Our Mission

To maximize the quality of life for any individual (and their families), who are coping with a cognitive (memory or acquired) impairment, mental health concerns, physical challenges or developmental or intellectual disabilities.

Our Philosophy

Recreational Respite believes that every individual should have a person-centered approach to their care needs.  Every program will be developed with the individuals needs, abilities and strengths considered.  Being the advocates we are for care givers and other loved ones involved in caring for them, we will also empower them with the same successes and tools that we use, when supporting them.

Therapeutic Recreation Benefits

Fun changes behavior.  We know that when we create a fun way of achieving our goals it makes it more worthwhile for desired positive  outcomes for the most active people.  Therapeutic recreation identifies how to set the individual, who is affected by impairment or other challenges, to succeed in various meaningful capacities (either through 1:1 support in the home or in small group based settings we call, RecreACTIVE) for the same kind of desired outcomes, suitable to their needs.

Programming benefits to our clients include;

• Quality of life
• An identified sense of role and worth
• An increase in independence for making choices
• Reduction in depression and anxiety
• Successful ways to manage and redirect from challenging behaviours
• Help to decrease the rapid onset of disease or impairment
• Short term support while awaiting long term health care options

Our services will aid in reducing caregiver stress and help them cope with declining abilities of their loved ones. We help build family unity, promote adjustment to disability and educate our caregivers on accessibility of services in their community.

Our Passion: Family Caregivers Unite!

Family Caregivers Unite! is an online talk radio show of international scope, hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley who along with Amy MacFarlane, our Founder is a very passionate advocate for those that are in care giving roles.  It reaches out to over 450,000 listens to date (!) and connects family caregivers and their communities and community partners. It’s social purpose is to provide family caregivers and people and organizations with trustworthy, understandable, insightful and informed discussion on topics of importance to family care giving, a sector of growing importance in North America and beyond.

Listen to some of the interviews in which Recreational Respite has been a guest:

May 10, 2011: Recreation Therapy and Family Caregivers
Amy MacFarlane explains recreation therapy and talks about the challenges that it helps with. She describes the special needs and health conditions for which she recommends recreation therapy. She explains why and how recreation therapy helps persons and their family caregivers meet the challenges that these conditions create. She describes some real-life examples.

August 2, 2011: Help through caregiver-support programs for Alzheimer’s disease
Dr. Linda Teri is a Member of the Medical & Scientific Advisory Council of the Alzheimer’s Association. She’s Professor of Psychosocial & Community Health at the University of Washington. She speaks with Amy about Alzheimer’s disease. They discuss real-life examples of caregiver-support programs that helped family caregivers meet the challenges of Alzheimer’s disease. They discuss the ways in which the programs support aging at home and say how well community-based professionals, such as nurses and physicians, and the wider public understand the family caregiving challenges of Alzheimer’s disease and the role of caregiver-support programs.

December 13, 2011: Services for Supporting Seniors’ Family Caregivers Directly
Raymond Applebaum, CEO of Peel Senior Link and Amy, tell us how they came to be interested in services for seniors and their family caregivers. They describe the services their organizations offer. They explain what’s meant by supporting family caregivers directly and the types of direct supports, including direct pay, most likely to be useful to family caregivers. They discuss the challenges in providing direct support to family caregivers, including the meeting costs.

May 8, 2012: Gentle Persuasive Approaches Program for Professional Caregivers–Family Caregiver Perspectives
Dr. Lori Schindel Martin is Associate Professor, Associate Director, School of Nursing, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, and Chair, Gentle Persuasive Approaches Advisory Committee speaks to Amy explain gentleness in caring, and what has been learned from its application in the training of healthcare professionals and family caregivers.