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Description

Welcome to TR! In the Therapeutic Recreation Concentration, students take courses that provide them with the skills necessary to work within a broad spectrum of health care by improving and maintaining physical, cognitive, emotional and social functioning, preventing secondary health conditions, enhancing independent living skills, and overall quality of life. Therapeutic Recreation uses treatment (recreational therapy-RT, education and recreational opportunities to achieve its goals. RT uses a variety of interventions to treat physical, social, cognitive and emotional conditions associated with illness, injury or chronic disability. Professionals with this degree can work in public settings (e.g., city park and recreation departments); private-clinical settings (e.g., for-profit hospitals and clinics with people who may be recovering from a stroke or an acquired disability as a result of an accident); and non-profit settings (e.g., community-based non-profits which match people with and without disabilities for boating trips in the San Francisco Bay). Students in this concentration take courses in Therapeutic recreation principles and practices, Therapeutic Recreation and Persons with Emotional Cognitive Disabilities, and Therapeutic Recreation and Gerontology.

Interesting in being a Recreation Therapist? Check out this video.

Internships

This Concentration requires 600 hours of pre-internship and a 600 hour internship (note that this is different from the Recreation and Park Management Concentration). Students in Therapeutic Recreation must carefully choose their internship sites with their advisor's advice in order to meet certification requirements. Opportunities exist to work with children, the elderly or other special populations without access to traditional recreation outlets.