TRAPS Statewide Initiative

A Collaborative Partnership to Turn Research into Practice

Deeply committed to promoting the value of play and recreation as a critical priority, PlayCore, GameTime, and Total Recreation Products, Inc. are proud to partner with the Texas Recreation and Parks Society on a multi-year, comprehensive initiative to provide training and funding opportunities to deploy research-based strategies and create high quality park destinations across the state of Texas. This unique partnership allows us to collectively promote health and wellness throughout the state and gives us the ability to report community impact outcomes in a meaningful way.

By aligning evidence-based design and program best practices that foster inclusion, engagement with nature, and physical activity, 4 projects currently serve as national models of how visionary leaders thoughtfully put research into practice. The National Demonstration Sites created through the statewide initiative, were intentionally designed to enrich and enhance the quality of life where citizens of Texas live, work, and play. We are honored to highlight the phenomenal leadership of the TRAPS Parks Promote Quality of Life Recipients and celebrate their success stories. These award recipients and their outdoor play and recreation projects will serve as models to inspire others to use play as a catalyst to build healthier, happier communities across generations. Their efforts demonstrate how investing in parks and recreation results in positive outcomes, grows social capital, and builds strong communities through the power of play and recreation

Goals of the TRAPS Parks Promote Quality of Life Statewide Initiative

The TRAPS Parks Promote Quality of Life Statewide Initiative is a multi-year partnership launched in 2016. Initial outcomes and leadership case examples were shared at the 2017 TRAPS Conference in Irving, TX. The primary goals of the initiative identified by TRAPS, PlayCore, and GameTime include:

Execute statewide professional development to broaden the knowledge base across the state.
Deploy research and outcomes tracking to demonstrate TRAPS as a standard setter and important asset to the quality of life.
Develop joint use ventures that align parks, schools, health partners for shared services across the state.
Provide matching funding assistance to assist high quality projects across the TRAPS Regions to create outdoor play spaces that align with research-based best practices to collect meaningful outcomes and serve as national models.
Publish white papers and other advocacy communications and tools to further champion play and recreation initiatives and demonstrate effective strategies for all steps of the process.