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Three decades of helping agencies improve their operational best practices
Based on historical NRPA records, it all started with a vision a few agencies had in the 1980s for the park and recreation field to get organized and abide by a specific set of standards. To achieve this, agencies should be evaluated on those standards for accreditation.
Plans for the accreditation program began to solidify during a 1989 meeting of professionals at Michigan State University, where the first draft of the CAPRA National Accreditation Standards was created. This was followed by a meeting with the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration and NRPA, where a report was presented outlining objectives, a schedule and a chapter outline for the standards. A proposal on how to organize and administer the national accreditation program also was shared, leading to the establishment of the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies (CAPRA) in 1993.
The CAPRA program officially launched in 1994 with its first set of bylaws and a total of six pilot agencies beta testing the original 153 standards and the process. The participating agencies included: Asheville Parks and Recreation, North Carolina; East Baton Rouge Recreation and Park Commission, Louisiana; Monmouth County Park System, New Jersey; Plano Parks and Recreation Department, Texas; Roseville Parks and Recreation, Minnesota; and Scottsdale Parks and Recreation, Arizona. All agencies took detailed notes of their experience during the year in hopes that future agencies would be successful.
The CAPRA program has grown and advanced during the past 30 years, hitting several milestones along the way: the military-specific standards were created in 1998; the first edition of the Management of Park and Recreation Agencies was published in 1999; the program grew to 50 accredited agencies in 2005; the CAPRA operating code replaced the original bylaws in 2009; and CAPRA grew to 100 accredited agencies in 2011.
CAPRA Now
In its 30th year, CAPRA grew once again at the 2024 NRPA Annual Conference in Atlanta, exceeding 212 accredited agencies with 11 new agencies joining the ranks after 2024 hearings. Reflecting on this milestone, Chris Bass, CPRP, chair of the CAPRA Commission, shares, “Celebrating 30 years of CAPRA is more than recognizing time passed; it is about honoring the collective dedication to continuous improvement and operational excellence in parks and recreation. From humble beginnings to a network of over 200 accredited agencies, CAPRA has been instrumental in setting the benchmark for quality service and community impact. And amidst all the changes, we’ve not only adapted but have consistently led the way, elevating standards and advancing the field.”
The CAPRA program is participating in a multiyear stretch of transitional changes as it evolves within an increasingly online world. One of the major changes was shifting from paper applications and paper document review to a full electronic application system and review process in 2019. The program’s advancement was most evident during 2020 when the program pivoted from in-person site visits to 100 percent virtual site visits during the coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic. The visits increased from three in-person days to five virtual days, with all document reviews conducted electronically in advance of the visit and during the visit. By the end of 2020, CAPRA had successfully conducted a total of 37 virtual visits and hearings, including 11 for newly-accredited agencies. This change led the way for the more equitable process in existence today, in which all newly-accrediting agencies must have an in-person visit while reaccrediting agencies have a choice.
CAPRA also added to its governance structure by establishing a set of commission sub-committees for standards, training and procedures, and by implementing pilot governance committees to engage non-commissioner volunteers in 2021. Those pilot committees will be integrated fully into CAPRA operations as committees with individual governance structures guiding work on CAPRA standards, training offerings and volunteer engagement in January 2025.
Training options for CAPRA have increased throughout the years. Initially, agencies and volunteers received the necessary training by participating in a four-hour in-person session at the NRPA Annual Conference or by bringing one of CAPRA’s instructors to their agency for a private in-person training. To continue providing training opportunities during the travel restrictions created by the pandemic, CAPRA introduced online training options. Building on the four-hour in-person agency and volunteer training offered at the conference, the CAPRA Commission introduced a comprehensive nine-hour set of recorded on-demand online trainings in November 2021, titled Prepare for CAPRA Accreditation. This allowed for equitable training opportunities for those who could not travel to the NRPA Annual Conference. Access to this series is provided free to all CAPRA volunteers to prepare them for first-time or repeat assignments. In addition to these, the CAPRA pilot training committee offers a number of visit season-specific trainings each year for both agencies and volunteers.
