Lynda Mitchell, President of Therapeutic Recreation, RecCare

>> My name is Dr. Linda Mitchell and I'm owner and operator a therapeutic recreation private practice. We serve individuals with developmental disabilities in and around Philadelphia; however, we are based in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Therapeutic recreation is an allied health profession that uses recreation, leisure, play, and social experiences in a prescribed way to help individuals with disabilities to function at a higher level. For example, if an individual with a developmental disability wanted to go to a line dance class for example, but this individual not only had an intellectual disability, he also experienced social anxiety and distress and not sure what the "lay of the land" is, but was really excited about the possibility of learning how to line dance. The recreation therapist would be that person that would support that individual before, during, and after such an experience. For example, the recreation therapist would be person that would patiently explain to individual with the disability what line dancing is to make sure that the individual understood the whole idea of line dancing and not just learning steps, but the idea of socializing with other line dancers and just having some fun, nobody's perfect, a lot of reassurance and then you speak with that person where there might be some line dancing opportunities in and around the neighborhood with which he is familiar. Then the recreation therapist would be that individual that would go to the line dance class with that individual, talk with them a little bit even in the car before you would go into the line dance class. It gives them some suggestions as to opening lines such as, "So how long have you been coming here?" "Or my name is." Oh, I hope I do well today, or those kinds of phrases that often individuals with developmental or even social skills deficits might have a struggle within that type of environment, and then within the line dance class, the recreation therapist would be that person that would support that client with or that individual within that experience being right there with them, helping the person to understand what the teacher's talking about, periodically checking in to see how they're doing socially, how are they feeling, are they feeling anxious, maybe even holding their hand a lot of reassurance making suggestions such as, whenever this gets to be too much for you we can step out and take a break, it's not a thing where you're going to stay here until this line dance class if over, and then afterwards, on the way home, that recreation therapist would chat with the individual about what the experience was like, what they liked, what they didn't like, will they try it again giving a lot of positive support about what the recreation saw within that person, such as "You look like you were having a wonderful chat with that other lady" or pointing out different examples of how the recreation therapists perceive how the individual in the class with them was experiencing and just doing a final assessment about what types of functional skills improvements happened for that individual within that class. How they accepted the information before they went into the class, what was going on for that person doing the class, watching the person, watching their face, watching their movements and that kind of things and just getting a good idea about whether those skills could actually be parlayed into other areas of that individual's life.