RT also uses various activities, so it's not just sit down therapy. It is experiential, and I can show you the skills that you have and where you may need to improve. Activities that I have used include skiing, snowboard, rock climbing, rappelling, mountain biking, arts and crafts, group games, cooking/baking, longboarding, basketball, card and board games, and more. I personally love the outdoors more than being stuck in a room. But even if we're in a room, I still love to get up and move about.

My forte is working in mental health. And my dream is to work with families. I would love to work with families that have at least one member that is in therapy, whether that is a child or parent. I believe that the individual improves better when they are also working with their immediate support system. Each individual is part of something much bigger. Recreation Therapy can help families and groups work more cohesively. Here's to that dream and to advocating for RT. Thank you for being here! Thank you for being willing to learn and also advocate for RT.

Here's to great things to come!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is Recreation Therapy?

Image
Throughout my undergraduate degree, when people asked what I was studying and I replied "Therapeutic Recreation," the comments such as "Oh I need to go relax on the beach" or "I could sure use a vacation" were plenteous. Sadly, this is not necessarily what Therapeutic Recreation, or Recreation Therapy fully is. I don't go to the beach with clients all the time. In fact, I never have. Here is one picture I did take from the beach this year though. Wellington, NZ 2024 Simply put, Recreation Therapy (RT) is the purposeful use of any healthy leisure/recreation activity to improve quality of life, whether socially, emotionally, intellectually, physically, or spiritually. This may seem like, yes, this is going to the beach. However, there is more to it than that. This post will include more but will again only be some of what is the job of a Recreation Therapist. There will be more posts about what it looks like to be a Recreation Therapist. In my personal e...
Read more

Oh Heck!

Card games are a great way to recreate when there is not much space or when you need to adapt an activity from a few to many participants. I grew up playing a game called "Oh Heck!" It is a trick-taking game . Many people call these tricks, hands, or books. For the purposes of this post, I will just refer to them as tricks. For other trick-taking games, I have a list at the bottom of the post with a few links to specific decks. Oh Heck! Materials Card Deck (Just regular face cards) Pencil/Pen Paper Play Dealer shuffles and deals out cards to all players. Deal out as many cards as possible to each player, so each player has the same number of cards with a few cards left over. No player should have more cards than another player.  Place the non-dealt cards in a pile face down next to the dealer. The dealer then turns over the top card of the leftover pile and places it face up back onto the pile. The suit of this card is the trump suit for the first round. The trump suit will ...
Read more