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Living life her way: Helen’s story
This World Cerebral Palsy Day, we’re celebrating Helen, a much-loved...
Pokémon Community Challenge
Across the north of the river, down Joondalup way, a challenge was brewing. 6 Pokémon trainers, 3 tasks, one winner, and it all started with a matching outfit and an idea.
For one of our customers Daniel, physical exercise and engagement with his physio sessions weren’t a big motivator, so our Advanced Clinician Physiotherapist Kaitlyn Acres set out to find ways to make his sessions a little more fun and encourage him to actively participate. “The way I like to run my sessions when I have a customer with similar cognition to Daniel is to make it very game style and fun, rather than traditional exercise because that’s when we lose their interest and engagement.”
For one of his sessions with Kaitlyn, Daniel arrived wearing a two-piece outfit featuring the Pokémon character Charizard, and that’s when she knew she had found a potential opportunity.
Kaitlyn also knew that Daniel worked well in a group, and that there were members of his community group on a Monday who liked Pokémon too, so with the help of Abby McLennan (Team Leader, Community Department) and Joe Haydon (Exercise Physiologist), they set about exploring how Community and Therapy could work cohesively together to enhance our customer experiences, and who they could get involved.
The story continues...
Thus, the Pokémon Community Challenge was born! A 6-week program designed to encourage movement, social interaction, independence and healthy eating. The rules were simple, and three tasks were issued:
- Cook a healthy meal for yourself or your Pokémon
- Complete an exercise session (Gym, Physio, Walk, Hydro or Home Session)
- Spot a Pokémon in the community and snap a photo of your discovery
There was also the opportunity to earn bonus tokens for additional adventures:
- Take a 10-minute walk or wheel outdoors with your support worker
- Create a Pokémon-themed craft (painting, drawing, sculpture – be creative!)
- Design your own Pokémon card and create your very own Pokémon!
- Visit a new place you haven’t explored before
- Make a cup of tea or coffee for someone
- Try a new activity for the first time
Each time a task was successfully completed (with photographic proof), the participant earned 1 token. Accruing 5 tokens earned you a Pokémon card and the person with the most tokens and cards at the end of the challenge would win!
Daniel and 5 of his community group friends; Caleb, Zoe, Ruth, Brian and Vanessa accepted the challenge and signed up to become Rocky Bay’s first bonified Pokémon Trainers. What followed was 6 weeks of intense rivalry (mainly between our Support Workers!), good-natured banter and a whole lot of bean bag throwing (a substitute for Poké balls during numerous Hub Pokémon hunts).
How we helped
Among all the challenges and an ever-changing leaderboard, staff were noticing the positive impact it was having on each participant.
For Kaitlyn the difference the challenge has already made for Daniel in a short time has been remarkable. “Daniel didn’t want to be in the gym at all at the start of the challenge, but by the end of it, he’d be in the gym before me for every session, ready to go! He’d even told me how much he was enjoying it. By reframing what that expectation of a session is for him, we were able to get him into a mindset of ‘this is a positive experience, and I enjoy what I’m doing’ and so that helps me in our next block of sessions where we can build on that and I’ll be able to be a bit more targeted and specific with our interventions”
As for Daniel, his experience of the challenge was summed up in two words “Double fun!”
Though as the sun rose on the final day of the challenge, the only question on everybody’s mind was ‘who won?’ So, without further ado, drum roll please, our Rocky Bay Pokémon Community Challenge winner is…Zoe!
Huge congratulations to Zoe and to all our participants, and a special shout out to Daniel, who was our runner up!
A few words
“We were finding with the challenge, because they were all doing it together, they’re engaging better with each other and having more conversations. And you can see it individually too, they all made such great progress, whether it was with their exercises, eating healthily or getting out and about in the community”
- Abby McLennan
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