My Working Day:As a recreational co-ordinator with the Brothers of Charity, Susan McGill's challenge is to cater for 450 service-users in the southeast area.
The Brothers of Charity provides a wide range of services to children and adults who have intellectual disabilities.
My job is to co-ordinate the recreational services within the southeast area, which includes all of Waterford and South Tipperary, but I don't do this all by myself - I have a team of five other recreational assistants.
There are about 450 service- users within the service so it's a big challenge. Our service-users have very diverse interests and abilities for which we have to cater.
There is a structured timetable for each week, but there is a huge diversity in the day-to-day work. Activities begin about 9.30am, starting with regular PE classes on campus. We have facilities here in the Belmont campus, including a gymnasium, lots of equipment and also plenty of green areas.
The mid-morning activities vary widely and we could have three buses heading off in different directions, bringing service-users to golf or bowling.
These are two of the most popular sports within the service because they are suited to all ages and abilities. Golf is a very good social sport and bowling is popular because of the instant feedback. When the pins drop, it means success.
We also have a great arrangement with the Presentation Secondary School in Waterford where we run an integrated PE programme twice a week. This programme is unique in that it has been running for almost 15 years and involves the service-users participating in PE with the Transition Year students from the school.
It's very positive because it breaks down barriers, creates challenges for the more able service-users and is very good for the students.
In the afternoons we run various activities such as our Fit Club and hockey in the gym. However, not as many service users as before are able to attend during the day because a lot of them are doing work experience, open employment or adult literacy classes.
That means we now hold a lot of our activities in the evening and give the service-users a choice of what they want to do. We are very aware that we have to support each service-user individually and we strive to provide each service-user with an individual programme. Almost any recreational activity that can be named we provide - when you give people a choice between just two things, then that's not a real choice. We provide everything from the leisurely stroll on the beach to abseiling or kayaking, or even a trip to the pub if that's what they want.
Special Olympics is a big part of the evening activities because it provides the more competitive and sporty service-users with the opportunity to train and compete and get recognition for their achievements.
Ideally we would be striving towards full integration with mainstream clubs, but to date that hasn't really happened to the extent we would like and there is still a lot of work to be done in that area.
My role has changed drastically over the years but I still get great job satisfaction.
In conversation with Danielle Barron