From being a caring leader to being a care-sharing leader: Navigating caregiving relationships with disabled participants in community recreation contexts

After years of experiencing staff–participant engagements with disabled participants in community recreation programs, the author was drawn to more carefully consider some of the ableist pitfalls that support personnel in short-term community recreation programs can easily fall into while doing care work. The purpose of this conceptual paper was to outline how to be a caring leader for disabled participants in community recreation contexts in an ethical and anti-ableist way. As a non-disabled scholar-activist-practitioner, the author writes this paper informed by critical disability studies perspectives and acknowledging that the strategies shared for better ways to do care work originate from disabled people but are ultimately filtered through his specific lens of privilege. Centering disabled perspectives, care in care work is defined followed by some practical suggestions for providing care in a way that forefronts power disparities between non-disabled and disabled parties.