While the four-hour in-person training at the conference ended at the 2019 NRPA Annual Conference in Baltimore, the conference schedule has included an increasing number of CAPRA-specific sessions each year since then. Two CAPRA-specific sessions were offered in 2019 and a total of seven were offered at the 2024 NRPA Annual Conference in Atlanta. Although the CAPRA foundational training series is only available online, these specialized in-person offerings continue to diversify the ways agencies and volunteers can learn about CAPRA.
CAPRA’s evaluation processes also have undergone changes since CAPRA’s start. In the beginning, CAPRA Commission members were responsible for all components of the process, including report review, team recruitment and final decision of accreditation. That shifted in the 2020 review year when experienced CAPRA volunteers began supporting the CAPRA Commission members in initial review of reports and reestablishing CAPRA Commissioners as mentors for new and reaccrediting agencies. In 2021, process procedures were taken a step further when CAPRA Commission members moved into advisory roles in the review process. The entire review — from receipt of the self-assessment report through the visit and creation of the final review report — was now the responsibility of the three-person CAPRA Review Team. According to Bass, “In recent years, significant enhancements to CAPRA governance, training and evaluation processes have modernized the program, ensuring that it remains a vital tool for agencies to achieve and maintain excellence. This milestone represents not just what we’ve accomplished, but [also] the foundation we’ve built for the future of our field.”
CAPRA’s Future
In addition to the pilot committees, the CAPRA Commission also created the Reimagination Task Force (RTF) in fall 2021. Its purpose was to reimagine the CAPRA National Accreditation Standards and related processes for the future. This initiative was brought to the CAPRA Commission by Cory Styron, CPRP, who was commission chair at that time, and the work was led by commission member Janet Bartnik, CPRE. According to Styron, “[The Commission] had this vision of modifying the standards to the best practices that would fit multiple types and sizes of agencies, and that if they participated [they] would be a better agency with every cycle of accreditation. Many of the original standards were more of a check box. [We] felt it was important in our work that all standards should be relevant and embodied in the culture of the agency. Once embodied in the culture it is a way of operating an agency and just not another task or project to complete.”
The goals of this activity were to clarify and streamline the standards, removing any ambiguity and redundancies; identify best practices for agencies of all sizes; include values of diversity, inclusion, equity, conservation, sustainability and improvement as interwoven themes; and establish improvement tracking for every review cycle. “The impetus for the reimagination of CAPRA standards was rooted in the idea that high-performing accredited agencies should be living and breathing accreditation, with continuous cycles of evidence-based decision making,” according to Bartnik. “Understanding that all agencies are built differently, we wanted to make the standards more flexible and based on the agency’s role in the community, therefore, making accreditation more attainable for a wider array of agency sizes and types.”
The RTF completed its first draft of these new standards in fall 2022, and they were shared with NRPA staff and select CAPRA volunteers for internal review in January 2023. After revisions were made based on feedback from the internal review, the new standards were shared with the entire CAPRA community as part of an external review in April 2023. In September 2023, the CAPRA Commission finalized the beta test version of these new standards, bringing the total number down to 68 from the 154 included in the 2019 version.
The CAPRA Commission considered a list of active CAPRA agencies with 2025 or 2026 review dates when identifying a small number of agencies from that group to beta test this new set of standards. This group includes a geographically diverse group of agencies of varying sizes and started work preparing for a 2025 evaluation with the new standards. The CAPRA Commission will publish a final version of the new standards at the 2025 NRPA Annual Conference once the beta test year has ended. Just like the first group of six agencies that beta tested the original CAPRA standards in 1994, this group’s experiences will inform how the new standards and related processes are communicated to the entire CAPRA community to prepare for CAPRA’s next 30 years.
Jennifer Schleining is CAPRA Accreditation Senior Manager at NRPA.