This tool uses your smart phone’s GPS or a zip code to locate playgrounds near you and add your community’s playspaces to the map.

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KaBOOM! offers a set of tools (including sample forms) for auditing or conducting an assessment of playspaces in your community, including how to assess the number of playspaces, locations, quality and accessibility.

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This handbook provides advice for how to make and maintain safety at playgrounds.

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KaBOOM! offers best practices and examples of how to increase and improve playspaces.

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This is a tool that provides in-depth data to guide local park improvement efforts in America’s 40 largest cities.

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Joint use is a way to increase opportunities for children and adults to be more physically active. It refers to two or more entities — usually a school and a city or private organization — sharing indoor and outdoor spaces like gymnasiums, athletic fields and playgrounds. The concept is simple: share resources to keep costs down and communities healthy.

The California joint use statewide task force (JUST) includes organizations representing health, civil rights, community collaboratives, planners, local elected and appointed officials, park and recreation officials, school board administrators, academic researchers, and a growing list of groups interested in ensuring that all children have a safe place to play and be active within easy reach. Their website, created by the Prevention Institute and the Berkeley Media Studies Group contains valuable information and resources on joint use agreements.

This paper, by Lydia Morken and Rebecca Baran-Rees of the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, covers how joint use agreements can allow cities and school districts to find practical and programmatic synergies by maximizing use of school buildings, athletic fields, parks, libraries, and other often under-utilized community assets.

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The report “Finding Space to Play” provides information regarding current efforts in the public health community to promote community recreational use of school property to provide safe, affordable and convenient recreational facilities to communities, increase physical activity, and reduce obesity.

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This factsheet provides an overview of joint use agreements.

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This resource shares lessons learned from successful agreements, offers guidelines and templates for joint use agreements.

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These resources include model agreements that can be used as a template for different types of agreements. Templates include:

• Joint Use of District and City Facilities
• Opening Outdoor School Facilities for Use During Non-School Hours
• Opening Indoor and Outdoor School Facilities for Use During Non-School Hours
• Opening School Facilities for Use During Non-School Hours and Authorizing Third Parties to Operate Programs

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Voices for Healthy Kids, a joint initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Heart Association works to help all young people in the U.S. eat healthier foods and be more active. Their shared use toolkit provides tools to make it easy to raise awareness around the need for increased shared use of school facilities. The toolkit also focuses on clarifying liability so that schools are more comfortable with opening their doors to shared use.

Download Unlock the Doors

The National Complete Streets Coalition, a program of Smart Growth America, supports communities as they develop, adopt and implement Complete Streets policies. These laws, resolutions, executive orders, policies and planning and design documents encourage and provide safe access to destinations for everyone, regardless of age, ability, income, ethnicity or how they travel. This report highlights exemplary policy language, and provides leaders at all levels of government with ideas for how to create strong Complete Streets policies. Information about additional resources for local leaders is also included.

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The newly completed Montana Complete Streets Toolkit for Cities, Small Towns, and Tribal Communities provides a resource to engineers, planners, elected officials, and residents who desire safe and efficient facilities for bicycling, walking and transit within their communities. The purpose of this toolkit is to: 1) explain what is meant by a Complete Streets approach to designing and building a transportation network; 2) share the benefits of Complete Streets; 3) identify the various elements that make streets truly “complete” and describe the needed amenities to accommodate users of Montana’s roadways and 4) share innovative ways in which Montana’s cities, small towns and tribal communities are already working to complete their streets.

Complete streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities must be able to safely move along and across a complete street. This fact sheet, which is also available in Spanish, provides talking points and information to use when advocating for healthier street design.

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Costs for pedestrian and bicycle safety infrastructure often vary greatly from city to city and state to state. This document (and associated database) is intended to provide meaningful estimates of infrastructure costs by collecting up-to-date cost information for pedestrian and bicycle treatments from states and cities across the country. Using this information, researchers, engineers, planners, and the general public can better understand the cost of pedestrian and bicycle treatments in their communities and make informed decisions about which infrastructure enhancements are best suited for implementation.

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Transportation systems, development patterns, and community design and planning decisions all can have profound effects on physical activity. Changes to improve active transportation will require many individuals and agencies – transportation engineers, city planners, architects, schools, health professionals, government agencies at all levels, community advocates, citizens, and employers – to rethink the way we plan and develop our communities. This collaborative work can be guided by four strategies and tactics:

Read about the four strategies and tactics identified by the National Physical Activity Plan

KaBOOM! provides 12 case studies and associated best practices in improving playspaces.

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KaBOOM! offers various online training modules on topics such as building a playground, outdoor play, and partnering with parks.

