I've Been Thinking About My Work...What Is It Exactly That I Do?

I suspect that this quote, expressed so eloquently by Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail), reflects how many of you think about my work. And, let's be honest, after a four-year degree, a national certification exam, a state license, and nearly three years in the field...I'm not sure I entirely know how to answer it, either. But I can at least give a beginner's explanation.

I am a Recreation Therapist; or, according to my credentials, I am a "Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist", or a CTRS. The American Therapeutic Recreation Association explains that this means I am certified to provide "a treatment service designed to restore, remediate and rehabilitate a person’s level of functioning and independence in life activities, to promote health and wellness as well as reduce or eliminate the activity limitations and restrictions to participation in life situations caused by an illness or disabling condition."

CTRS's are found in many settings, from nursing homes to psychiatric hospitals, to rehab centers, to community programs. If you've been following my career, you'll remember that I did a full-time internship at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, working with stroke survivors in an in-patient setting; then I worked with at-risk youth in residential care, then at the fantastic National Ability Center (a community setting where any person with a disability was welcome to participate in specialized recreation programming including alpine, nordic, and water skiing, archery, horseback riding, cycling, rock climbing, aquatics, sled hockey, bobsled, canoeing, etc.) And now, I work for Recreational Therapy of Texas, a small company that works with individuals with disabilities in the community.

So what exactly do I do? To make things easier, I'll only answer that question for my current position. I have a caseload of about ten clients (hasn't been finalized yet) that I see regularly every week. I either work with them in their home, or I take them out into the community. Almost everything that I do falls into two basic categories:

1. I use recreation as a modality to build functional skills. You've probably heard of physical and occupational therapists; they use certain equipment to build functional skills in their clients; I do the same thing, but using the client's interests and hobbies. For example, if I had a client who needed to work on fine motor skills and loved music, maybe I would teach them how to play the piano. Or, if they loved art, maybe I would teach them how to crochet. Those skills are still being worked on and developed, but the client is enjoying themselves as well. Which therapy do you think the client would rather attend or work on during their free time? Mine, of course. That's why I love it. It's a sneaky way to accomplish therapy.
2. I help the client to develop their recreational interests and skills, adapting to their abilities and needs as is necessary. Maybe they love to go to the theater, but don't know how to find out whether the theatre is wheelchair accessible or not. Or maybe they love watching basketball and wish they could play, and had no idea that community wheelchair basketball leagues exist! Or maybe they need a certain type of equipment to further participate in a hobby they are interested in. It's my job to know the answer to those types of questions, and to teach clients how to find the answers to such questions themselves.

Whew! Does that make sense?

And next, the question that everyone asks...who pays for it? Good question, and again, it depends. In my current job, Medicaid pays for it...but I admit that is really rare, and I've never heard of it before. There's another long explanation for that, but the short and sweet of it is that Medicaid laws vary from state to state, and Texas just happens to be very generous to this population.

Well, this has been rather long-winded. Hopefully you learned something, as I try to advocate for my profession! Moral of the story: thank heavens for free-time. Go do something that you love, right now.

Love,
Rebekah, CTRS