Top 12 Recreation Therapist Skills to Put on Your Resume
In recreational therapy, your skills tell the story. Highlight the ones that prove you can assess, plan, adapt, and motivate—then back them with outcomes. Employers skim fast, so make every word work, every skill count.
Recreation Therapist Skills
- Patient Assessment
- Treatment Planning
- Adaptive Sports
- Therapeutic Recreation
- Group Facilitation
- Progress Monitoring
- CPR/AED Certification
- Behavioral Management
- Microsoft Office
- SMART Goals
- Leisure Education
- Motivational Interviewing
1. Patient Assessment
Patient assessment means building a clear picture of a person’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and social profile through interviews, observation, records, and standardized measures—so interventions actually fit.
Why It's Important
Without a solid assessment, treatment is guesswork. Strong assessments uncover needs and strengths, reduce risk, and shape targeted, safe, person-centered plans.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Refresh your tools: keep a vetted toolkit of validated assessments relevant to your settings and populations.
Think whole person: capture routines, interests, supports, culture, and environmental barriers—not just symptoms.
Listen like it matters: use open questions, reflect back, and verify understanding with the client and caregivers.
Triangulate data: combine self-report, observation during activity, and collateral input to increase accuracy.
Audit and adapt: review outcomes against initial findings and refine your assessment process regularly.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
2. Treatment Planning
Treatment planning turns assessment data into meaningful, measurable goals and the activities that move clients toward them—sequenced, evidence-informed, and flexible.
Why It's Important
A good plan guides daily decisions, aligns the team, and keeps therapy purposeful. It prevents scattershot activities and keeps progress visible.
How to Improve Treatment Planning Skills
Start with priorities: co-create goals that matter to the client and reflect real-life function.
Write clear objectives: use SMART structure and define criteria for success before sessions begin.
Match methods to goals: choose interventions with research support and client buy-in.
Build progression: scale intensity, complexity, and independence over time.
Review routinely: measure result trends, adjust dosage or approach, and document why.
Collaborate: sync with PT/OT/SLP, nursing, and family to reinforce goals across contexts.
How to Display Treatment Planning Skills on Your Resume
3. Adaptive Sports
Adaptive sports modify rules, equipment, or environments so people with disabilities can participate fully—recreation with grit, fairness, and joy.
Why It's Important
It boosts strength and stamina, sharpens confidence, builds community, and expands identity beyond diagnosis. Participation changes lives.
How to Improve Adaptive Sports Skills
Personalize access: evaluate abilities, mobility, and sensory needs; tailor rules and roles accordingly.
Gear that fits: select or adapt equipment (seating, grips, harnesses) and ensure spaces are accessible.
Train your crew: teach safety, transfer techniques, communication strategies, and inclusive coaching.
Partner wide: collaborate with local leagues, Move United chapters, and rehab teams to expand options.
Safety first: warm-ups, spotting, emergency plans, and clear progression for new skills.
Listen and iterate: gather participant feedback and tweak rules or equipment promptly.
How to Display Adaptive Sports Skills on Your Resume
4. Therapeutic Recreation
Therapeutic Recreation uses purposeful leisure and activity-based interventions to improve health, function, and participation across settings and ages.
Why It's Important
Leisure is not fluff—it’s a vehicle for skill building, autonomy, belonging, mood regulation, and resilience. TR bridges clinic goals and real-world living.
How to Improve Therapeutic Recreation Skills
Keep learning: pursue continuing education and specialty focus areas (e.g., neuro rehab, geriatrics, behavioral health).
Lead with the client: align sessions with values, culture, interests, and life roles.
Blend methods: combine physical, cognitive, creative, and social modalities to engage multiple systems.
Use metrics: tie interventions to functional outcomes and participation measures.
Leverage tech: adaptive devices, wearables, and accessible gaming can expand access and motivation.
Reflect often: debrief with clients, review outcomes, and refine your program flow.
How to Display Therapeutic Recreation Skills on Your Resume
5. Group Facilitation
Group facilitation means guiding people through shared activities so everyone participates, goals are met, and the room feels safe and alive.
Why It's Important
Groups magnify practice opportunities—communication, coping, problem-solving—while offering peer support and accountability. The right facilitation unlocks it.
How to Improve Group Facilitation Skills
Prepare with intent: clarify goals, choose activity flow, and set roles or norms up front.
Invite voices: use open prompts, small breakouts, and structured turns to balance airtime.
Read the room: watch body language and energy; pivot pace or method when needed.
Handle friction: name tensions, set boundaries, and use brief de-escalation steps without shaming.
Close with meaning: debrief insights, assign carryover tasks, and capture quick evaluations.
How to Display Group Facilitation Skills on Your Resume
6. Progress Monitoring
Progress monitoring is the steady tracking of outcomes against goals—objective data plus observed performance—used to fine-tune the plan.
Why It's Important
It proves what works, flags what doesn’t, and keeps care accountable. Clients see momentum; teams see direction.
How to Improve Progress Monitoring Skills
Anchor to SMART goals: define clear criteria and timelines before you start.
