Keeping score: documenting the benefits of army recreation.

As park and recreation professionals, most of us know how important recreation is in our lives and in the lives of our constituents. We can also imagine, at least on some level, how valuable and important recreation must be to those individuals who have committed to serving in the military-where consequences of even the most seemingly unimportant daily activities are potentially more severe than most of us will ever face. It is ironic that in dire consequences, recreation seems a bit trivial when its value is most needed.

Consider the universal problem facing the recreation profession: recreation services are seen as a nice amenity or "frosting," rather than central to the effective functioning of a community. While it is widely understood that recreation can be entertaining, it is seldom understood, by the public in general, as capable of accomplishing more than fun.

Further, competition for funding is waged against other public services that are often perceived as more important, such as the police and social service agencies. Without diminishing the importance of these services, most recreation professionals would argue that our programs can also have an impact on issues addressed by these agencies. Unfortunately, historically we have not really "proven" our contribution.

Army Recreation, provided through Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) services, faces the same challenge: recreation is frequently viewed as a pleasant opportunity for soldiers and their families, but is not considered central to the Army's mission. This is especially true, perhaps, in a time of war, when competition for funding for recreation services seems to be pitted against funding for technical training and weapons. Army Recreation professionals understand that their contribution is more than entertainment: They help build better soldiers. However, similar to civilian recreation, Army Recreation has not had the ability to document its direct impact on potential soldiers.

The Benefits are Endless

Army Recreation tries to educate the public and improve their efforts by promoting the benefits of recreation and making it Army relevant, through a program called Benefits Army Recreation (BAR). In order to fulfill its mission of "deterring aggression through might and decidedly defending the United States when attacked," the Army must have well-trained, fit and ready troops.

This leads to operational objectives referred to as the three Rs: Recruitment, Readiness and Retention. Recruitment efforts seek to provide an appealing and rewarding lifestyle to potential soldiers; readiness is the preparation of soldiers to be consistently effective at their jobs; and retention involves maintaining the quality of life, or well-being, for soldiers and their families to foster continued service.

"BAR provides a clear method to measure the benefits of Army Recreation for soldiers and their families," says Van Stokes, chief of the Recreation Division at Ft. Campbell. "It is a system that provides hard data in a field that is considered soft in resources, when compared to other areas of the military. BAR can be used to validate the role of recreation in support of the Army's mission."

Army Recreation first began considering the implementation of a benefits program in early 2000 at the MWR Recreation Managers Training Course. Interest grew in the program and the decision was made to conduct brief trial runs and installations. Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, Ft. Jackson in South Carolina and Giessen in Germany were the bases selected for participation.

One of the most important outcomes of the initial pilots was the recognition that concepts like resiliency, a common goal for developmental programming, did not immediately translate into Army soldier culture and that, in order to document impacts that were important to the Army, military outcome measures were needed.

As such, Army Recreation developed a specific outcome measure of the Army's core values, characteristics of good soldiers that should, in theory, be related to Readiness and Retention. These values constitute the acronym "LDRSHIP":

Loyalty--commitment to country, Army, fellow soldiers and the Constitution;

Duty--obligation to meet responsibilities;

Respect--hold others in high regard and treat them as one would wish to be treated;

Selfless Service--place the unit, the mission and the welfare of others before self;

Honor--determine right from wrong and seek to do right;

Integrity--be truthful and forthright in word and deed and not tolerate those who are not; and

Personal Courage--overcome fear, whether physical or moral, to fulfill responsibilities.

During the instrumental development process, it was documented that higher levels of the core values were related to pride in serving in the Army and intent to make the Army a career (both indicators of Retention). Thus, Army Recreation created a measure of program outcomes that would be meaningful not just to program staff, but to the Army as a whole. Deb Coble, chief, Community Recreation Division at Ft. Jackson believes, "We now have tools that will provide commanders with quantifiable data that will demonstrate to them how recreation programs impacted their soldiers and family members."

