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The agency explores diversity, equity and inclusion in its parks and park spaces

With 214 parks and more than 11,000 acres of green space, Indianapolis Parks and Recreation — also called Indy Parks — is known for creating places and experiences that inspire. We also hope that people know and appreciate our parks and park services as equitable, inclusive and welcoming spaces.

In 2021, Indy Parks reaffirmed its commitment to welcoming all children, adults, and their families and friends by reflecting on and re-evaluating all programs, services and amenities to ensure inclusion and accessibility.

As we celebrated our parks as treasured spaces for all to enjoy, we wanted to be thoughtful and intentional about equipping and supporting our team with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) resources while building a foundation for staff to learn, share, lead and grow. We created this engaging foundation through our staff-led DEI Committee.

Beginning Our DEI Journey

Our deputy director of operations and programs, Kimberly Campbell, and chief strategy officer, Kavita Mahoney, volunteered to co-chair the committee with the initial goal of researching and identifying resources for education and training, facilitating ongoing discussions with staff, and assisting with community focus groups and active listening sessions.

To get started, the co-chairs scheduled regular one-on-one sessions to share their own experiences personally and professionally as women of color. When asked why she wanted to be part of the park department’s DEI efforts, Mahoney acknowledged she was beginning to integrate racial equity work into her arts and culture goals in a previous Indy Parks position, and she wanted to expand some of these practices throughout the organization. It was important, she said, to view her workplace as inclusive and equitable, both internally and externally.

Campbell and Mahoney also looked at existing DEI resources from other park and government agencies whose cities were similar in size to Indianapolis, and they reviewed racial equity plans from museums, arts organizations and cultural institutions. This research led to the review of best practices, identification of training resources, and a better understanding of how other cities and agencies are addressing racial equity and DEI initiatives.

Through this initial review, it became clear that Indy Parks needed a guiding statement, something to support its current vision and mission, yet the statement should clearly state why DEI matters to the park department, its staff and the people it serves. Our racial equity statement was a guiding platform for our DEI work, goals, communication and other next steps. It purposely positioned Indy Parks as a leader in making Indianapolis a vibrant and healthy place to live to better reflect the multicultural community we serve. The racial equity statement is proudly featured in all of our park family centers, nature and recreation centers, and facilities.

Training and Engagement

Internally, Indy Parks leadership and senior managers participated in equity training alongside the introduction of DEI efforts to the larger parks team, which established a common language and helped staff become comfortable conversation starters.

During this period, an internal assessment was conducted with all park staff to assess where we were in relation to our familiarity, experience and understanding of DEI issues. Indy Parks enlisted the help of history experts to present and discuss Indianapolis and park history, including racism and park neighbors not feeling welcomed in certain parks due to the park’s history.

Additionally, our team continued to rally around staff engagement with regular DEI Committee meetings, staff conference sessions on DEI efforts, and the creation of key DEI goals to measure progress and challenges.

Staff engagement led way to building skills in racial equity and applying a racial equity lens to policies, programs, services and community engagement. We also wanted to make sure our staff were representative of our community and took steps to better understand our staffing makeup regarding gender identity, race and other demographic components.

Assessments and Analysis

Our performance assessment of self-care skills (PASS) action assessment consisted of performing several sessions of active listening; examining key aspects of our operations; and conducting a strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of our policies and procedures. During this process, our team shared feedback and scored our performance in strategic leadership, culture and climate, policies and practices, programs and services, engagement and advocacy, and evaluation and accountability.

From increasing transparency to help bridge the communication gap between our leadership and management teams, to being more direct in talking about issues of race, diversity, equity and inclusion, and working to make sure that we are offering programs equally across the communities we serve, the PASS assessment and SWOT analysis helped us home in on accountability for our decisions and the effect on staff and park visitors as we continued to build DEI focus areas and goals.

Developing a Diverse and Equitable Workforce

After several internal evaluations, which included providing spaces for park staff to share their thoughts, provide personal and professional testimonies, to listen, and begin to explore ways to engage more staff and partners in our efforts, we focused on staff engagement, recruiting new talent, equitable pay and more. More specifically, our team:

• Invested in DEI training for all Indy Parks staff, including part-time and seasonal employees, to ensure that our team is equally committed to and understands our department’s DEI goals
• Expanded recruitment efforts while evaluating current staff pay structure through the city’s compensation study and plan, and added DEI language to all newly created job descriptions, job postings and job interview panels
• Allocated $100,000 to create two new outreach positions, which will expand environmental education and arts programming to more Indy Parks facilities; another $80,000 in contract funding was allocated to enhance equal access to programming
• Utilized available tools to evaluate program inventory to ensure all residents have equal access to our offerings
• Increased wages for lifeguards, food program coordinators and day camp counselors to attract more applicants and work toward equitable pay
• Continued to review and update fees and charges for admissions and programs at all of our parks
• Increased funding for and promotion of scholarship opportunities to subsidize costs and make camps and pools more accessible

Taking a Holistic Approach

While we work to make impactful DEI change and contributions within Indy Parks, the City of Indianapolis’ Racial Equity Core Team is spearheading an extensive DEI effort for city employees to streamline reviews of best practices, identify resources to continue training, and understand how other cities and agencies are addressing racial equity and DEI initiatives.

As other park departments and agencies begin their own DEI
journey, we encourage them to:

• Avoid undervaluing the input of staff at all levels of your organization, especially those who work regularly with customers
• Provide transparency and communication within the organization and to external stakeholders
• Be intentional about leading conversations, deep listening and separating managers from leadership
• Come to terms with and learn from the past, including any racism that occurred in your parks or racist policies that have been upheld
• Recognize that DEI work is a continuous journey — set goals, re-evaluate and adapt along the way

Looking Ahead

Our DEI journey had its challenges, spanning from finding resources to dedicating time for staff input and space for honest discussions, knowing that staff had varying experiences with racial equity and DEI work. In some cases, our active listening sessions were rooted in building trust, even in instances where someone did not think DEI efforts affected them.

Looking ahead, our team is committed to ongoing training in implicit bias, anti-racism and inclusion practices. Many full-time staff have participated in implicit bias training, and to date, more than 40 of our team members have completed Child Advocate’s Interrupting Racism for Children workshops, with plans to send more in the future. Other trainings and workshops include the equality-focused TEDxCollegePark Conference and a number of workshops through NRPA and City Parks Alliance. Most recently, park staff joined colleagues for a social equity series on bias and perception hosted by the Indiana Park and Recreation Association. Our team also has participated in a variety of trainings focused on adaptive and inclusive programming.

Our training efforts extend to engagement and advocacy, especially as they relate to our community partners, stakeholders and advisory groups, to closely align our goals surrounding DEI.

Throughout this process, our team understood that we were on a DEI journey without a final destination. DEI will always be an important facet of our organization and must be integrated into everything we do. As a team and as a park department, we will continue to re-evaluate our offerings and programs, adapt to our evolving communities’ needs, and put in place practices to address historical inequities and structures in our parks and green spaces.

Kimberly Campbell is Deputy Director of Operations and Programs of Indy Parks. Kavita Mahoney is Chief Strategy Officer Indy Parks. Ronnetta Spalding is Chief Communications Officer of Indy Parks.