April 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 41

Certified Park & Recreation Professional

People taking
the class
typically
say they will
never look at
a playground
the same
way again. "

While formal certification, as we know it today dates only to the late
1990s, the profession has long gravitated toward some form of recognition of professional competency. In the 1950s when certification began, the emphasis was on registration. As Janice Geden, a
recently retired staff member of the Colorado Parks & Recreation
in Boulder, Colorado, explains it, " Any certification program always
had the elements of the three Es: education, experience, and examination. At that time, lacking an exam, they looked to education and
experience. "
Since its beginnings in the 1990s, the CPRP program has seen no
changes, though there was concern grew over its slow growth. That
changed with NRPA's 2005/06 strategic plan, which sought to assess
the value and relevancy of the existing program but also its management and future direction. In 2006, the National Certification Board
(NCB) and NRPA completed, with the assistance of an outside consultant, a comprehensive assessment of these areas. The assessment
found overall satisfaction with the concept of certification, but it also
turned up the need to centralize the management of the national program under NRPA and to develop mastery level certifications. Those
are tasks that should be complete in 2010.
Geden, an early proponent of certification, worked to bring along
others in the field. " As a director, " she says, " it was an important part
of my job to mentor staff on the importance of certification by setting
the example to become certified. "

Certified Playground Safety Inspector
As for the origins of the Certified Playground Safety Inspector certification, Tom Kalousek, who is in his third term as chairman of the
National Playground Safety Institute, an official NPRA body, dates the
focus on playground safety to 1981 with the publication of two handbooks on the issue. In 1988, an organization called the American Society of Testing and Materials international was formed to develop
written standards for playground safety, Kalousek explains. That same
year ASTM was petitioned by the federal Consumer Product Safety
Commission to create a set of safety standards. It took until 1993 for
those standards to be set. But with that achievement, NPRA decided
that a formal training program was in order and the CPSI course was
launched in 1993.

Aquatic Facility Operator
NRPA's Aquatic Facility Operator (AFO) program dates to 1989 when the
National Aquatic Section of NRPA began creation of a training program for
pool operators. The program, designed for community swimming pools,
had to be free of product bias and needed to be given by professionals
who are thoroughly trained and continually evaluated. Not only were participants trained in daily pool operations but also risk management, staffing, budgeting and purchasing. With that criteria in place, NRPA's National
Certification Board voted in 1992 to approve the association's Aquatic Facility Operator training and exam.
The AFO training and certification is specifically designed to
meet the needs of those working in public, semi-public and municipal pool or water park facilities, and is designed to provide training
and information for both supervisory and operations staff.

w w w . NR P A . ORG

APRIL 2010

Parks & Recreation 39

April 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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