March 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 24

Community Center

Notable News
Hot Topics
You don't need the luck of the
Irish to find your networking
pot of gold this month. Just visit
NRPA Connect to find the professional inspiration and answers
for which you are looking! Below is a snapshot of discussions
happening on Connect:

One-on-One Shadows for
Children with Special Needs:
Does your agency provide oneon-one shadows (employees) to
work with children with special
needs in order for them to be included in your afterschool and
summer camp programs? Professionals weigh in on their policies
and ADA requirements.
Coaching
Requirements:
Some concepts under discussion in this thread include offering coaching incentives, employing staff at all games, background
screening requirements and more.
Advice for Young Professionals: Members in this
discussion help answer the question, " Where can a young professional find experience to land
a job? "
Department Foundations:
Your colleagues discuss how
their foundations are established,
structured and what they have
accomplished. Resources, information and contacts are shared
to help make your foundation a
success.
Need help accessing NRPA
Connect? Contact us by email at
customerservice@nrpa.org or by
phone at 800.626.6772.

22 Parks & Recreation

n Two years ago, NRPA joined First
Lady Michelle Obama and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to
announce a new partnership to support children's health. Park and recreation agencies are the health and
wellness leaders in our communities;
that's why we created Commit to
Health - a campaign that supports
the implementation and evaluation
of Healthy Eating, Physical Activity
(HEPA) standards in park and recreation sites across the country. Today,
the Alliance is supporting 929 park
and recreation sites across the country to achieve the HEPA standards,
positively impacting the health outcomes for more than 100,000 kids.
We encourage you to join agencies
across the country and take the next
step to Commit to Health (www.
nrpa.org/committohealth) with the
Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

well as sidewalks and paths, community centers and children's clubs in
all 50 states. Among their findings:
Adding parks to a neighborhood may
reduce the probability of being overweight or obese by about 3 percentage
points for boys and by 5-6 percentage
point for girls.

n In recent months, two surveys have
been published that contain information of interest for park and recreation
professionals: The 2015 Menino Survey
of Mayors (www.usmayors.org/meninosurvey/2015/2015survey-finalreport.pdf), conducted by the Boston
University Initiative on Cities, and Do
Neighborhood Parks and Playgrounds Reduce Childhood Obesity? (bit.ly/1mYb0NB) by Ball State University. NRPA
President and CEO, Barbara Tulipane, CAE, highlights some findings
from the Menino survey that pertain
to parks and recreation in this month's
Perspectives column (see page 6). Professors Maoyong Fan from Ball State
University and Yanhong Jin from
Rutgers University analyzed the 2007
National Survey of Children's Health,
which collected information on neighborhood parks and playgrounds, as

n The city of Los Angeles Parks and
Recreation Department now has 28
parks with smart water meters installed, giving the city the ability to
monitor water use and locate leaks in
real-time. Before the installation of
the meters, the department used utility bills to monitors water use at the
park. With the meters, city officials
will automatically be alerted of leaks
and can monitor data, on a cloud
server, that is being collected every
15 minutes. Last year, the department reported a 26 percent decrease
in water use, which is said to equal
the amount of water used by 8,000
city households.

| M A R C H 2 0 1 6 | W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G

n The city of Dallas recently adopted
a new Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Plan and its first-ever Recreation Master Plan, both developed in
partnership with Philadelphia-based
interdisciplinary design firm Wallace
Roberts and Todd (WRT). Although
the city has added 570 acres of parkland since 2002, it has struggled to create parkland quickly enough to ensure
access for all of its residents. The new
plans call for an integrated, sustainable
parks system that looks at present and
future needs of the city's residents.

For more news from around the
industry, visit www.parksandrecreation.org/2016/March/Notable-News.

March 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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