November 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 17

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NETWORK BUZZ

NRPA'S Online Community Forums
Address Best Practices in Therapeutic
Recreation

" P

LEASE SHARE your most successful strategies for
therapeutic recreation programs for returning veterans.
What approaches have worked the best and why? "

We have found the most successful Veteran Programming
for us has come after offering several interactive trainings
with the V.A. therapists and doctors to educate them about
our continuous programming. We have then followed up
these educational programs with discounted programming
offers for group therapy at the golf course, rock climbing
wall, ice sheets, and pools. Several veterans with permanent
disabilities are now very active in our continuous adaptive
sports and recreation programming outside of their therapeutic groups. Our best advice is to focus on long-term
programming, not just one-time events that don't match
everyday programming.
Jeffrey M. Burley MS, CTRS
Adaptive Program Manager
Salt Lake County Parks & Recreation
Salt Lake City, Utah
jburley@slco.org
We have seen substantial positive reinforcement to the outcomes of our Army program, called Warrior Adventure Quest,
in reference to post-deployment recreational therapy contributions. WAQ is an Armed Forces Generation (ARFORGEN)
deployment cycle, reset training tool designed to reinforce
unit cohesion and inﬂuence reductions of accidents and behavioral incidences for redeployed soldiers adjusting from
the high-paced, high-adrenaline combat environment to
garrison or home life.
WAQ combines existing Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR), recreational Army programs, high-adventure
outdoor recreation activities (e.g., rock climbing, mountain
biking, paintball, scuba, ropes courses, skiing, and others)
with an after-action debrieﬁng/communication tool. Currently, WAQ is conducted in platoon-level groups (25-30
people) within the ﬁrst 120 days after return to home station.
As of September 2012, 40 garrisons conduct WAQ activity

programs. The program has so far served approximately
4,842 platoons or 121,055 soldiers.
A series of measurements are in place to test the effectiveness of the program. So far, survey results from soldiers
who have participated in the WAQ program show a positive
association between WAQ participation and risk reduction:
35 percent fewer accidents and 13 percent fewer behavioral
incidents for WAQ participants versus Army norms. This
tool demonstrates that high-adventure recreation can be a
coping outlet to help soldiers realize their own new level of
normal and move on with their lives.
John O'Sullivan
john.l.osullivan2.naf@mail.mil
SSG Bradley Washington
bradley.washington1@us.army.mil
Ride 2 Recovery (R2R) helps our injured military members
and veterans cope with acclimating themselves to their
new lives with visible and unseen injuries. This is a oneof-a-kind nonproﬁt organization that focuses on physical
and psychological rehabilitation through its Project HERO
(Healing Exercise Rehab Opportunity) cycling programs at
Warrior Transition Units, Wounded Warrior BN Units, and
military hospitals. By maintaining the integrity of cycling
as rehabilitation throughout the week on a regular schedule, R2R pushes injured service members and veterans to
test personal limits while riding with other service members
who have faced similar issues.
Cycling has proven to be a catalyst in the recovery process by providing a new physical challenge while concurrently helping to cope with the mental challenges. Riding
alongside others with similar experiences helps our healing heroes feel comfortable talking about what happened
to them as they also set goals and ﬁnd ways to cope with
their " new normal. " R2R enables people to ride no matter
WWW.NRPA.ORG | NOVEMBER 2012 |

Parks & Recreation

November 2012 - Parks & Recreation

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