“We Try [to] Take the Barriers Away For You to Come in”: Active Recreation Contexts as Leisure Facilitators

Active recreation spaces provide important contexts for physical activity that can contribute to positive physical and mental health outcomes. However, individuals often face constraints which can limit their participation in active recreation. Although some constraints can be negotiated at the individual level, organizations may also take actions to facilitate participation. Extensive research has examined individual constraints to active recreation and constraint negotiation strategies, but there is a lack of research on how recreation agencies and organizations work to facilitate participation in active recreation. Recognizing this gap, we sought to understand facilitators of physically active recreation at the contextual level, with a larger goal of identifying the organizational facilitators that recreation providers use to encourage participation. This qualitative study of recreation providers included semi-structured focus groups conducted online with staff and program leaders at recreation organizations providing physically active programming in a college town in the northeastern United States. Focus groups were transcribed verbatim, coded both deductively and inductively using thematic analysis, and validated with qualitative techniques (e.g., consensus across coders). Results aligned with four themes: philosophy/culture, staff/volunteers, marketing, and program actions. These themes illustrate the actions taken by providers to encourage and support participation across various levels of their organizational operations. Our data provide evidence of specific facilitation strategies used by recreation providers, aligning with constraints and constraint negotiation strategies identified in previous research, as well as with business practices not typically viewed through this lens. The present study highlights the need for better integration of individual- and organizational-level research. By better understanding constraints faced by current and potential participants, providers can be more intentional in aligning their practices with the facilitation of participation. Recreation providers can use the facilitation strategies identified in this study to support constraint negotiation and better enable engagement in active recreation.