November 2009 - Parks & Recreation - 57

ACHIEVE Healthy Communities Initiative

R P A was selected
along with three other National
Organizations by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to
establish a national program to promote
healthy communities and prevent chronic diseases. The Action Communities for
Health, Innovation and EnVironmental
ChangE (ACHIEVE) initiative seeks to
build on the experiences of community
based chronic disease prevention programs
to empower local communities with
funding, tools and strategies to implement and sustain policy, systems and environmental changes
in chronic disease prevention and
health promotion.
NRPA was able to fund 10 public park and recreation agencies in
2009 to affect significant change in
their communities by working with
local government organizations to
implement a coordinated chronic
disease prevention and health and
wellness program. The 2009 NRPA
ACHIEVE agencies are:
■■ Montgomery County Parks and
Recreation Department, AL
■■ La Mirada Community Services, CA
■■ North Miami Parks and
Recreation Department, FL
■■ Davenport Parks and Recreation, IA
■■ Chicago Park District, IL
■■ City of O'Fallon, Parks
and Recreation, MO
■■ Greenville County
Recreation District, SC
■■ Pierre Parks and Recreation, SD
■■ Longview Parks and Recreation
Department, WA
■■ Lynnwood Parks, Recreation
and Cultural Arts, WA
The purpose of ACHIEVE is to bring
together local leaders and stakeholders to
build healthier communities by promoting
policy, systems, and environmental change
strategies that focus on physical activity,
nutrition, tobacco cessation, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Funded
park and recreation agencies were notified

of their status in March 2009 and immediately began forming their Community
Health Action Response Teams (CHARTs)
beginning with the identification of Coaches. The Coaches represent the funded park
and recreation agency and an outside organization/local government entity.
It is the responsibility of the Coaches to
identify key community stakeholders whose
membership on the CHART would lead to
successful development and implementa-

tion of the policy, systems and environmental change strategies. CHART members will
help ensure ACHIEVE does not become
a series of projects that will come and go,
and will bring their organization's assets,
expertise and strengths to collectively improve the health and wellbeing of the community. Jennifer Anderson, a Co-Coach for
Montgomery, Alabama, ACHIEVE advises, " Your CHART needs teeth. If all your
CHART has is muscles then your initiatives
will starve because they have no teeth. It is
important to have the right combination of
advocates and policy makers to ensure that
your initiatives are successful. "
The Coaches and CHART members
attended Action Institutes in July 2009 in
order to gain ideas about planning and implementing a community change process
that gets results and is sustained. These
learning institutes, held in Alexandria,
Virginia, and Denver, Colorado, included presentations from national organization representatives and local community

w w w. NRPA .ORG

members from around the U.S. The sessions were designed to provide practical
examples of solutions in schools, worksites,
health care settings, and the community to
create healthier populations. Pamela Passow, Community Services Manager for La
Mirada Community Services stated, " The
La Mirada, California CHART, became
more unified at the Action Institute. [The
sessions and information] helped us learn
how to work together to achieve our goal of
making our community a healthier
place to live, work and attend school. "
Coaches and CHART members
have been completing community
assessments using a number of different strategies. By doing a windshield tour of their community, they
were able to focus in on some of the
glaring environmental changes that
are needed to make the areas more
pedestrian and bicycle friendly for all
ages and abilities. These and other
evaluation tools have provided the
communities with their priority areas with which they developed their
Community Action Plans (CAPs). Jackie
Payne, ACHIEVE Wellness Program Specialist for Chicago Park District noted, " The
community assessment allowed my group
to objectively look at our community and
see a more complete view of our neighborhood without missing out on things that we
were blinded too. " The 2009 NRPA funded
ACHIEVE communities will implement
their plans over the next two years.
2010 ACHIEVE Communities
NRPA will be able to fund an additional 10
public park and recreation agencies in 2010
as an ongoing partner in the ACHIEVE initiative. In support of the 2010 application,
NRPA will be hosting an education session
at the 2009 Annual NRPA Congress and
Exposition in Salt Lake City, Utah. Additionally, resources and the 2010 application will
be updated on the NRPA webpage, www.
nrpa.org/achieve.
The application for the 2010 funding will
become available in November 2009. R

November 2009

Parks & Recreation 55

November 2009 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2009 - Parks & Recreation