As many in the diving fraternity are aware, Deptherapy & Deptherapy Education closed as a charity on 31 August 2023, after almost ten years working with UK Armed Forces’ veterans and some emergency service workers who had suffered life-changing mental and/or physical challenges as a result of their service to Sovereign and Country.
That work extended to encompass those who were on the neurodivergent paradigm or who have SENDs, but the charity's work was curtailed due in no small part to COVID, a reduction in charitable giving to the ‘military’ sector, and a decline in new beneficiary applications.
When the team closed the charity, they committed to keep the website: www.deptherapy.co.uk and the Facebook Page: Deptherapy & Deptherapy Education live for a two-year period.
Richard and the team have now decided to maintain the website and the Facebook Page for an extended period.
Deptherapy was rightly considered a world leader in adaptive teaching and the research it commissioned has been adopted as best practice by many scientists in the ‘green and blue space’ rehabilitation domain, and the team still receive frequent requests for adaptive teaching support and advice.
A new role
The former Deptherapy team, now as a group of friends, with a keen interest in adaptive teaching, has decided to focus on promulgating best practice in respect of adaptive techniques and to act as a repository for knowledge across this much-misunderstood and misrepresented speciality area of scuba diving.
They will seek to lead the way in pressing for ISO and WRSTC Standards in respect of adaptive teaching/diving and for the effective policing of the speciality, thus preventing unsubstantiated or exaggerated claims by individuals/agencies about the benefits of scuba diving to those with mental/physical challenges or on the neurodivergent paradigm.
Over the next few weeks and months, the website will change to reflect this new role, yet maintaining pride in its former charitable role.
In the longer term, the team – which has retained its experienced instructors and dedicated medical (dive medicine & mental health) advisors – are looking at developing an adaptive teaching programme that transcends agencies and that puts the adaptive diver’s needs to the fore.
Deptherapy remains a RAID Dive Centre, and the team want to pay particular thanks to Roots Red Sea for acting as a corporate sponsor in maintaining the website, and to Dave Hubber and Simon MacKay, who will continue to look after the website, as they have done since 2014.
Richard Cullen said: “The industry needs to accept standards for adaptive teaching that are pan agency and not-proven claims about the rehabilitative and mental health benefits of scuba need to cease. There needs to be an environment that ensures honesty and integrity, that is not dominated by commercialisation.”
It’s so good to hear that Deptherapy is still going strong, and that Richard Cullen will be at the Go Dive Show.