April 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 16

W E A R E P A R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N

North Port's CAPRA Accreditation Journey
What we've learned from the experience
By Tricia Wisner

he decision to undertake the Commission for Accreditation of
Park and Recreation Agencies (CAPRA) accreditation process
is not a light one. Employees who have been a part of the team
here at the city of North Port, Florida, recalled a previous attempt that ended with just the beginning of the framework completed. This
attempt had to be different.
Prior to embarking on the journey
to accreditation, we asked the accredited agencies around us a number of
questions, such as " Why did you
take on accreditation? " " How did
you tackle it? " " What did your organization learn from the process? "
- and above all, " Was it worth the
work it takes to gain accreditation? "

Why Accreditation?

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF CITY OF NORTH PORT

Since its inception, North Port Parks
and Recreation had been a division in
a broader department within the city's
government. However, with growth

in our region booming, the city's population surpassed 70,000 residents -
with more than 10,000 under the age
of 18. What's more, current projects,
like the construction of a new aquatic
center, spurred increases to our scope
of work. The City Commission realized the need to meet the growing
demand and supported the transition
of our division into a new parks and
recreation department.
As proposed budgeting and organizational charts for the new
department were still under consideration by city administration

Parks & Recreation

and the city commission, a team of
managers and supervisors gathered
to craft the department's vision and
mission statements. The team realized that the new department designation came with a great deal of
change, and that change was a great
opportunity to set standards and
guidelines for our new department.
The team carefully worded the department's vision statement, which
made it clear that the department's
first major task was to become a recognized leader; and the CAPRA accreditation process was the path to
achieve this designation.

Our Process

Each member of the team had
varying levels of familiarity with
the accreditation process and the
management team knew that this
time, the efforts had to have full
staff support, clear goals and deadlines to achieve the long-reaching
change needed to meet the first task
of our new department's vision.
Weekly meeting invitations for the
next year went out to all park and
recreation managers, supervisors
and program coordinators, inviting
them to the " CAPRA Book Club. "
At the first meeting, all attendees
received a gleaming binder with a
copy of the 2014 CAPRA Standards,
5th edition, an overview of the accreditation process and examples of
other agencies' self-assessments.
Director Sandy Pfundheller and Assistant Director Tricia Wisner accept the
accreditation award for the City of North
Port Parks and Recreation at the 2019
NRPA Annual Conference in Baltimore.

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April 2020 - Parks & Recreation

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