In my younger days I had worked as an infants teacher. In order to be effective we were expected to plan and prepare programs. When I first started working as a craft tutor for aged clients in a nursing home, I found there were very few suitable resources. I decided to write my own manual of craft based on the successful activities I tried. Traditional arts and crafts were adapted to suit my frail aged clients. Keep it Simple was my first book and I found I had a market for it. Keep it Simple has now been completely rewritten and I am launching it with my website. I have kept many of the original ideas and added new ones. In all there are more than 40 ideas to try.

Reminiscing is a useful tool for activity staff. Remembering events relating to times when the clients were younger and more active can help restore self-esteem. One of the tools of reminiscing that works well is recalling past events based on the popular culture of a time. This involves researching events, music, film and lifestyle of people from the nineteen-thirties to the sixties and beyond.

The programs I used became my next three reminiscing books- The World I Remember, The More I Remember and Do you Remember? Each program is presented in large print with simple black and white drawings. The program includes questions that encourage reminiscing and quizzes on things that my clients would remember. My purpose was to help younger therapists lock into the popular culture of their clients and encourage creative programming.

Recreation therapists need to know how to document care plans and evaluate their work as well how to implement client-orientated activities. The Clever Therapist was written with this in mind.

My husband Stephen has done the art work and photography for my resources and has added his own sense of humour.