By Becky Post, Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist, Adventure Recreation Coordinator at RMMSC’s King Adult Day Enrichment Program
The RMMSC’s King Adult Day Enrichment Program (KADEP) offers several outing opportunities for clients, including Adventure Recreation (AR) overnight trips, AR day trips, AR lock-ins, RTD trips, and outing groups.
All of these provide different benefits to the participants, their families, and the community. Over the next several months, this series of articles will take a peek at the different types of outings, where we’ve traveled, and how clients benefit from the experiences. This article will look our 2 night Adventure Recreation trips.
For most Coloradans, a mountain getaway is one of the best aspects about living here. Living with a disability can make it exponentially more difficult due to transportation barriers, decreased mobility, a lack of accessibility, financial difficulties, and medical issues. This could be part of the reason two night trips are the most sought after experiences by clients.
AR trips allow KADEP participants the chance to overcome challenges they previously thought impossible, build camraderie in a new way, and adapt to the disabling conditions they are living with by recognizing resources and opportunities. Caregiver’s share that clients come back re-motivated and excited about what they’ve accomplished. These are feelings that some people may take for granted in day to day life. Other benefits include respite for caregivers; a chance for staff members to help clients transfer what they’ve learned and experienced to everyday life; spread awareness to the community about our program and encourage clients to be self-advocates.
KADEP travels to places like the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center for adapted ropes courses and skiing, tent camping at the National Sports Center for the Disabled’s (NSCD) accessible site in Winter Park, Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes for a spiritual retreat, and YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park for a Rocky Mountain National Park getaway, to name a few.
In 2018, 29 different clients have attended a two-night AR trip, with a ski trip scheduled later this year for 10 more individuals. For each trip we strive to schedule different clients in order to reach as many clients as possible. Funding for these trips is balanced between affordable payments by participants, allotments in the KADEP programming budget, and scholarships through the organizations we collaborate with.
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