Casual Day- "ALL ABOARD"

Every year the OT3s organize the Casual Day at whatever practical venue they are at. This year the theme was "ALL ABOARD". As soon as we heard the theme our ideas started flowing.

The dining room done up like a ship.

We decided that we should all dress up as either pirates or people on a ship and also get the service users to dress up too. Unfortunately because of ethical reasons I am not allowed to put up any pictures of my patients but you can see from the pictures of the students that everyone got dressed up and was very excited for the day to start. We decorated their Dining Hall as if it was a ship with the theme colours being red, blue and white. We hung up balloons and stuck up pictures of ships and pirates around the room. The service users were then seated in rows as if they were on a ship and we started off by playing "Captain Says" which is just like "Simon Says" except we used navy actions to make it more applicable to the theme. The service users really enjoyed this game and we were shocked when some of the service users that aren't normally responsive joined in and played the game.

"pin the hat on the sailor game"

We then moved onto a game of pass the parcel which is an all time favourite at any party. We had wrapped each layer with newspaper and at every layer there was a badge as a prize in order to increase motivation to carry on the game and also to include everyone in the fun. Some of the service users loved their badges so much that they put them on straight away and they continue to wear them. There was still the main prize which was a set of vanilla body washes and creams which was won by the sweetest lady who was so thankful and very happy with herself. The next game was "pin the hat on the sailor" which is the same as "pin the tail on the donkey" just once again with the theme we adapted the game. This was lots of fun because we spun them around and some of them stuck the hat in the weirdest of places and it caused a few giggles. We decided to give prizes to the two winners and while we were working out who won, one of the service users who writes poems recited two for us. This was a big step in her treatment process because she suffers from an anxiety disorder and she doesn't enjoy speaking to big groups of people so this was a step outside her comfort zone and everyone throughly enjoyed her poems.

The drinks and eats tables.

By this time it was 10 o'clock which is tea time at the facility so we had arranged some juice, eats and an activity for the service users to do. It is always hard to organize food for our group sessions because we have diabetics and therefore need to provide sugar free foods and refreshments. We had freshly squeezed orange juice and bran muffins for the diabetics, and cupcakes and mix a drink for the others.There was also an activity of making fish out of marie biscuits, icing and smarties which went very well because it was an easy activity for all of them to do. At this stage we attracted some of the other service users at the facility who don't normally get involved in our groups but were drawn in by our yummy eats.There is one particular service user who would eat all the eats if we let her and have to tell her that she is only allowed to enjoy the food if she gets involved in our activities in order to encourage appropriate behaviour.

Our students with the student and supervisor from the other venue.

We had other activities planned for after tea like painting and a candy floss machine but the machine wasn't working and we decided the service users had already had enough stimulation for the day. We then set up a photo booth with a bunch of different hats and dress up items for them to put on and take photos either by themselves or with a group of people. At this stage the students and supervisor from another venue came and tried to take over but they just saw how well ours was running so stepped aside. They did however enjoy our photo booth and took some crazy photos. The service users enjoyed dressing up and taking funny photos.

Two of the students showing everyone how it's done.

 When everyone had taken their photos we turned up the music because all the service users love to dance. We even had one of the service users who is in a wheelchair asking one of the students to dance. We played music from ABBA and some old school hits which everyone sung along to and did their own little dance in the middle of the circle. One of our plans was to do the macarena but unfortunately we forgot to get the music so we tried to do it to another song but it didn't work out very well. At this stage the service users were tired and some were getting very irritated with having to be in a group setting so we decided to end the day with one more song and dance. We then asked them to reflect on the day and tell us which part of it they most enjoyed, most said the photo booth or the dancing.


We had been told about the previous years and what they did for casual day and we had quite big shoes to fill. I really have been blessed with a great group of fellow students that really work well together and we always remember to have fun. It was really nice having a day which took a lot of preparation but we enjoyed it just as much as the service users and it gave us the opportunity to get to know a different side of each of them. All in all I think we achieved our goal of pulling off the best Casual Day yet. :)