Lecture / Discussion
Group activity
Practice counselling sessions: audiotape and videotape
The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:
The Individual Leisure Experience
- Theoretical constructs of leisure
- Leisure lifestyle, problems, needs and interventions
- Leisure, stress and coping
Leisure Counselling
- Leisure theory and counselling theory
- Definitions, models, theories and interventions of leisure counselling
- Resource Guidance: information based leisure counselling
- Developmental Educational: identification of leisure needs and improving leisure lifestyle
- Therapeutic Remedial: leisure counselling directed at the most serious leisure related problems: isolation, addiction, depression, etc.
- Leisure counselling and stress management
- Serious leisure and leisure counselling
Individual Leisure Counselling Applied
- Individual assessment and identification of type of leisure counselling intervention required
- Active listening skills, including: attending, use of silence, paraphrasing, questioning, empathy, summarizing
- Empowering skills including: searching for strengths, supporting, teaching, information giving, values clarification skills
- Challenging, including: advanced empathy, confrontation and action planning
- Leisure counselling interventions: distraction, anticipation, confrontation and evaluation
- Facilitating individual leisure counselling
Group Leisure Counselling Applied
- Assessing the functioning of individuals, the group as a whole and the environment
- Linking assessment to treatment in leisure counselling groups
- Treatment groups: foundation methods
- Treatment groups: specialized methods
- Increasing agency support for leisure group work services
- Interagency networks and community involvement
- Facilitating group leisure counselling
Leisure Counselling Future Trends
- Community Health based practice: youth services, mental health services
- Recreation based practice: youth services, stress management, recently retired adults
- Therapeutic recreation based leisure counselling: physical rehabilitation, older adults, mental health
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- analyze the phenomena of leisure and develop a deeper understanding of the individual leisure experience, including strengths, needs, goals and plans for change
- integrate theories and methods of counselling with the practice of leisure counselling
- compare and contrast philosophies, goals, models and methodologies of leisure counselling
- evaluate leisure assessment tools and methods used within leisure counselling
- apply the skills and knowledge of counselling to the practice of individual and group leisure counselling
- research the areas of health and recreation where one might offer leisure counselling services
This course will conform to Douglas College policy regarding the number and weighting of evaluations.
An evaluation schedule is presented at the beginning of the course. Typical means of evaluation will include a combination of written assignments, presentations and testing.
This is a graded course.
Textbook and Materials to be Purchased by the student
A list of recommended textbooks and materials is provided for students at the beginning of each semester.
Resources include:
- selected readings from a variety of therapeutic recreation practice textbooks
- selected audio-visual and computer resources
- selected readings from books and journals