by Jacquelyn Oncescu (University of Manitoba)
Today, more than ever, it appears to be getting harder to stay healthy and well. You can’t turn on the TV, radio or open a webpage without some news story telling us how unhealthy our society is: increasing sedentary and unhealthy lifestyles; more depression and mental health issues; and, increasing stress levels. The ability to maintain health and wellbeing is challenged, putting individuals’ and communities’ quality of life at risk.
Recently, the field of recreation has been called upon to be part of the solution to mitigate a number of Canada’s societal issues (see National Recreation Framework in Canada). Recreation professionals from across the country have been contributing to the development of a National Recreation Framework to help position recreation as service to help solve some of our nation’s biggest challenges related to our aging population, environmental degradation, increasing inequities, unhealthy and sedentary lifestyles, and decline in civic engagement and community cohesion. Calling upon this profession is not unheard of—considering the roots of the recreation profession go back as far as the industrial revolution, where early pioneers of recreation advocated for the development of parks and playgrounds to help adult residents rest and recover from their adverse working environments, and provide children a safe and supervised place to play and develop.
Since the industrial revolution, the recreation profession has grown, and with that, more services, resources and amenities to support individual and community wellbeing. The municipal sector is the key agent in delivering and supporting community recreation, leisure and sport services. The emphasis of this field has been in providing recreation activities, areas, and facilities. Government support for recreation services is often given because of the social, physical and economic benefits that come from recreation participation. The field of recreation should be well positioned to help address the social issues individuals and communities are facing today. Is it?
The Gap in Recreation Delivery Systems
Traditionally, the field of recreation has focused its energy on developing and implementing recreation, leisure and sport services, amenities, programs, facilities and infrastructure for individuals and the community. Recreation professionals have assumed that individuals have obtained the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in the recreation programs, services and opportunities that will lead to enriching and enhancing leisure lifestyles (Mundy, 1998). The delivery of recreation services, however, hasn’t aligned well with enhancing an individual’s leisure experience. According to Mundy (1998), the recreation delivery system is focused on programs that are activity-oriented, structured and organized, and leader-initiated, planned, and provided. Whereas, leisure is experience-oriented, dependent on choices within the context of free or unobligated time, and involves some level of self-direction. What Mundy points out is a significant gap between what and how the recreation profession delivers and what is needed to create meaningful leisure experiences. For individuals to create meaningful leisure experiences, a certain level of awareness, skills, and knowledge is needed—which hasn’t been cultivated to the degree it could be in community recreation services.
The misalignment between leisure experiences and leisure delivery systems is a problem. For example, children can participation in recreation programs and learn skills to participate, but never learn how to apply those skills when they are home. As a result children can experience periods of boredom because they haven’t been taught how to plan, organize and self-direct their own play experiences. In the context of physical activity and health, adults can be told how many minutes a day they should engage in physical activity for health benefits, but are never taught how to find meaning in their physical activities that can create wellbeing beyond the physical realm.
The ability to create meaningful leisure experiences involves more than just participation in leisure, it is involves personal awareness, skills, knowledge, and decision-making and problem solving proficiencies. Leisure education is a process that creates intentionally designed programs that focus on helping individuals create meaningful recreation and leisure opportunities for themselves. Leisure education also supports the development of a broad repertoire of skills to address the challenges they encounter in their day-to-day lives, and to be engaged in their homes, families, and communities (Robertson, 2007). Leisure education helps individuals develop the attitudes, knowledge and skills needed to make positive leisure choices (Robertson, 2007). More specifically, leisure education is a process that focuses on enhancing individuals’ leisure functioning by assisting individuals to: a) identify needs, b) problem solve to overcome barriers to taking action, and c) develop the confidence and competence in their abilities to take action.
Historically, leisure education has been delivered within the area of Therapeutic Recreation (TR). TR uses leisure education to help individuals who experience barriers to recreation participation as a result of a disease, illness or disability. Most leisure education programs have been isolated to clinical healthcare settings to meet the needs of the populations they serve. Typically delivered through a person-centred approach, leisure education focuses on developing the self rather than the group or environment in which the individual interacts (Dieser, 2013).
Bridging the Gap: Community-Based Leisure Education
For the field of recreation to be part of the solution to a vast array of societal ills, leisure education needs to be repositioned as a core component of service delivery in communities. Becoming leisure educators means creating opportunities beyond just participation in leisure, towards educating for and through leisure. The gap between participation in leisure and benefits of recreation and leisure for individuals’ wellbeing is widening. To close this gap, the recreation profession has to rethink how it is serving its community. This is not to take away from all the wonderful existing leisure opportunities, services and resources the profession has created in our communities, but to think about how the profession can incorporate leisure education into their service delivery.
