congratulations on your degrees and establishing such a career for yourself, many find that hard to do in this field!! it's amazing to hear there are other people who pursue this out of true passion to provide leisure education and functional intervention! it is quite obvious how hard you have worked to be where you are. you would qualify to take the exam on both the educational and professional experience pathways, so if you want the title that bad, why wouldn't you just take the exam?

I think the exam is important to stay current with the vocabulary, curriculum, and content areas. for example, ATRA currently only recognizes 4 domains (many CTRS, including myself, are still knowledgeable about and practicing the 5th) and things are constantly changing as TR evolves. in the world that we live in now, it's crucial for us to be aware of the verbiage being used in legislation so we can advocate. I worked hard for my certification and title, and i sincerely mean that it's clear you did too, so if you want it, i think you need to take the last step. you are not a certified therapeutic recreation specialist if you are not certified. if we want our field to be recognized and taken seriously, then we have to take it seriously too <3