City of Kent
Comprehensive Recreation Program Plan
| Location: | Completed: | Project Type: | Partners: |
| Kent, Washington | 2020 | City-Wide, Comprehensive Recreation Program Plan | ETC Institute |
Kent Parks, Recreation & Community Services retained PROS Consulting in 2019 to develop the Department’s first Comprehensive Recreation Program Plan. Kent PRCS has aspirations to achieve CAPRA Accreditation and therefore, the development of a dedicated program plan is a necessity. In addition to the expressed CAPRA-related need, Kent PRCS experienced severe budget cuts for several years preceding the plan’s development. The Comprehensive Recreation Program Plan put recreation in the forefront and used the planning process to establish and articulate Kent PRCS’s value to the community in order to provide realistic action items for an 8-year period given the existing fiscal realities.
The public engagement process, highlighted by a statistically-valid community survey, identified a couple key findings (among others) to help position Kent PRCS within the community such as the fact that 77% of respondents believed it is equally or more important to fund parks, trails, and recreation facilities compared to other City services. Additionally, it was found that the top three community issues respondents believed Kent PRCS addresses included enhancing healthy aging, making living in Kent fun, and enhancing community connection to each other.
Kent PRCS levered the Comprehensive Recreation Program Plan to spur community change, as the project planning process changed the narrative from one of loss to one of opportunity. The final Comprehensive Recreation Program Plan laid the foundation for the Kent PRCS programs and services delivery model such as (among others) Key Performance Indicator (KPI) identification and integration, how “unmet need” is identified and resolved, outreach to underserved populations and how to remove barriers, and strategic directions and action items outlined by fiscal year.
