Discription

The authors present the technical knowledge of therapeutic recreation programming in a comprehensive body of ethical, social, scientific, and philosophical knowledge in Therapeutic Recreation Programming. Therapeutic recreation professionals must be more than narrow specialists skilled in their tasks of administering assessments, writing goals, documenting behavior, and processing activity experiences. They must also understand what ends and purposes are worthy of their technical know-how, the theoretical basis of their work, so their "best practices" are founded on valid knowledge, and the ethical dimensions and implications of their work. They must understand who they serve, not only in terms of diagnosis, but also in relation to their client's cultural context. The goal of this text is to help students and professionals bring theory (thinking) and practice (doing) together—where they belong. This text covers the traditional components of therapeutic recreation programming: assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. This is achieved through discussing the know-how (technical knowledge), know-why (theoretical knowledge), know-what (the purpose of therapeutic recreation), know-whether (moral judgments), and know-who (the clients/patients of therapeutic recreation) of therapeutic recreation. These noted authors also offer lists of recommended readings for the core topics in this text so that readers may stay abreast of current developments within the field, and encourage instructors to use those readings and others to supplement the text. Ultimately, this text will enable students to exercise the most important and difficult of all competencies—intelligent action ethically applied to the needs and problems of a culturally diverse society.