By: Emma Story
Supervisor, Therapeutic Recreation
February is recognized as Therapeutic Recreation (TR) awareness month, a time for Therapeutic Recreation Specialists to advocate for and advance the profession. TR helps improve individuals’ wellbeing, physical and mental health, and functional capacity through education, functional intervention, and recreation participation. While fun is an important aspect of programming, TR specialists also help individuals:
- build, learn, and maintain life skills,
- increase independence and resilience,
- improve quality of life, and
- find what they are passionate about.
What makes the profession unique is the individuals who studied TR possess transferable skills to apply the philosophies and practices of inclusion and accessibility to a variety of diverse settings. This includes rehabilitation programs, mental health centers, children’s treatment centers, hospitals and much more.
At Abilities Centre, TR has played a role in the creation and delivery of many successful programs and services and there are TR Specialists present across several departments. Within the Therapeutic Recreation department, the available programming includes:
- Active Connection - a goal-based program on enhancing physical and social skills,
- Creative Cafe - a leisure-based program that explores many creative outlets and encourages creative expression, and
- Therapeutic Recreation in Schools (TRIS) - a goal-based program in partnership with local school boards that builds and enhances students’ skills of resiliency.
To better understand the field and recognize their diverse backgrounds and experiences, some of the TR Specialists that work within Abilities Centre have shared a glimpse into their Therapeutic Recreation journey:
How did you get into Therapeutic Recreation?
Despite working various recreation roles, I had no idea therapeutic recreation was a career. That was- until my father had a hemmorhagic stroke in 2021. With this, the landscape of my family changed and I was quickly introduced to treatment teams as PTs, OTs and SLPs (the 3-hour rule of therapy) started visiting my parents’ house mid-pandemic. As they did their work, I found myself trying to entertain my father- going for walks as he rebuilt some strength, buying him a card holder so we could play Skip-Bo, setting up table tennis so he could engage in something akin to pickleball - his favourite activity before his stroke. I became his recreation therapist naturally and on learning of this occupation from his therapists, applied to go back to school again. My father pushed hard to live a full life every day, and remains my “why” for helping others with both born and acquired disabilities.
- Michelle, Therapeutic Recreation Specialist
I came across Therapeutic Recreation while completing my final semester of my Kinesiology & Health Science degree. I was searching for what my next step after graduation would be, and the person-centred approach of Therapeutic Recreation pulled me in immediately. I knew a discipline that enriched quality of life across all domains of health was one I wanted to be a part of, so Therapeutic Recreation was the perfect fit for me.
I have always enjoyed working with people no matter their age, background, or ability but I struggled finding a career path that fits this. During my time studying Recreation and Leisure I found out about Therapeutic Recreation, what stood out to me was the intentionality behind the field, using the power of recreation to accomplish goals which sparked my curiosity. After enrolling in Therapeutic Recreation studies, I felt inspired and excited about combining my passions of inclusion and recreation using evidence-based practice rather than just playing fun games!
What does Therapeutic Recreation mean to you?
When I say TR means everything to me it sounds like I am over exaggerating, but it is true! Recreation and leisure are a huge component of everyone’s lives and I truly believe having meaningful recreation and leisure outlets is the key to a happy and joyful life. I have been able to see firsthand the impact that TR has had on many individuals' lives in such diverse ways, from a participant building skills of independence to a participant laughing and engaging in an activity for the first time.
TR means a lot to me, in many ways. This career has been nothing but filled with passion and excitement. Every day I come to work knowing that I am going to make a difference in someone’s day, does not have to be life changing, but the little things matter too. For me it’s about making a difference in my participants lives, understanding their needs and wants, and making sure that they are having the same opportunity to be social to be active like anyone else. Our participants are so incredible and are limitless if you give them the opportunities. I think TR is about not giving up on anyone, giving everyone that same chances at a better quality of life. Seeing the impact, you have on your participants is what makes us keep wanting to do what we do as TRs.
TR means having opportunity and choice in what you participate in. Everyone should be given these things for the betterment of their overall wellbeing.
What is the highlight of your Therapeutic Recreation career so far?
I can honestly say every day there is a highlight to my TR career as I always celebrate the small wins you see daily. One moment in particular that is jumping out to me though is when I facilitated a girls' sport program that introduced girls to a new sport each week in a fun and safe environment. One participant came up to me and told me that this was the first time she participated in sport as she felt comfortable and safe in the program. She said from this experience she felt more confident to engage in physical activity and sport in future programming.
The highlight of my TR career so far is knowing that the impact we have on our participants is making a difference in their lives and that’s all I ever hoped for.
Getting to work with so many fantastic individuals (both staff and participants) that teach me as much (or more) as I hopefully am able to share with them.
The highlight of my TR career is a bit broader in scale; it’s having been a part of the team that has grown and developed Therapeutic Recreation at Abilities Centre. When I started with the Centre, TR services were just starting to gain momentum. There were a handful of TRSs supporting these services aside our typical roles within the organization. Today, we have an entire Therapeutic Recreation department with multiple full-time TRSs who are implementing services in some truly innovative spaces. It’s been amazing to witness that growth over just a few short years!
Highlights of my career happen often when we get to see the participants, we work with for years accomplish what was set our to do- whether that is obtaining meaningful employment, playing and competing in a sport that is important to them or just finding the love of nature.
As I reflect on my time as a recreational therapist, I think about all the small wins I have experienced with the individuals I work with. Of course, seeing a large improvement or a big success is exciting (and the goal), but rather the times where a participant has made eye contact first time, or a participant who is quiet ends up having a belly laugh during a session which breaks them out of their shell, or someone throws a ball for the first time are all some examples of my highlights. To many people these may seem like small things that probably aren’t a big deal, but as a TR these are the small things we look for and make a huge difference. Looking for those small wins or improvement with all my participants that I see everyday is truly why I love being a TR!
About the author:
Emma Story is one of the Supervisors of the Therapeutic Recreation department at Abilities Centre and holds a Bachelor's of Science in Health Science and a post-graduate certificate in Therapeutic Recreation. She oversees all of the external programming that occurs within the local school boards and the community. Emma has a passion for inclusion in sport and gender equity and has championed the creation of girls multi-sport programming and the first annual International Women's Day event within the centre.