The idea of resilience is often associated with children and youth who grow up to thrive as adults despite starting life in an environment of poverty, abuse, marginalization and, in general, greater problems and fewer resources than required for optimum development. The concept can also be applied to families and communities that face many challenges and a dearth of resources to address them. Resilience is achieved when the community takes on a difficult challenge, mobilizes available human, financial and material resources, achieves success, and builds greater levels of capacity to take on more difficult problems. The human, material, natural, and bricks-and-motor resources managed by the recreation sector are key, both to providing immediate response to crises and to building capacity to prevent and respond to crises in the future.
Change
The saying, “May you live in interesting times,” is referred to as a Chinese curse, although I’ve often wondered why living in interesting times would be considered a curse. Don’t we all aspire to live in interesting times? The answer lies in the reality that interesting times are often times of uncertainty, chaos, and change. It is interesting indeed that the recreation sector is being called upon to consider new responsibilities while simultaneously maintaining their traditional roles. That reality, while appearing to be problematic, can be embraced as long as people are engaged in deciding what changes are required and when, who will be impacted and how, and what the process of meaningful participation will look like.
Recreation sector leaders at the national, provincial and local levels have undertaken forward looking initiatives that have put the sector in a strong position to manage this new wave of change imperatives. One of the most impactful of those was launched in 2015, following a four-year engagement process. In that year, A Framework for Recreation in Canada, Pathways to Wellbeing was endorsed by Provincial and Territorial Ministers (excluding Quebec) and supported by the Government of Canada. Since then, many municipal councils have also endorsed the Framework and made it the foundation for their local recreation planning initiatives.
The Framework’s launch provided a solid, national foundation for the work of the recreation sector across Canada. Since then additional plans such as Parks for All and a professional development initiative in cultural competency for Indigenous Canada have been undertaken. More recently, The Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA) undertook a new initiative related to Gender Equity in Recreational Sport. We won’t (and we shouldn’t) aspire to be free of change. It’s what keeps us vibrant, relevant and meaningful.
Cross-cutting Implications
“Collaborative,” “cross-sectoral,” and “intersectional” are terms that remind us that societal problems are often not experienced “one at a time.” Similarly, the resources 3 required to address them are rarely the purview of a single department, agency or organization. The interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender, as applied to individuals and groups, creates overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage that turn complicated problems into “wicked” ones. Wicked problems are often only resolved through collaborative action over time. Recreation can respond to this reality by expanding the communities and sectors that we work with, finding ways to get into the rooms and at the tables where we may not have been welcomed in the past and consider the resources required to take on new roles and responsibilities.