Accreditation excellence: Las Vegas Department of Leisure Services

Parks & Recreation, Oct, 2005 by Ellen Anderson, Cindy Moyes, Linda Ryan

This is the second of a quarterly series spotlighting stories of achievement from accredited agencies. These spotlights will show the importance accreditation is making in many communities. For information on accreditation, contact Tara Fitzpatrick at (703) 858-2147 or tfitzpatrick@nrpa.org.

In December 2001, the Las Vegas, Department of Leisure Services management team began to seriously consider strategies for attaining accreditation through the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies (CAPRA). At the time, no one really understood what it would mean to become accredited until we accepted the challenge of preparing for the accreditation process.

One of the surprise outcomes of the accreditation process was the overwhelming support extended to our department by the other city departments. Everyone from the departments of human resources, finance, planning, field operations, public works, detention and enforcement, city manager's office and council embraced our adventure and gave us their expertise and assistance to ensure that our department had the resources to meet all the accreditation standards.

Once the work had been completed for each of the sections, a challenge emerged that turned into an opportunity. The accreditation committee was concerned about spreading the accreditation news to more than 500 full and part-time employees at various sites throughout the department. This challenge was met with creativity and fun, and a solution was developed in the form of an information campaign. The campaign theme, "We're gonna make the grade ... A ccreditation" was selected and used with the marketing materials created for the accreditation project.

The marketing campaign took on a life of its own with accreditation information being disseminated to staff through trivia questions on e-mail and the "fun committee" team members who visited sites. In addition, each site was asked to design an accreditation bulletin board. When the sites were visited, a report card was completed. The report card included interviews with staff relating to questions on the following areas:

* Quality of Service

* Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Organization

* Accountability

* Service Delivery

* Benchmarking

* Teamwork and Unification

* Collaboration, Partnerships and Communication

* Appearance and Commitment

* Purpose and Direction

* Accreditation Process and Benefits

* Policies and Procedures

* Vision, Mission and Department Goals

* Service Benefits

* Creativity and Variety of Programs

* Evaluation

* Credibility and Respectability

* Ethics

Once the visit was completed by members of the "fun committee," a goodie bag was given to each site that included their report card to let them know if there were any areas of improvement recommended. The enthusiasm for the accreditation process and the CAPRA visit began to swell as the date of the evaluation visit approached.

In March 2003, the CAPRA team visited the Las Vegas Department of Leisure Services and we were ready. The committee team leaders had researched and prepared evidence that all the required standards had been met. In addition, committee had helped staff in the field become aware of the importance of accreditation as well as making it a fun process with rewards. The idea that everyone in the field was an important part of the accreditation process became evident. This endeavor could not have been accomplished without the professionalism and a commitment from each and every member of our department who enthusiastically embraced this opportunity.

The Las Vegas Department of Leisure Services proudly became accredited in October 2003--we made the grade!