Special Recreation Associations
PROS and CONS

by Kevin T. Kendrigan

INTRODUCTION

The concept of a special recreation cooperative developed as park districts recognized that they were not meeting the leisure needs of their special populations, including individuals with physical and mental disabilities. Committed to the idea that individuals have the need and right to make productive and enjoyable use of their leisure time within their own communities, many districts did try to offer summer camps and year-round special events for their handicapped residents. However, program scope was limited, and they were meeting the need of only a fraction of those requiring services.

Many park districts attempted to expand their services to special populations through these efforts; however, they encountered three major barriers that individually could not be overcome.

1. Financial restrictions on recreation budgets requiring a specific enrollment to provide a break-even program.

2. The low incidence of identified special populations in a given community, resulting in low attendance at scheduled programs specifically designed for their ability level. The park districts were forced to place individuals with extreme differences in ability level into the same activity. This situation often causes the lower level functioning individual to feel inadequate and unsuccessful, and the higher level handicapped person to feel unmotivated.

3. The inability of the districts to employ adequately trained personnel to design programs to meet the specific needs of the participants, and to offer leisure counseling services for those individuals and families involved in programs.

As the need for individualized programs became apparent, park districts began to look towards cooperative services, in order to consolidate resources and populations, and to hire a core staff of professionals trained in therapeutic recreation. Through the pooling of resources and populations, the park districts hoped to offer their special populations a program of recreational activities equal in diversity, frequency, and quality to those available to non-disabled residents, and geared to meet the individual need of each participant.

CURRENT STATUS

From the initial development of the concept of special recreational associations in March of 1967 until the present time, there has been a rapid growth in the development and acceptance of the concept. Today the greater metropolitan Chicagoland area has developed a network of special recreation associations that are providing leisure services to those citizens requiring special needs as an extension of their local park district on a regular basis. There are literally thousands of individuals participating on a daily basis in leisure time services. The growth in this area has been very dramatic over the past ten year period. With the development of a new concept and with the rapid growth special recreation associations have experienced, there are obviously problem areas that have developed. Those individuals interested in special recreation associations should be aware of the problem areas as well as the potential that the concept offers.

PROBLEM AREAS

Regional Programming Versus Local Programming

The local park district system in Illinois has developed into a viable service system due to local involvement in the determination of policy and the convenience factor of facilities and programs being available on a neighborhood basis. By definition, the cooperative programming for the handicapped in many cases will become a regional program. The geographical requirements to allow for successful participation in the low incidence areas (Trainable Mentally Handicapped, Visually Impaired, Hearing Impaired, Physically Handicapped, and Emotionally Disturbed) will eliminate the convenience factor of a local park and recreation system. The regional concept will require additional efforts to develop an identity factor for the Association and will require a more substantial effort in the dissemination of public information. Working in a larger geographical area will obviously create problems within the area of transportation, both for participants and travel for staff. The regional program will require staff to spend additional time and effort in the field to become familiar with the area and travel time from one program location to a second. In many cases the program offerings will have to be duplicated throughout the region in order to minimize the inconvenience to the participant. The diversification of program locations will assist in services to the individual participant but the realization that the Association is a regional program will prohibit the programs from developing the same convenience factor that a local park district can develop.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 16 November/December, 1978

Communication

The park district system in the State of Illinois has allowed for local involvement as the corner stone to its success. This involvement is expressed by the election of local citizens to represent the interests of the community in determination of policy for the local park district. The commissioners of each of the Member Districts within the Association ultimately represent the authority for the determination of local policy. When considering the special recreation association one must realize that the Board differs in several respects. The Board is an appointed Board, not an elected Board. In very few cases are the service populations (mentally and physically handicapped individuals) in fact represented. This system can create communication problems regarding the individuals to be served. The Board of the special recreation association relies heavily on staff input for the direction of the association and cannot identify as closely with the needs of the special populations as the commissioners representing a segment of the local population can identify with the needs of the community.

A second area of communication that one should be aware of is communication back to the elected Board of Commissioners. A cooperative program, again being a regional concept, can ultimately be responsible to as many as 75 to 100 elected officials. Additional efforts in the area of communication through monthly newsletters, six month reports, annual reports, will have to be initiated in an effort to communicate back to the member districts the activities and development of the special recreation association.

Inter-governmental Cooperation

Another area to be aware of is with respect to the nature of the cooperative being an experiment in inter-governmental cooperation. Although each Member District's ultimate objective will be to develop the optimum leisure services within their community, there can be a variety of individual policies and procedures utilized by each of the districts. The association as an entity must be sensitive to the variances in local policies and procedures throughout the region. There will be times when compromise will be required to develop policies and procedures for the association that are acceptable to each of the Member Districts. The association must never lose sight of its role as an extension of the local park district. This relationship will require a constant effort on the part of the Association to become sensitive to local conditions that may exist within each of the Member Districts.

CONCLUSION

The association concept allows for programming for the special populations in the community and will allow emphasizing recreation as a leisure service to special populations. The staffing plan require will need to utilize some techniques and skills developed through the treatment model and residential settings but will be emphasizing recreation as a service in the local communities. The basic reason for the formation of a special recreation association is the obligation we, as public agencies, have to serve all people in the community. Due to staffing problems, the cost of programming and the representation of a limited number of given special populations in local areas, special populations may not be currently served in many districts. Cooperative associations offer a vehicle which will provide recreation and leisure services to this portion of the population. Being aware of the potential problem areas that exist due to the differences between the regional and local programming will allow local communities to develop cooperative programs being cognitive of the differences that do exist. The success in local programming for special populations to date far outweighs the problem areas that local communities need to be aware of in planning for cooperative programming. With community support, permanent funding can be established which will allow the creation and continued operation of a program to serve all the people of the community; allow the program to function independently without subtracting from other recreation budgets; and allow Illinois to demonstrate its leadership in the delivery of leisure services.

(Editors note: Portions of this article were reprinted from Guidelines for the Formation and Development of Special Recreation Cooperatives in the State of Illinois by Stephen R. Keay, Kevin T. Kendrigan, Lawrence S. Reiner and Barbara Sternfeld.)

Illinois Parks and Recreation 17 November/December, 1978