A therapeutic recreation specialist plans and implements therapeutic recreation programs and interventions for patients with physical, mental, or social disabilities. They do this by incorporating certain therapeutic recreation activities such as arts and crafts, music, aquatics, drama, dance, sports, and games. Their ultimate objective is to help improve the patient's physical, social, emotional, and mental well-being.
Therapeutic recreation specialists usually work in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and schools. They may decide to work with all patients or to specialize in specific demographics such as children, teenagers, or the elderly. A successful therapeutic recreation specialist should have patience, compassion, critical thinking skills, , , attention to detail, and interpersonal skills.
A therapeutic recreation specialist works 40 hours a week Monday to Friday from 9 to 5. Their work schedule is flexible, and they can work in shifts. Their schedule also depends on the availability of patients and can therefore work weekends.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a therapeutic recreation specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $17.63 an hour? That's $36,671 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 7% and produce 1,400 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many therapeutic recreation specialists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed compassion, listening skills and speaking skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a therapeutic recreation specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 12.4% of therapeutic recreation specialists included patient care, while 11.0% of resumes included ctrs, and 9.2% of resumes included group therapy. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the therapeutic recreation specialist job title. But what industry to start with? Most therapeutic recreation specialists actually find jobs in the health care and non profits industries.
If you're interested in becoming a therapeutic recreation specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 62.3% of therapeutic recreation specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 30.0% of therapeutic recreation specialists have master's degrees. Even though most therapeutic recreation specialists have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a therapeutic recreation specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a therapeutic recreation specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on therapeutic recreation specialist resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a therapeutic recreation specialist. In fact, many therapeutic recreation specialist jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many therapeutic recreation specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as recreation therapist or music therapy internship.