Use consistent measures: pair standardized tools with functional task checks for reliability.
Schedule check-ins: brief reviews at set intervals to update goals and strategies.
Visualize data: charts or simple dashboards make trends obvious for clients and teams.
Document succinctly: capture what changed, why it changed, and what you’ll adjust next.
Coordinate care: share findings across disciplines to align interventions.
How to Display Progress Monitoring Skills on Your Resume
7. CPR/AED Certification
CPR/AED certification verifies the ability to respond to cardiac and breathing emergencies quickly and correctly during programs and sessions.
Why It's Important
Emergencies are rare, but seconds matter. Certification protects clients and supports a culture of safety.
How to Improve CPR/AED Certification Skills
Practice regularly: short, frequent refreshers keep muscle memory sharp.
Train with scenarios: simulate likely settings—gyms, pools, fields, community rooms.
Stay current: update techniques as guidelines change and verify your renewal dates.
Debrief after drills: invite feedback and correct small errors before they grow.
Know your site: confirm AED location, maintenance, and emergency response flow for each venue.
How to Display CPR/AED Certification Skills on Your Resume
8. Behavioral Management
Behavioral management applies proactive strategies to strengthen positive behaviors, reduce barriers, and make participation safe and productive.
Why It's Important
It keeps groups on track, protects dignity, and opens the door to learning. Without it, even great activities can unravel.
How to Improve Behavioral Management Skills
Assess triggers and strengths: understand patterns, not just incidents.
Co-create expectations: simple, visible rules and predictable routines lower anxiety.
Reinforce what you want: praise, tokens, or privileges tied to specific behaviors.
Teach replacement skills: coping, communication, and self-regulation woven into activities.
Plan responses: clear steps for escalation, de-escalation, and safety.
Brief the team: ensure consistent approaches across staff and settings.
How to Display Behavioral Management Skills on Your Resume
9. Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office supports documentation, scheduling, analysis, and communication—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Teams, and more.
Why It's Important
Clean records, clear reports, and organized schedules keep care consistent and provable. Data tells the story.
How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills
Use templates: standardize notes, progress forms, and calendars for speed and consistency.
Level up Excel: track attendance, outcomes, and program metrics with formulas and charts.
Build simple databases: Access or lists can manage equipment, consents, and client resources.
Present with purpose: craft concise PowerPoints for education, groups, and stakeholder updates.
Capture ideas in OneNote: centralize session plans, debriefs, and resource banks.
Collaborate in Teams: coordinate schedules, files, and chat with your interdisciplinary crew.
Automate workflows: use Power Automate to send reminders, route forms, or log attendance.
How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume
10. SMART Goals
SMART Goals give structure to change. Simple, sturdy, trackable.
Specific: define the exact behavior or outcome.
Measurable: set observable criteria or counts.
Achievable: match resources, abilities, and context.
Relevant: connect to meaningful life roles and priorities.
Time-bound: fix a clear timeframe or review date.
Why It's Important
SMART goals prevent vague promises and focus energy. They make progress visible and keep the plan accountable.
How to Improve SMART Goals Skills
Write in plain language: anyone on the team should understand the target.
Quantify wisely: choose measures that are feasible to track and genuinely reflect progress.
Co-author with clients: motivation spikes when goals match what matters to them.
Timebox reviews: set regular checkpoints to recalibrate challenge and support.
Link to function: tie goals to participation in school, work, home, or community life.
How to Display SMART Goals Skills on Your Resume
11. Leisure Education
Leisure education builds knowledge, skills, and confidence so people can choose and pursue meaningful leisure independently.
Why It's Important
It lifts quality of life, nurtures identity, and supports health. People learn what they enjoy, how to access it, and how to sustain it over time.
How to Improve Leisure Education Skills
Start with assessment: map interests, barriers, resources, and skills.
Teach the toolkit: decision-making, planning, budgeting, transportation, and safety.
Build skills in layers: practice social, physical, and cognitive components within chosen activities.
Connect to community: identify clubs, parks, classes, and adaptive programs that fit.
Create resource guides: maintain updated lists with accessibility and cost details.
Use technology: calendars, activity finders, and accessible apps to support follow-through.
Reinforce support: encourage peer groups, family involvement, and mentoring.
Measure satisfaction: track participation and enjoyment, then adjust choices accordingly.
How to Display Leisure Education Skills on Your Resume
12. Motivational Interviewing
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication that strengthens a person’s own motivation for change by exploring and resolving ambivalence.
Why It's Important
Clients move at their pace. MI meets them there—evoking reasons for change they actually believe, and will act on.
How to Improve Motivational Interviewing Skills
Listen deeply: reflect content and emotion; resist the urge to fix too fast.
Ask open questions: invite stories, values, and “why now” moments.
Affirm strengths: notice effort, persistence, and small wins.
Roll with resistance: acknowledge barriers, reframe, and keep autonomy front and center.
Evoke change talk: reinforce statements about desire, ability, reasons, and need.
Practice, debrief, repeat. Skill sharpens through use and honest feedback.
How to Display Motivational Interviewing Skills on Your Resume
