How to Celebrate and Show Appreciation to Activity Professionals

Annually, from January 23-27, the National Activity Provider and Professionals Week is celebrated globally. This is to recognize and support the efforts of activity professionals and to promote their engagement and well-being through various activities.

This year’s theme is Connected Communities.

During this season, various efforts and activities are planned to care for the well-being of vulnerable individuals. Resources are also provided to address their specific needs.

A cohort study by Jama Network discovered that for older adults, the way they associate with their leisure time has a strong correlation with their mortality risk. The research, which included 272,550 older adults, found that participation in physical activities for 7.5 to less than 15 metabolic equivalent hours per week is associated with lower mortality risk.

Activity providers, therefore, offer professional opportunities to develop confidence, knowledge, and skills.

Below are eight activity ideas to celebrate and show appreciation to activity professionals during the week. 

• Share experiences

Fellow professionals actively share personal experiences and stories through community channels such as meet-ups or social media to emphasize the significance of the season in their daily lives. Therefore, the experiences provide a platform to show the importance of activity professionals.

• Play games

Competitive games that ensure people learn exciting facts are a great learning experience for the season. Playing games will help individuals connect as they know more about the activity during the professional week.

• Sharing a meal

Activity professional week is an excellent season to share a meal. This could be a snack or any delicious homemade meal.

• Having fun together.

Similarly, this would be through having a dance party where people would dance together during one of the days of the Activity Professional Week. It enhances the release of stress and better connections.

• Go on a road trip and hang out.

Road trips are a great adventure to explore during this season. Enjoying nature walks, hikes, and museum visits enable a good experience and memories. Trips ensure full meditation experience that will be very helpful for the activity professional’s week.

• Gifting

Gifts encourage and provide a platform to explore the interest each other. This could be a simple but great way to show appreciation. People could ensure they have a gift during the week.

• Conducting fun conversations with Activity Leaders

Enhancing conversations with the activity heads brings the expert version of the background and celebrations of the season. In addition, this helps in the documentation of the ideas. Generating easy, fun questions that will drive the conversation is very key.

• Exchanging Thank You Cards and Notes

You can choose to write these cards by hand or print them. Personalizing the thank you cards ensures a level of gratitude and is a great way to show love.

The week gives a chance for healthcare providers to engage on how they can meaningfully choose and control how they spend their time.

Live-well aims at supporting activity professionals as well as providing meaningful support during the activity week. Therefore, strengthening the community, brain health, and their daily living.