THERAPEUTIC FACILITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT

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Rochelle Callis CRPD Therapeutic Recreation Program Final Report and Recommendations September 8, 2017 page 7 We discuss this issue in more detail below, but suffice to say that in many jurisdictions, therapeutic recreation programs have always struggled with the perception by funders and agency administrators that the comparably low participation numbers are an indicator of lack of need. That is an incorrect assumption. The Relationship between Therapeutic Recreation and the ADA Mandate for Inclusive Participation Today, many professionals and board members assume that a discussion about Therapeutic Recreation Programs is also a discussion about the ADA mandate that CRPD provide programs and services in the most inclusive setting. In reality, these are two distinct, but related, discussions. The professional association for therapeutic recreation practitioners is the American Therapeutic Recreation Association (ATRA). At the ATRA website (www.atra-online.com) the Association defines both the practice of therapeutic recreation and the field. "Recreational therapy, also known as therapeutic recreation, is a systematic process that utilizes recreation and other activity -based interventions to address the assessed needs of individuals with illnesses and/or disabling conditions, as a means to psychological and physical health, recovery, and well-being." The definition elaborates, noting that "further, "Recreational Therapy" means 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." Those two paragraphs well describe the CRPD Therapeutic Recreation Program. Providing Therapeutic Recreation Programs is an excellent service, it is certainly a smart practice. However, that is not the ADA mandate. In the US Department of Justice regulation issued to implement title II of the ADA, section 35.130 requires the District to make its programs and services available in the most integrated setting. In this report, we refer to that requirement as the inclusion mandate, and we discuss this mandate at several places in this report. These distinct services are closely related. Certainly, the four elements of the therapeutic recreation process (assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation) are present in the inclusion process. It is typical to find families who choose to use both inclusive recreation opportunities (perhaps for social skill development) as well as Therapeutic Recreation Programs (perhaps for leisure skill acquisition). In our experience, most park districts and municipal recreation departments recognize that providing a spectrum of both services, the mandated inclusion supports as well as a robust Therapeutic Recreation Program offers the greatest benefit to residents with disabilities. CRPD does not offer the "bare THE W -T GROU, DBA RECREATION ACCESSIBILITY CONSULT fftl' ONE SOURCE. INFINITE SOLUTIONS,