Participation in recreation and leisure activities is influenced by a number of factors that can include age, gender, physical abilities and skills, but also family and friends, work environments, community institutions and social structures, outdoor infrastructure, geographic location, and policies and laws (see —McLeroy, Bibeau, Steckler, & Glanz, 1988). For instance, an individual’s leisure behaviour can be influenced by their knowledge on community recreation opportunities (individual), parents’ involvement in their leisure activities (interpersonal), schools physical education curriculum, community’s geographic location, e.g., rural vs urban (community), and the policies that govern access to outdoor recreation amenities and infrastructure (public policy). Because leisure and recreation participation is influenced by so many factors, recreation professionals have a number of opportunities to educate for and about leisure. 
Typically, leisure education is focused on changing individual attitudes, awareness, skills, and knowledge related to leisure; however, a broader application of leisure education can include family units, co-workers and work environments, other recreation organizations and agencies (voluntary, commercial and public sectors), the workplace, allied professions, government agencies and officials, and policy decision makers. Below are a series of examples to highlight a broader application of leisure education in the community.
Community-Based Leisure Education
As Mundy (1998) mentioned, recreation programs and services in traditional leisure delivery systems have often focused on skills related to recreation participation. To reverse this trend and to create a broader awareness of leisure and to enhance the skills needed to create meaningful leisure experiences, recreation professionals can deliver leisure education programs targeted at specific populations (individual level). For example, recreation professionals could offer leisure education programs for individuals going through major life transitions (e.g. widowhood, parenthood, retirement, etc.). The focus of the programming can be how to maintain leisure during major change.
Leisure education programs and workshops can also be developed and delivered to parents (interpersonal level). For example, recreation practitioners could work in partnerships with non-profit agencies and organizations (organizational) that support new Canadians to delivery leisure education programs to parents. These programs could focus on educating parents on leisure and recreation activities, community leisure resources, financial support for leisure activities, and the process and procedures for registering in organized sport and recreation. Program content could also help new Canadians connect to culture and ethnic organizations and agencies in the community. Programs like this can help families integrate into community life through leisure and recreation, but also provide the knowledge needed to support children and youth leisure opportunities.
Leisure education can also be utilized to create stronger synergies between allied professions such as education, health, and justice to support the delivery of leisure to better meet the needs of the community (community level). For example, recreation practitioners and agencies could develop and deliver leisure education workshops and forums to healthcare providers, social services, and justice departments on the benefits of recreation. These workshops can highlight the role of recreation in addressing social problems, but also inform allied professions of the resources, amenities and services that their organizations could leverage to meet their own goals and objectives.
Recreation practitioners, agencies and organizations can also provide leisure education workshops and forums to local government officials to increase awareness of the role of recreation in the community. For example, some recreation funding policies require multiple partnerships between school divisions, town and municipal governments. Often these stakeholders do not understand the varied benefits and potential of leisure, or the role of the practitioner in the community, but yet they hold a significant amount of power related to financial resources and decisions that community recreation delivery systems rely on. Leisure education could be a strategic approach to advocating for policy changes related to funding and delivering community leisure services, programs and amenities.
Community-based leisure education is about enhancing leisure awareness, skills and knowledge at the individual, community and societal level. It is recreating our programs and services to go beyond participation in activities. It is educating and working in partnership with community organizations, leaders, politicians and governments to create a level of awareness and appreciation towards leisure that is missing. Partnerships and inter-organizational linkages with allied professions are becoming a common practice to support the delivery of recreation services. The increasing demands of developing partnerships with allied professions in the community is forcing recreation professionals to develop new skill sets to communicate and work with allied professions that don’t understand the field of community leisure and recreation (Thibault, Frisby & Kikulis, 1999). To continue to forge collaborative partnerships with non-leisure agencies, recreation professionals might have to start thinking and acting as leisure educators.
The points above are not extensive, but are provided to start the conversation on how community-based leisure education can be part of the field’s core services. The benefits of recreation have been recorded for over 40 years. Researchers, leisure advocates and recreation professionals are well aware of the benefits recreation can bring individuals and communities, yet we continue to see individuals and communities struggle to create meaningful leisure experience and maintain quality of life. To bridge the gap, the profession needs to think and act differently. This might mean the profession will have to get out of its comfort zone, try something that has never been done before, and step into the unknown. “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading”—Lao Tzu. Perhaps it is time for a change.
References
Dieser, R. (2013). Leisure education: A person-centred, system-directed, social policy perspective. Urbana, IL: Sagamore Publishing.
McLeroy, K. R., Bibeau, D., Steckler, A., & Glanz, K. (1988). An ecological perspective on health promotion programs. Health Education Quarterly, 15, 351–377.
Mundy, J. (1998). Leisure education: Theory and practice. (2nd ed). Champaign, IL: Sagamore Publishing.
Robertson, B. J. (2007). The leisure education manual. Wolfville, NS: Leisure Experience Associates of Canada.
Thibault L., Frisby, W., & Kikulis, L. (1999). Interorganizational linkages in the delivery of local leisure services in Canada: Responding to economic, political and social pressires. Managing Leisure, 4(3), 125-141.
Leisure Education 