June 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 71

CAPRA Updates
By Danielle Price

uring the past 18 months, a subcommittee of the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies (CAPRA) has been reviewing and revising the 2009 CAPRA Standards to ensure the standards are
up to date and relevant to park and recreation agencies. After many rounds of
revisions and various forms of public input, the new 2014 CAPRA Standards, 5th
Edition, were approved by the full Commission March 31. The timeframe for
implementation of the new 2014 CAPRA Standards is as follows:
Nonmilitary agencies with visits in
2015 who opt to schedule their visit
in the January-March timeframe will
have the option of using either the
2009 Standards or the 2014 Standards.
Nonmilitary agencies with visits in
2015 who opt to schedule their visit
in the May-July timeframe will be
required to use the 2014 Standards.
Military agencies with visits in
2015 will be held to the 2010
CAPRA DoD Standards.
The revisions for the CAPRA DoD
Standards are currently taking
place, with the intention of full implementation in 2016 (applicable
for military agencies only).
Some of the changes seen in the
new edition of the standards are:
Merged commentary: To help
streamline the document and avoid
confusion, commentary for each
standard was blended into the standards language or deleted.
Preamble added for each chapter:
At the beginning of each chapter, a
few introductory paragraphs were
added to help explain the intent of
the chapter and what the standards
were trying to accomplish.
References to " Management of
Parks and Recreation Agencies, 3rd
Edition " : This textbook is a great
management tool and has been
used as a reference in many accred-

itation presentations. Chapter and
page references have been included
to provide an easy source of subject matter information.
PRORAGIS™: This is an important tool developed to create a national recreation and parks database and is the source for critical
data designed to assist park and
recreation professionals in the effective management and planning
of their resources and facilities.

The new 2014 CAPRA
Standards, 5th Edition,
were approved by the full
Commission March 31.
Support for the NRPA Strategic
Plan: The recently adopted NRPA
Strategic Plan was developed to include three key pillars to increase
the impact and awareness of parks
and recreation in conservation,
health and wellness, and social
equity. Standards already exist for
conservation and social equity,
however, there were no standards
to support health and wellness. A
new standard for health and well-

ness was added in Chapter 6 as
well as revision to Standard 6.4 to
include more language on healthy
eating and physical activity.
Evidence of Compliance (EOC)
submission: Under the new standards, agencies are required to
submit all of their electronic EOC
with their self-assessment at least 10
weeks prior to the scheduled visit.
In the coming months, the Commission will provide updated training through recorded webinars in our
Online Learning Center, as well as
offering live chats.
A special thank you goes out to the
Commission subcommittee members
who spent countless hours working
on these standards: Dirk Richwine
(Henderson, Nevada), John Henderson (Maryland-National Capital
Park and Planning Commission,
Maryland), Sara Hensley (Austin,
Texas), Matt Enoch (Fort Riley, Kansas), Lisa Pesavento (Chicago, Illinois) and Laura Wetherald (Howard
County, Maryland).
Danielle Price is NRPA's Education and
Accreditation Manager (dprice@nrpa.org).

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