Children's Perspectives of Therapeutic Recreation: Data from the 'Barretstown Studies'

Camps offering therapeutic recreation-based programmes seek to provide a positive experience for children with life-threatening illnesses, and their siblings. While such programmes are undoubtedly motivated by the best of intentions, there are very little data available on children's own experiences in them. This article addresses this by investigating children's experiences in The Barretstown Gang Camp in Ireland. A questionnaire was completed by 449 children from 15 European countries. Feedback was factor analysed to construct an empirical model of how liking for activities in the programme clustered. Eight distinct components were identified.. Results indicated that children's level of liking for some components and whether they felt their friends would like to come to camp were influenced by their age, gender, nationality, level of understanding of explanations in camp and patient/sibling status. Children's descriptions of their camp experience emphasized themes pertaining to fun, activities, scenic surroundings, staff and multiculturalism.