Creating a path to inclusion: Educating practitioners to provide inclusive leisure services

Abstract

This article highlights a general structure for reducing social, psychological, and physical barriers to leisure by teaching professionals to facilitate engagement. We enable social engagement by fostering positive attitudes, using sensitive terms, nurturing positive contact, and acting as allies. For psychological engagement, we promote self-determination; teaching ways to engage in leisure via leisure education. Strategies to foster physical access include promoting universal design and making adaptations to create leisure opportunities. Factors influencing chances to experience leisure include culture, economic resources, age, ability, and family that influence attempts to negotiate, reduce, or eliminate barriers to leisure. To promote human rights, we welcome people of diverse cultural backgrounds providing opportunities to experience leisure together. To facilitate leisure for people with limited economic resources we work to improve safety, make programs affordable, and facilitate access. We promote healthy aging by responding to desires of people throughout their lives and facilitate leisure. To promote inclusion of people regardless of their abilities, we become responsive, emphasize the person and their identity, encourage autonomy, and involve participants. We create family-centered leisure services, developing cross-cultural competence, relieving family stress, and communicate with families. The model provides a general structure to design educational opportunities encouraging inclusive leisure services.