Award Date: 2017

Project Lead(s): Lacey Sheng, Performance Improvement Consultant

Project Title: Making therapeutic recreation available to seniors through a multi-media interactive model

What is the issue?

Seniors living at home do not have the same opportunities to participate in recreation activities as those living in long-term care homes. As a result, they miss out on the physical and social benefits of recreation. The Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre has a therapeutic recreation and creative arts program that has a remarkable range of activities.

What did we do?

We created an online resource hub and platform called Active Seniors. For our pilot study, we offered two courses about ukuleles, and the history of Ottawa. We also created and uploaded 18 videos and 16 resource documents. They contain instructions on how to do the activities at home. Finally, we made Facebook videos to promote the program.

What did we find?

Seniors liked the courses and said the content was engaging. All of them said they would take another course. Many people who responded to our survey signed up for our newsletter to learn when the full program launches. Our marketing efforts were very effective: there were more than 16,000 views of our Facebook videos. Many website users were not interested in completing a short online survey.