WSA_Youth and Family Master Plan Phase I - September 2009

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- Many youth programming services require signing up or meeting some other referral criteria. Partnerships with community-based nonprofit organizations could fill the gaps in community drop-in services. Soccer programming opportunities include: • Coordinate an annual standardized training for coaches city-wide. - One basic coach training can be offered seasonally by a community college or by one of the larger Cal-Soufh leagues. This would help facilitate a standardization in soccer league practices and expectations and would lead to greater uniformity in participation costs across leagues. • Increase business partnerships. - Increasing public-private partnerships to sponsor soccer leagues could lead to awin- win situation. The burden of costs for league participation would be taken off families and corporate sponsors would garner advertising and positive public relations. This is particularly timely given the city and state's budgetary challenges. • Coordinate all field reservations within the City of Santa Ana through a single entity. - This system would require that a single agency control field distribution; this would effectively streamline the annual soccer field-use reservation process by having both city and school fields coordinated and maintained together. This could also lead to enhanced access for families reporting that transportation to fields is a barrier to their child's participation. • Create a consumer education campaign to educate families about the soccer leagues. - A video in Spanish can be presented to the community on the city website so that families can get a clearer idea of the breadth and scope of the different soccer leagues operating in Santa Ana. This would support parents in making more educated decisions about their child's league participation. • Make soccer programming a priority forthe City. - Soccer engages more Santa Ana youth in intensive physical activity than any other program. Because of this wide-reaching impact, it is important thaf the leagues providing the service are given clear guidelines about expectations to ensure that the highesf levels of participation are met. I. Introduction & purpose of report The City of Santa Ana has a long history of evaluating its parks, recreation and community services. In 1980-1981, the City conducted an analysis of recreation needs in order to prepare a guiding policy document that would shape future investments in recreation facilities and programming. In 1992, the City supplemented this research by contracting services with Economics Research Associates and Barrio Planners, Inc. for the creation of A Recreation & Community Services Needs Assessment for the City of Santa Ana, CA 1990-2000. This comprehensive document served to evaluate past recreation programming and provided suggestions forthe establishment of standards the City could use moving forward through the 1990s and 2000s. The document focused on the level of services, the methods to pay for services and funding streams to improve and expand parks and community facilities. At the time of that report, in 1992, Santa Ana operated 38 facilities; 34 parks, 4 school playgrounds, 3 senior centers and 2 community service centers. The consultants at that time found that the City had 1.2 acres of open space per 1,000 residents (in the 1980s, this number was 1.7 acres per 1,000 residents). ~ In 1998, the City of Santa Ana Parks, Recreation & Community Services Agency felt that it was appropriate to follow-upon the items identified in the 1992 assessment in a more targeted way. They 1 Economics Research Associates and Barrio Planners, Inc. 1992. "A Recreation and Community Services Needs Assessment for the City of Santa Ana, CA."