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NRPA is a non-profit focused on advancing parks, recreation, and environmental conservation efforts that enhance the quality of life for all people. They have numerous tools and resources that could be helpful.

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As the health and wellbeing of our children are impacted by the daily environment in which they live, learn, and play, the use of parks and other recreation spaces as a healthful venue is important to consider in a comprehensive view of childhood and family obesity prevention. This article briefly summarizes some of the obesity related benefits of parks across the local, state, and national park systems and highlights specific initiatives as examples of the commitment by park agencies to benefit the public’s health and play a role in obesity and chronic disease prevention.

Since 2009, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) worked with 44 communities across the U.S. to enact strategies focused on improving access to healthy food, increasing opportunities for physical activity and alternative transportation, and decreasing tobacco consumption. This publication collects the best and most successful strategies over the last three years that have proved effective for building healthy communities through parks and recreation.

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The “Park Equity and Access Dialogue Guide” is designed to help local park and recreation agencies play a leadership role in bringing together a diverse group of people and organizations who are interested in or working towards creating healthy, vibrant communities by creating or improving the accessibility of community park and recreational systems for all residents, regardless of physical ability, race, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status or age.

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ChangeLab Solutions recently released this primer to help community leaders and other stakeholders find opportunities to use public land for recreational opportunities. It provides information about public land ownership and describes legal and policy concerns that may be related to establishing partnerships with public entities for physical recreation activities. With this primer, community partners can determine how they might work together to use existing public property for recreation. Access and learn more about this primer.

In March 2014 the American Planning Association and the National Recreation and Parks Association held a roundtable event “The Role of Parks in Shaping Successful Cities.” The purpose of the roundtable was to engage a diverse group of stakeholders to share knowledge and insights about challenges being faced in cities and how these cities are using open space and parks to meet these challenges. This report summarizes findings, best practices, and projects highlighted during the day’s event.

ChangeLab Solutions developed Move This Way: Making Neighborhoods More Walkable and Bikeable to explain how to use one set of tools – zoning and subdivision codes — to make your community more walkable and bikeable. It was designed to assist public health department professionals and advocates in their efforts to revise their local codes, but it may also be useful to other stakeholders routinely involved with updating and revising zoning and subdivision codes, including elected officials, planners, and local advocates.

The sample codes presented in this toolkit are meant to complement and implement other policies that may be needed to improve bicycle and pedestrian conditions in your community, such as comprehensive plans (also known as general plans), bicycle and pedestrian master plans, and complete streets policies.
Download this toolkit

WalkBostonis a non-profit membership organization dedicated to improving walking conditions in cities and towns across Massachusetts. Sponsored by the Massachusetts State Department of Public Health, WalkBoston has been challenged to explore the possibility of improving walking conditions for residents of the state’s rural or semi-rural areas. “Rural” in Massachusetts means places with relatively low population densities – over half of the state’s municipalities, according to the U.S. Census. Though this toolkit focuses on Massachusetts, rural and semi-rural communities in all states might benefit from the guidance.

View or download the rural walking toolkit

Walk Score allows you to determine the Walk Scores in your communities. Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100 that measures the walkability of any address. Walkability offers surprising benefits to our health, the environment, our finances, and our communities.

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This guide offers a starting place for building the trust, relationships and shared understanding that is needed in order to make progress toward creating and sustaining more accessible and valued trail systems in your community.

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If you are interested in converting a rail line to a trail, Rail-to-Trails has resources to help you do this and connect to their large network of 1600 preserved pathways.

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TrailLink.com is a free service of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy where you can discover more than 30,000 miles of bike trails, walking trails, equestrian trails, and hiking and running trails including interactive trail maps, trail descriptions, photos, reviews and more.

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) offers resources to promote Kids Walk-to-School programs in communities, how to get started, and how to address barriers.

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The National Center for Safe Routes to School assists states and communities in enabling and encouraging children to safely walk and bicycle to school. The National Center serves as the information clearinghouse for the federal Safe Routes to School program. The organization also provides technical support and resources and coordinates online registration efforts for U.S. Walk to School Day and facilitates worldwide promotion and participation.

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Safe Routes to School initiatives bring together community members, schools, and local governments to encourage children to walk, bicycle, or roll to and from school. ChangeLab Solutions has developed a wide variety of resources and guides to support local efforts for Safe Routes to School.

Safe Routes to School Talking Points and Fact Sheet

Resources for Rural Communities: On the Move and Get Out & Get Moving

Incorporating Safe Routes to School into Local School Wellness Policies and Model General Plan Language Supporting Safe Routes to School

The National Center for Safe Routes to School assists states and communities in enabling and encouraging children to safely walk and bicycle to school. The National Center serves as the information clearinghouse for the federal Safe Routes to School program.

