Physical Activity & Health

Hunting for Better Health Outcomes: A Geocaching Toolkit for Individuals with Mental Illnesses

Can treasure hunting be community participation? In fact, yes, and it’s not just for pirates! Geocaching is a worldwide mobile scavenger hunt using coordinates to find and hide caches. Users identify a nearby cache on the geocaching phone app or website and use a GPS device to find the object (cache) hidden at the identified location. But what’s the treasure? Sometimes there are small trinkets hidden with the cache, but the real treasure is the opportunities it offers: the opportunity to join a worldwide network of people who participate in the activity; the opportunity to explore new places and places you thought you knew well; and the opportunity to get out and do something fun, among others!

Author Paige O’Sullivan is an avid geocacher who wants to share her love of the activity with others. Use this document to learn about what geocaching is, the emerging science that explores outcomes, and identify ways to support others to start hunting that treasure!

Bike Share Program Manual

At The Collaborative, we love biking! Many of us are active cyclists who peddle our path to fun and fitness. As biking grows in popularity, we want to do our part to encourage consumers to give it a try. In this effort, The Temple University Collaborative recently led four bike pilot programs for consumers of mental healthcare services in Philadelphia. Providers, consumers, bikeshare representatives, and bike advocacy groups worked with us to develop and run groups. Everyone seemed as excited as us throughout the process.

Each program consisted of six classes led during a three-week period. Participants learned laws and safe riding practices. Then they planned and participated in group rides using Indego Bikeshare Bikes. Participants reported that they enjoyed the classes, learned how to bike safely, found new things to do in their communities during group rides, and enhanced social connections with other bike group members. One group of consumers even advocated for a weekly bike group which has since been included in ongoing programming at their agency.

In an effort to encourage agencies to run similar programming, we’ve developed the Biking & Serious Mental Illness manual which outlines the classes we led and shares what we learned through running these programs.

Yoga and Your Health

Doing yoga may be helpful to individuals experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. However, it can be difficult to know how to get started with yoga. This fact sheet describes the benefits of yoga, how to begin and develop your own yoga practice, and how to find affordable classes in your community.

Let’s Move: Using the Community to Increase Physical Activity an 8-Week Protocol

During the spring 2016 school semester, two recreation therapy interns worked with The Temple University Collaborative to develop and facilitate programming aimed at increasing community participation for consumers of local mental health agencies. Each intern developed an 8-week protocol with a focus on encouraging participation in community-based recreation. Interns were encouraged to create group sessions that would work either as stand-alone sessions or as 8 consecutive weekly sessions. This project was done under the supervision of a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) at the Temple University Collaborative and staff at the sites where the sessions were delivered.

Developed by our recreation therapy intern and facilitated at two Community-Integrated Recovery Centers (CIRC), this 8-week series encourages participants to increase physical activity levels. Sessions incorporated music, dance and movement activities along with discussions about the benefits of physical activity and strategies to use the community to be more physically active; one program served consumers with mental health diagnoses and the second served consumers with mental health diagnoses and histories of addiction. Most participants attended the entirety of the weekly sessions. In the final session, participants were quizzed on what they had learned. Participants reported attending community activities they learned about during the group sessions and identified the value of physical activity.

Hosting Activity Fairs: Our Experience

In fall 2015 and spring 2016, the Temple University Collaborative hosted two wellness fairs focused on encouraging community based recreation. These fairs aimed to: 1) introduce Philadelphians to free and low cost activities they could do in their city, and 2) encourage local businesses and organizations to consider ways they could become more welcoming of this population. This short document summarizes our experiences with hosting these fairs. Additionally, we developed a handbook to help others to run a similar event. You can find this handbook here. While this handbook is designed to assist you as you plan to organize a Physical Activity Community Access Fair, it is assumed that many events rely on similar structure and planning, therefore this handbook might serve as a helpful resource as you plan other types of events that promote community inclusion as well.

