August 2018 - Parks & Recreation - 77

To achieve success, follow these
best practices.

How to Implement a
Successful Therapeutic and
Inclusion Program in Your
Community Programming:
1. Communicate program benefits
to all internal departments. By
being part of a broader administration-wide conversation relative
to inclusion services, your community will see higher adoption and
more rapid success toward meeting
the highest possible public accommodation standards.
2. Staff an inclusive recreation coordinator. Depending on the size of
your community and your park and
rec department, you may need to
hire a dedicated inclusion recreation
coordinator or a certified therapeutic recreation specialist to facilitate
programming accommodations and
train instructors on safety protocols.

activity to be safely and adequately
adapted. Because questionnaire
data may include protected health
information, make sure all staff
sign confidentiality agreements.
5. Implement a leisure companion
program. Consider a leisure companion program that pairs participants with disabilities with a trained
volunteer companion, who provides additional support and helps
facilitate the individual's program
participation. All companion volunteers should receive specialized
training in both disability awareness
and emergency medical assistance.

3. Allow registrants to indicate if
they will need reasonable accommodations. If parents or individuals who need accommodations do
not see the opportunity to indicate
that when they register, they may
believe they will be unable to participate. If your department needs
a certain amount of prior notice,
note the differentiated deadline for
individuals with special requests
on the registration form.

6. Provide ongoing staff training.
By hosting ongoing training on
disability awareness, activity adaption, communications and accommodation procedures, you further
reinforce the importance of inclusion and keep such critical topics
as safety and confidentiality top-ofmind throughout the year.

4. Create and implement the use
of a voluntary inclusion questionnaire. For any individual who
needs reasonable accommodations, provide a questionnaire that
allows you to gather all the applicable information necessary for an

7. Ensure facility accessibility and
universal design. Parks, gymnasiums, classrooms and other facilities used for recreation programs
must meet accessibility standards
required for parking lots, entrances,
restrooms, activity areas and equip-

ment. If you are unsure if your current facility meets the highest accessibility standards, partner with
a local support organization to
conduct an accessibility audit and
work with you to make reasonable
accommodations if necessary.
8. Ensure affordability. Assess your
current program's financial structure
and determine how you can enable
participation by those for whom
registration fees may be burdensome, especially given other possible
health-related financial obligations.
9. Promote program availability to
your citizens. Advertise your program availability via all local marketing channels. Not only will citizens
and parents of children with disabilities be pleased to learn about new
program opportunities, it will reinforce your communitywide commitment to inclusion among all citizens.
By providing inclusive park and
recreation activities, you will enable all generations of your citizens to come together to share in
the same goal: being active and
engaged in their home away from
home.
Landon Schenck is the General Manager for CivicRec
(schenck@civicplus.com).

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Parks & Recreation

August 2018 - Parks & Recreation

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