Recently I attended the DRTA National Conference in Brisbane. It was a fantastic conference at a wonderful venue, the Royal on the Park Hotel. As part of my role as the International Liaison Projects Team leader, it was a wonderful opportunity to meet fellow DT’s from other countries.
Amongst those attending the conference, we once again had the very special pleasure of welcoming Takako Serizawa, the President of the Diversional Therapy Association of Japan, and her tour group from Japan, to our conference. This was her 14th visit to our DRTA Conferences and she delighted us with a short presentation on the Doll Therapy Baby Doll that she has helped create and market in Japan. The Therapy Doll is called ‘Laugh Cry Tartan’.
Orquidea Mortera, the Vice-president of the New Zealand Society of Diversional and Recreation Therapy was also a very special guest, once again, at our conference in Brisbane. She gave a presentation on the ‘Baby Buddies’ project that they have been running at The Selwyn Village Aged care facility in Auckland, New Zealand, where Orquidea works.
As part of my presentation on day 1 of the conference, we had 2 very special international guests call in via Skype. They were Dr Mark Brown from Colorado Springs in the US and Casey Narusawa from Pearl City in Hawaii. I had met Dr Brown, who is a motivational speaker amongst other things, in Denver earlier in the year, and his presentation there was so entertaining and inspirational, we had to have him at our Brisbane conference. He didn’t disappoint either.
Casey is an Activities Director at the Plaza Assisted Living care facility in Pearl City in Hawaii. Over the last 2 years I have been part of various projects with Casey within my own personal role of Lifestyle Coordinator at Barunga Village, where I work in South Australia. It was wonderful to have Casey, via Skype, tell us what it is like working in the Aged care Industry in the tropical paradise that is Hawaii.
Darren Robinson, DRTA International Liaison team leader.