CHARM

Confident Active Healthy Role Models (CHARM) is an activity program designed for teens and youth designated “at risk” or underserved in traditional educational contexts. CHARM operated over six years as a service-learning pedagogy, and attracted graduate and undergraduate students, Brock Alumni & community Artists in mentor, facilitator, curriculum developer and instructor roles.

The program’s framework blends Don Hellison’s TPSR (Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility through Physical Activity) Model with an arts-based approach to educational strategies. CHARM is presently in a moratorium phase as we await guidance regarding mental health programs in Section 23 contexts and in a post -COVID context.

Side by Side

The primary objective of this program was to deliver individualized activity programs in order to address gaps in the movement repertoire and increase physical activity levels in adults with IDD. This was addressed by utilizing a station-based pedagogy approach, and an embedded curriculum, and breaking down complex motor skills into smaller, more manageable tasks with the goal to layer these tasks upon one another to produce a safe, dignified, and developmentally and age appropriate movement repertoire.

SNAP: What is SNAP?

1. It’s the participants!!
   So, yes, it’s all about the participants who attend SNAP. Everything we do leads up to the participants having developmentally appropriate, safe and fun experiences in a movement and social play- based environment.
2. It’s a context of diversity
   SNAP is a program specifically designed for kids, youth, teens and adults with neuro-diverse and/or unconventional bodies.  We have a broad spectrum of complex embodiments and broad spectrums of ability and expression.  Many of our participants live with combinations of embodied complexities.
3. It’s a movement education and adapted physical activity program
   SNAP is a movement program.  We are focused on the moving body and how that kind of experience can enhance overall quality of life and learning.  We engage in basic movement development and activities, fitness and conditioning, observing and analyzing movement, using movement as the basis for lesson and session planning, building more complex movement patterns and eventually sequences and breaking down complex movements into more basic patterns and sequences.
4. It’s service learning
   SNAP is a service earning site. This means that it responds to an expressed need in our community that is not being met with existing community resources. It also means that when you work in or at SNAP that you must DO something. That something has to serve others and you get the by- product of that service in the development of planning, application, problem-solving, instructional, adaptation and self- reflective skills. Authentic service learning requires a reflective component that is assessed as a valued feature of the course experience.  For this reason, students working within SNAP programs keep a journal, keep track of their planning, do ongoing reflection in their journal and do an analysis of their journal and planning.
5. It’s a site for pedagogy
   SNAP allows future practitioners to practice being with kids in meaningful instructional relationships. It allows coordinators to develop their own facilitation, instructional, time management and organizational skills.  At SNAP we implement an embedded curriculum and have a teaching and learning laboratory to see what works and what does not and for whom.  We practice phrasing and feedback, we practice observation and analysis of movement, we practice progression and skill building across a variety of different dimension of movement competency ( ie, stability, locomotor,  quality, sending-receiving-retaining, gross and fine motor, to name a few). We refine what is not working well so that we can continue to provide a developmentally appropriate environment that also affords achievement and dignity.
6. It’s a site for research
   SNAP provides a research site for undergraduate, graduate and faculty research.  We track phenomena over time, we work with image and video, we develop programs and try them out, we explore effective practices across broad spectrums of interest. In addition, we can work with parents, teachers, EA’s, PT’s and OT’s and other community partners with shared interests.

Past presentations at NAFAPA

Connolly, M., Lappano, E., Toms, D., Di Maurizio, S. Simple tools for complex people. NAFAPA. University of Oregon. October 2018

Connolly, M. Lappano, E., Oakley, A., Petrachenko, J., Salvagna, J. “I didn’t sign up for this” and other dilemmas of program planning and implementation: and analysis of student experiences with planning in two APA programs serving underserved and complex teens and young adults. NAFAPA. University of Oregon. October 2018.

Connolly, M. & Lappano, E. Re-imagining the Triad of Impairments: Phenomenologically oriented approaches to understanding and explicating instructional/relational strategies for participants with complex ASD profiles. North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, University of Alberta, Edmonton, September 2016

Connolly, M. Lappano, E. Lenius, A. Morrison, H. Yes, they CAN do that!! Progressive adaptive physical activity in a station-based movement program for teens with complex

ASD profiles. North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, University of Alberta, Edmonton, September 2016

Connolly, M. & Lappano, E. Re-imagining otherwise: alternative approaches to APA research and pedagogy for participants with complex profiles. Building Session. North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, University of Alberta, Edmonton, September 2016

Connolly, M. Leman, K. Jackson, A.  Exploring the ‘felt sense’ of alignment and sensation-perception connection in an isometric and movement education-based exercise program for an adult participant with Cerebral Palsy. Poster session. North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, University of Alberta, Edmonton, September 2016

Connolly, M. Boyd, C. & Craig, T. An Analysis of Images Depicting Stressed Embodiment in an Adolescent Male with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Sensitized Approach Combining Laban Movement Analysis and Phenomenological Attunement. NAFAPA. University of Michigan. September 2014

Connolly, M. & Fleishman, M.  Back to Basics: exploring gestural habits as cues for anticipating self-injurious episodes in a child with Autism and Deafness.  NAFAPA (North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity) Conference, Georgia, Alabama, October 2012.

Connolly, M.  Journaling a disability studies practicum – lessons learned over a decade of practice.  NAFAPA.  Indiana University/Purdue University.  Indianapolis, Indiana.  September 3-6, 2008.

Connolly, M.  Bridging the divide across cognitive and human sciences frameworks implications and applications (with Tom Craig and Keith Johnston). NAFAPA conference; Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, October 29-31, 2004

Connolly, M.  Best practices approach in transitional school programs for children with ASD (co-Authored with Keith Johnston).  NAFAPA conference; Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, October 29-31, 2004

Connolly, M. When Cliches Are Not Enough – Deconstructing Cultural Scripts in Practitioner Preparation.  NAFAPA Conference, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon.  September 26-28, 2002.

Connolly, M. The remarkable logic of autism. NAFAPA, New Orleans, LA.  November 2000.