Physical Activity Fair Manual

This handbook is the outcome of a Physical Activity Fair that was hosted in Philadelphia, and the lessons learned about hosting this type of event. The mission of our Physical Activity Fair was to connect people with serious mental illnesses to sustainable resources for physical activity, who have a life expectancy that is up to 30 years less than the general population often due to modifiable behaviors.

While this handbook is designed to assist you as you plan to organize a Physical Activity Fair, it is assumed that many events rely on similar structure and planning, therefore this handbook might serve as a helpful resource as you plan other types of events that promote community inclusion as well.

Assessing Health Outcomes of Community Integration Interventions: The role of Recreational Therapy in Behavioral Health

Facilitating activities that promote community participation is not new to recreational therapy; however, we have not always been successful in documenting and communicating the health benefits of recreation participation. While participation is often associated with increased quality of life and satisfaction, it is important for recreational therapists to assess clinical outcomes that may also be associated with increased community participation. For individuals with psychiatric disabilities, these outcomes may include physical activity, negative symptoms, cognition, community participation, and recovery. This session described relevant assessment measures that can be used pre and post intervention to track changes in order to help practitioners consistently address targeted outcomes throughout the treatment process, including assessment, goal development, intervention implementation, documentation, and discharge planning.

Recommendations for Physical Activity: A Supportive interventionist guide

This guide provides a summary of some of the physical and mental health benefits associated with physical activity, as well as recommendations for participation in community-based exercise. This document explains some details of the current research for this topic and suggestions for various exercise activities that can be participated in. Throughout the document, various supportive interventions are explained and a rationale for participation in walking and exercises and suggestions for the practitioner who is interested in facilitating these types of fitness groups is given.

Supporting Physical Activity

This guide, developed by Whitney Strange as her master’s project in the Master of Science in Recreation Therapy program in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, under the direction of Dr. Gretchen Snethen at Temple University, was created as a means to enhance peer support specialists’ ability to encourage consumers with mental illnesses to increase physical activity levels. The lessons within this guide provide an overview of physical activity as well as the risks associated with inactivity, and also focus on the understanding of consumers’ needs.

Exercise Fact Sheet: Consumers

These fact sheets provide recommendations on the “how to” and the “why” behind starting an exercise program within an agency for individuals with psychiatric disabilities. There are details such as the benefits of exercise, suggestions for assessing current physical activity levels, and guidelines for setting attainable physical activity goals with participants.

Exercise Fact Sheet: Providers

These fact sheets provide recommendations on the “how to” and the “why” behind starting an exercise program within an agency for individuals with psychiatric disabilities. There are details such as the benefits of exercise, suggestions for assessing current physical activity levels, and guidelines for setting attainable physical activity goals with participants.

Beginning a Walking Program: Consumers

Beginning a walking program fact sheets provide consumers with a resource that details how to start a walking program, such as the benefits of walking, what to wear while you’re walking, how much you should walk, and goals/motivations.

Beginning a Walking Program: Providers

Beginning a walking program fact sheets provide providers with a resource that details how to start a walking program, such as the benefits of walking, what to wear while you’re walking, how much you should walk, and goals/motivations.

Physical Activity Calendar

It’s January 2017! You know what that means. Resolutions! The time when many people think about goals for the upcoming year. Many people have health & wellness goals at the beginning of the year but their motivation decreases as the year goes by. You know how it is, gyms are full the second week of January, but less busy in February.

We want 2017 to be different! Setting and achieving physical activity goals can improve the mental and physical well-being of individuals with lived experience, their family members, and even mental health providers. This calendar can help you set and stick to your goals. Designed to help you think about physical activity differently, this calendar will challenge you to identify activities that you enjoy, find free or low-cost resources in your community, and identify people who will help you stay motivated to achieve your goals.

We encourage fitness and recreation facilities to put this calendar up in the lobby to remind patrons that physical activity has positive impacts on your body, mind, and spirit. We hope mental health agencies will use this calendar to motivate consumers and staff to make physical activity a priority. Finally, we hope consumers interested in physical activity will keep this calendar handy and share it with friends and family to make physical activity fun and a part of daily life.