I worked at a state hospital, inpatient mental health, for my first Level II fieldwork (3 months rotation). While I was there, I created a group treatment plan to target a need; anti-social personality disorder and/or isolating behaviors. Whooooah! That is a difficult crowd; but I knew I was the one for the job. How do you get people who don't like to participate, avoid crafts, people, and fun like a plague? Origami Airplanes! Origami is associated with crafts, which I have found, can have a negative stigma. Paper airplanes is a sly way of introducing people into the joy of origami. A theme that remains among the treatments and activities I do, is that I focus on low-cost or easily accessible activities. I was led to focus on this due to the state hospital setting being under-funded, high security, and high level of safety risk. Also, the majority of this patient population is from poverty if not homeless. An example in contrast to origami airplanes is painting birdhouses. This is still a great activity, the weakness with painting a birdhouse is, it's over with quickly and many will not engage in this activity frequently on their own time. I say this from personal experience, not empirical research. The value of paper airplanes, especially complex paper airplanes, is it can become a long-term engaging hobby with a broad range of difficulty that requires only paper.
One patient remarked "This is making me feel depressed, I can't even fold a piece of paper." My heart sank as my grand vision of joy and excitement faded away behind poorly folded squares of paper.
I got started with this activity when browsing the crafts book aisle at the library. I brought the book home and became engaged for hours making airplanes. Two years later, I purchased the book for myself.
It is also important to know that I find the difficulty of complex designs is teaching en masse; in a group setting. Lower functioning patients could likely still learn the art of paper folding with one-to-one treatment in a variety of ways. Grading the Activity
Something that I would like to develop in the future; facilitate the social participation element by having a paper airplane throwing distance competition down a long Unit hallway. Adding EducationAside from the crafting element of teaching and engaging patients in a new art form, I often like to mix a relatable educational element into my groups as well. Sometimes this can be a bit of a stretch; but I have Favorited addressing the topic of goal setting with paper airplanes. Using a goal setting method such as S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) or RHUMBA (Relevant, How Long, Understandable, Measurable, Behavioral, Achievable). ResourcesThere are likely other great books out there with simple designs, I would of course love suggestions.
However, there are also FREE resources online, PDFs and YouTube videos. Here is a few suggestions to get started: The classic stereotypical paper airplane "The Classic Dart" http://makercamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/W5D1.pdf 35 Page Booklet with Several Designs: http://paper-life.ru/images/origami-book/Advanced_Paper_Aircraft_Construction/Advanced-Paper-Aircraft-Construction.pdf A website with several downloadable PDFs http://www.funpaperairplanes.com/ And for the overacheivers who want to learn about a paper Boomerang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kprLtErg8U&t=334s
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AuthorA Master's of Occupational Therapy (MOT), working in mental health; husband and father; dreamer and thinker; with an interest in reading, writing, talking, and learning. Archives |