Adventure, Healing, & Growth: All in a Day’s Work as a Recreational Therapist
COH’s RT Degrees Provide Endless Opportunities
By Sarah Shebek
Many jobs destine employees for 9-5 work in drab cubicles, staring at screens and counting down the hours until quitting time.
But not jobs in recreational therapy. As a program graduate, you’re just as likely to be hiking up a mountain with veterans at sunrise or giving a shy kid an opportunity to shine on stage.
Three recent graduates from the Department of Occupational and Recreational Therapies have done just that, and much more, since they collected their diplomas. Using both bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a wealth of classroom and community experience, they’re helping people improve their physical, social, emotional, cognitive and spiritual functioning every day.
Miranda Moon
Miranda Moon is a certified therapeutic recreation specialist who graduated from the RT program in 2022. In high school, the Draper native enjoyed working with individuals who have intellectual disabilities, and it clicked—she could make a career from the work.
“My mom heard about the recreational therapy profession while I was researching where to go to college,” she said. “As I started looking into it, I realized this is what I’m passionate about. I kind of knew where I wanted to end up before I started school, but the program reiterated that I really do enjoy the field.”
Moon started her coursework at BYU, but the program shut down, so she made the move up to Salt Lake City. Even though COVID put a damper on some of the overall experience, she took solace in the fact that in RT classes, she was with a close-knit group of students and professors.
“I had a better experience because I knew my teachers and my peers, it made the online experience more personal," she said. “I really enjoyed my courses and the smaller cohort.”
Thanks to the RT internship process, finding a job was seamless. Moon interned at Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation in adaptive recreation and received an offer for a full-time position. Today she’s the adaptive recreation manager, overseeing programs for individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities.
“Spending my time in the programs with people, that’s what I love,” she said. “Building relationships with the clients we work with, many of our participants come back for multiple years and I get to see their growth.”
One of Moon’s programs helps adults get involved in adaptive theater. She began working with one participant during her internship and watched her transformation from timid and shy to a starring as Elsa in a recent production of Frozen.
“I was literally bawling,” she said. “She wasn’t saying anything, but something had changed within her.”
Even though Moon only recently graduated, she considers herself in her dream job. And she appreciates the work-life balance that recreational therapy champions.
“I always feel excited and ready to come to work,” she said. “I’m doing what I want to do, and I have plenty of time to pursue my personal ambitions, as well.”
Adam Parker
Adam Parker wasn’t sure he wanted to go to college. But if he was going to make the leap, he wanted it to be fun. He decided to make a big move from Virginia to Salt Lake City to pursue a career in outdoor adventure. That’s where he met Sandy Negley, PhD, and learned about recreational therapy.
“I thought this would be a great way for me to combine my love of working with people with disabilities and outdoor recreation,” he said. “I was in the first standalone class for the RT master’s program.”
Because the RT program prepares students to work in every field in the industry, Parker felt well-prepared to pivot from a job in adaptive recreation to working for the VA as a recreation therapist.
“I was able to walk in the first day of work and say here’s what the program will look like and here’s how I’ll manage it,” he said. “The program at Utah was phenomenal and set me up to have all the experiences I needed.”
Although Parker is having a lot of fun, just as he hoped, he knows that recreational therapy is easy to misjudge, and he’s here to challenge misconceptions.
“What we do is incredibly fun, but not anyone can do it,” he said. “Our field is becoming more clinically focused, and we should have a seat at the table with physical therapists, occupational therapists, and other similar professions.”
That’s exactly part of Parker’s job as a today. He’s involved in treatment team meetings with a host of clinicians across the VA and helps run programs that help veterans heal and find fulfilment through leisure activities—like a sunrise hike.
“We got up at five a.m. and took a few vets on a tricky climb, making it up in time to watch the sun rising over the mountain,” he said. “One of the vets is just sobbing and said, ‘I haven’t realized the beauty in this, I hadn’t felt calm enough to have this moment.”
Moving forward, Parker hopes to impact many more lives by opening his own adaptive recreation program focused on outdoor sports, including skiing, hunting and horseback riding.
“There is an endless amount of opportunity in our field, so I could never get bored,” he said. “The standard in our program is high, so you will be successful if you want to be.”
Kyra Unsicker
A graduate degree is essential to land a job in many health professions, but not in RT. Kyra Unsicker used her bachelor’s degree to join a larger team of therapists at Scenic View Academy, a non-profit helping neurodiverse adults.
“Originally I thought I’d do physics and math, but I realized I couldn’t sit at a desk all day,” she said. “I saw recreational therapy and it aligned with my values. If you want to make a difference in a unique way, rec therapy is a good place to be.”
Although there was still plenty of deskwork necessary to complete the program, Unsicker appreciated how thoroughly it prepared her for a career on the other side.
“I was intimidated when I got into the workforce, but I didn’t need to be,” she said. “I was prepared me for a lot of different aspects of work, particularly on the administrative training and documentation side of things.”
Right out of college, Unsicker joined Scenic View in the Thrive Department, which is full of other recreational therapists, a music teacher and an art teacher. She helps teach and prepare all the department’s programming, including a class on coping strategies and emotional regulation.
“As a rec therapist, I do a lot of thinking about each individual and how their mind works, what their motivations are,” she said. “Our program is very goal oriented, so it’s a puzzle of how we can help our residents overcome challenges and achieve their goals.”
That problem-solving is enjoyable for Unsicker, and she feels like there’s never a dull moment at work. It’s gratifying to give her clients a lightbulb moment and help them overcome the overwhelm to make tangible progress in time management, for example.
She’s also getting to help redesign the program through assessments and evaluations, so it’s constantly evolving in a positive direction. Thanks to her RT degree, the opportunities seem endless.
“I think there are a lot of fun potential jobs within our profession. When I first started my degree, I thought I’d do mental health, then adaptive sports, now I’m here. I think I would be happy in any of those places.”