The 2011 Policy Report: “Safe Routes to School: Helping Communities Save Lives and Dollars” provides information on the financial benefits of these programs, how to make the case for these programs and information on the integration and creation of these programs.

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The resource guide “Implementing Safe Routes to School in Low-Income Schools and Communities: A Resource Guide for Volunteers and Professionals” provides information to help parents, professionals, schools and local elected officials be better positioned to overcome common challenges and build strong Safe Routes to School Programs in low-income schools and communities.

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This Guide helps local communities and schools create, enact and implement policies which will support active and healthy community environments that encourage safe walking and bicycling and physical activity by children. The guide is intended to help community members, policy-makers, parents, and advocates create a healthy built environment.

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In some communities, the danger of violence and crime discourages children from walking to school and keeps people off the street, limiting physical activity. Preventing violence goes hand in hand with community betterment, public engagement, street scale enhancements, physical activity and improved economic opportunities.

Using Safe Routes to School to Combat the Threat of Violence: In some communities, however, children face very real dangers of robbery, harassment, gang intimidation and gang recruitment. Safe Routes to School programs can assist significantly in increasing the safety of children and teens in these communities.

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Using the Transportation Alternatives Program of MAP-21 to Impact your Local Community: This fact sheet helps get communities started with using the new Transportation Alternatives Program to support healthy community design and active transportation.

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Children who live in predominantly minority neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, crime and unemployment are less likely to have access to safe, clean and sustainable places to be active and interact with their community.

View the infographic and supporting resources

These guidelines describe the types and amounts of physical activity that offer substantial health benefits to Americans. Resources such as toolkits and factsheets are available.

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The CDC provides national and state-specific information on behavioral, policy, and environmental indicators for physical activity. Indicators include level of physical activity, availability of places for recreation, state requirements for recess and physical education, and land use policies.

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As the evidence that physical activity has numerous physical, health, and emotional benefits has grown, the body of effective, evidence-based interventions to increase physical activity has increased as well. This document provides guidance for program managers, policy makers, and others on how to select strategies to increase physical activity in the community. It offers the most relevant information on each type of strategy or approach. It also includes examples of programs that can use these strategy as a way to increase physical activity in the community.

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The National Physical Activity Plan offers comprehensive set of policies, programs, and initiatives that aim to increase physical activity, including recommendations by different sectors of society. The Plan also includes tactics to take action.

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The Open Streets Project is an ongoing collaboration between the Alliance for Biking & Walking and The Street Plans Collaborative. The goal of the project is to share information about open streets and increase the number, size, and frequency of initiatives occurring across North America. This guide includes an introduction, best practices overview, and 67 case studies organized into a typology of seven common model types.

View or download this guide

The Open Streets Project website also includes additional information to encourage advocates and new open streets organizers to explore related efforts in other peer cities, and invites experienced organizers to continually update and share best practices, maps, photos, videos, and publicity materials via the individual initiative blog feature.

Partnership for a Healthier America offers information on Play Streets and examples of communities that have started them.

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This program under the National Park Service offers technical assistance to communities so they can restore rivers, preserve open space, and develop trails and greenways for purposes of conservation and outdoor recreation.

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The Alliance for Biking & Walking is a nonprofit dedicated to promoting safe environments for biking and walking for environmental and personal health. ABWA offers a library of resources for local leaders.

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The Partnership for a Healthier America has brokered commitments with several National Governing Bodies (NGB) of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) along with the US Olympians Association and US Paralympics to increase physical activity among the nation’s youth.

Through commitments by USA Cycling and USA BMX, US Paralympics, USA Soccer, USA Swimming, USA Track & Field, USA Tennis, the US Olympians Association, USA Field Hockey, USA Volleyball, USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic Committee beginner athletic programming will be available to more than 1.7 million kids in 2012. You can enter your zip code to find physical activity opportunities in your area.

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Active Living Research offers tools and resources for assessing the opportunities for physical activity in a community and actions to increase those opportunities through environmental and policy changes.

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This is a guide for local communities to identify and address environmental health priorities.

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Latino kids have fewer opportunities to engage in physical activity than other kids. But culturally relevant school- and community-based programs, better access to active play sites, and education for parents can help young Latinos become more physically active, according to a new package of research materials from Salud America! The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children.

Download the new Salud America! “Active Play & Latino Kids” research materials:

• A research review with the latest science;
• An issue brief; and
• An infographic

Playful City USA is a KaBOOM! application-based national recognition program honoring cities and towns that make play a priority and use innovative programs to get children active, playing, and healthy. The commitment to be a Playful City includes the same actions as in the Goal V.

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