Collective Voices, Shared Wisdom: On the Need for a Professional Association to Represent Therapeutic Recreation in Australia

Abstract

The purpose of this and the following paper is to make public the debate being conducted across Australia about the future direction of the professions of diversional therapy, and therapeutic recreation in particular. Are these leisure professions meant to co-exist in relative opposition or coalesce into a synergistic consolidation? This paper first explores the foundations of diversional therapy and therapeutic recreation and then examines the sociological study of professions as a backdrop to the current controversy which is concerned with whether the needs of the health care delivery service in Australia would be best served by a single profession or by multiple professions. Some of the many challenges that need to be addressed in the near future are noted.