Preparing for RPG Research Presentation at WSTRA 17

by Hawke Robinson — published Jun 20, 2015 05:05 PM, last modified Feb 05, 2023 12:22 PM

UPDATE: UNFORTUNATELY DUE TO A CLERICAL OR OTHER ERROR, THEY ARE NOT INCLUDING MY PRESENTATION IN THE SCHEDULE, SO IT TURNS OUT I WILL _NOT_ BE SPEAKING AT THIS YEAR'S WSTRA. - - - May 6th is the 17th annual conference for the Washington State Therapeutic Recreation Association. I will be presenting on Using Role-Playing Games to Achieve Therapeutic & Educational Goals: The First Steps, and showing the 50-100+ professionals the Wheelchair Friendly RPG Trailer.

Preparing for RPG Research Presentation at WSTRA 17

It is now about 1 month until WSTRA 17 begins on May 6th, in Bellingham, at Western Washington University.

I will be both presenting, and providing a demo of the Wheelchair Friendly RPG Trailer to anywhere from typically 50 to 100 Recreation Therapy / Therapeutic Recreation Specialists.

The previous years I presented to WSTRA and PNWTRA introducing them to the idea of using RPGs as intervention modalities based on TR methodologies to achieve client goals.

After each presentation, and in subsequent years, the number comments have been something along the lines of, "Okay, you have sold me on how great RPG would be to add to our facility/program/curricula! Now, how do we get started doing it?"

I have developed and implemented pilots and ongoing programs, helped train some professionals with one-on-one coaching, helped teams create programs plans, and been improving well-defined training and certification courses. But I haven't summarized all these options into a step by step guide. Apparently those that have received the training have been having great success with their programs, though I wish they would do more to document and keep me in the loop, I have had to find out by word of mouth from people asking me to teach them after hearing from others about their successes. :-)

This year, WSTRA has asked that I speak about The First Steps to training/teaching TR professionals so that they can add RPG to their facilities/programs.

I'm still working out a better title, but I am now under way putting the presentation together. The WSTRA board has confirmed they are looking forward to my presentation, and my showing the RPG Trailer, but they haven't yet confirmed whether it will be a 60 minute, 90 minute, or 120 minute timeslot, but I'll adapt to whatever they decide.

As a side note, we now have 5 regular staff, and 4 additional just signed up from EWU (for a total of 9!) for our upcoming TRPG, LARP, & Drum Circle programs for 2 days (July 18th and 20th) of the week-long Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp program.

Lots of great things happening. I will provide more updates as warranted.

Happy Gaming!

-Hawke