Therapeutic Recreation Support Practice: Children Saving Dormitory Camps

Abstract

Therapeutic recreation is a process that enables individuals with physical, cognitive, emotional, and social limitations to increase their skills, knowledge, and behaviors through participation in recreational activities to support their development. This process offers opportunities to participate in recreational activities and is seen as an area that makes the lives of children exposed to difficulties and limitations meaningful. In this direction, it aims to examine the institutional structure of the Children’s Saving Dormitory Camps (CSDC), which is an exemplary application related to the inclusion of children living on the streets in life in the historical process, and to reveal the content of therapeutic recreation practices in organized nature camps. In this study, the document analysis technique, a qualitative research data collection method, was used. The data in this study were obtained through text-based documents, such as state archives, newspapers, and a comprehensive literature review. Within the framework of the findings, the CSDC, which was established in 1933, aimed to help children living on the streets adapt to social life and socialize by implementing an education system that would help them become useful individuals for society. In this context, vocational and academic training, physical activities, and nature camps were organized for the children. The camps organized within the framework of CSDC included therapeutic recreation practices consisting of various physical activities such as swimming, hiking, and camping to support the rehabilitation process of children living on the streets. As a result, the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development of children living on the streets is supported through camps, physical activities, and therapeutic recreation practices consisting of various games.