Innovations in Trauma-Informed Care: Building the Nation’s First System of Trauma-Informed Recreation Centers

Background: Exposure to adversity and traumatic events affects well-being across important domains of functioning, including mental, physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and neurobiological. Situated as a focal point throughout neighborhoods, recreation centers are a prime opportunity to cultivate spaces of safety and healing. However, current models of trauma-informed care largely do not map neatly onto recreation departments’ organizational structure and functioning. This presentation describes the efforts over the past five years to transform the City of Cleveland, Ohio’s 22 recreation centers into trauma-informed Neighborhood Resource and Recreation Centers (NRRCs)––places where children, youth, and adults can readily acquire the support and services they need in an environment where trauma-informed care principles are fully embedded in the fabric of the organization’s culture.

Methods: Phase 1 laid the foundation for organizational change, which included (1) transitioning the City of Cleveland’s 22 recreation centers to NRRCs (programming extended beyond traditional sports and recreation to include activities and programs aimed at addressing social determinants of health), (2) contracting with a local non-profit behavioral health organization to hire trained social workers and counselors to work within the recreation centers, and (3) training all recreation center staff about trauma and toxic stress. Phase 2 focused on organizational change and included development of NRRC organizational trauma-informed standards, development of the Trauma-Informed Progress Tool to track change over time, development of Trauma-Informed Leadership Competencies for center managers, and ongoing training for the social workers and counselors.

Results: Given the innovative nature of transforming recreation centers into high-quality, trauma-informed NRRCs, there were bound to be lessons learned from the early phase of this work. Phase 1 lessons learned included acknowledgement by city leadership that training about trauma and toxic stress was not enough to become trauma-informed and that there needed to be a stronger focus on organizational cultural changes within the system. There was also a need to focus on elevating the quality of the NRRCs as they move towards becoming accredited by the National Recreation and Park Association. Phase 2 of the transformation efforts began in the context of various changes resulting from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and numerous high-profile incidents of police brutality and racial violence. There is now even more need for culturally-affirming mental health supports and programming in community sites like the NRRCs. Additionally, there was a transition of a new mayor and his leadership team, which highlighted the need for onboarding and ongoing training for city administration to create shared language and understanding around trauma and trauma-informed care.

Conclusion: Recreation centers have the potential to serve as community hubs where neighborhood residents can receive comprehensive support and care. However, sustainable system/organization change takes time. Ongoing commitment and effort is required in order to move the needle toward creating and sustaining trauma-informed environments. Building on our progress made from previous phases and incorporating lessons learned, we will discuss essential areas of future work and discuss additional lessons learned that could be useful for other cities that may be considering transforming their recreation centers.