Bar Results

Initial programs in the BAR pilot included Aberdeen Proving Ground's "Social Recreation," a program for military students held in their recreation center that included structured individual choice activities as well as pool tournaments and other planned activities. In addition, Aberdeen Proving Ground evaluated an ongoing softball league.

Ft. Jackson programmers developed "Happy Car 101," a series of car maintenance classes; and "BUFF" (Better Units through Fitness and Fun), a fitness program targeting soldiers whose physical training scores were lagging. Giessen in Germany conducted a summer reading program and a family soccer league.

While conducted on a limited scale, all programs demonstrated positive impacts of recreation on participants. At Aberdeen Proving Ground, BAR staff offered a program called "Yoga Fit." Program activities included a variety of yoga and fitness activities. Participants demonstrated increases in all seven dimensions of resiliency.

Since the initial pilots, two additional installations--Ft. Campbell in Kentucky and Ft. Carson in Colorado-have been added to the project and additional rounds of programs have been conducted. Fort Carson's BAR programmers offered a program called "Worldly Women's Travel." Results showed that 11 out of 16 participants lost weight, and 10 out of 17 participants improved their body composition.

Fort Campbell BAR programmers in Kentucky offered a softball league for soldier units This was the first individual program of the BAR pilots that included a large enough sample to test for statistical significance. The Army Core Values Survey (ACVS) was given to assess changes in levels of the core values as a result of participating in the BAR program. Participants showed increases in all seven of the core values, which means that the program was, in fact, helping to make "better" soldiers. Further, these increases were statistically significant for the ACVS as a whole and for Loyalty, Respect, Selfless Service and Integrity, which means that we can be confident that these results are not due to chance. Thus, the programmers at Fort Carson can report that they have contributed to the development of better soldiers with respect to these Core Values.

Mike Derose, chief, Recreation Branch, MWR Division, SE Region, Installation Management Agency, believes BAR offers benefits to recreation programmers, as well. "It [BAR] formalizes the process professional recreators go through on a more or less intuitive basis," he says. "It helps the staff focus on results and outcomes rather than stopping at the delivery/ service/content level."

Stokes, chief of the Recreation Division at Ft. Campbell, also acknowledges that "our staff has gained a deepened sense of purpose and fulfillment from seeing the results of this program. It is one thing to feel good about the experience. It is another thing to be able to measure the positive impacts of the experience with the soldiers. BAR enables the program delivery folks to keep their eye on the big picture." BAR, then, is good for the staff as well as for the soldiers.

So what's next? Army Recreation has taken important steps toward documenting the contribution of its services to the overall Army mission. In 2006, Army Recreation will roll out the BAR approach to installation programming staff Army-wide. In addition, it continues to develop Army-specific outcome measurement instruments to document the impact of its programs to soldiers, their family members and all levels of Army administration. Most importantly, Army Recreation is committed to providing support to those who serve on our behalf.

RECREATION IN WAR TIME

According to Joe Pettoni, Army Recreation's Outdoor Recreation program manager, "You can send a physically tired soldier back into the line, but can't send a mentally/emotionally tired soldier back into the line." Army Recreation programs exist to meet the needs of soldiers--to keep them ready and rejuvenated to do their jobs safely and effectively. This is probably never more true than in a time of war.

Army Recreation headquarters staff at the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center have developed five recreation kits for soldiers who are part of advance elements and/or in remote locations:

Theater in a Box Kit: In essence, this is a portable theater module that can be set up in about an hour to provide soldiers a break. The kit includes a screen, projector, DVD/VHS players, sound system and power converters-everything needed for a movie night.

Video Messenger Kit: This is a self-contained recording studio with all the equipment needed for soldiers to record and send their messages home. As an added bonus, 11 children's books are included so family members can "read to their children." These same books were bought for installation libraries, so that the spouse can check out the same book and follow along with the child.

Electronic Games Kit: Soldiers can have this portable arcade up and running in 20 minutes. It includes a TV, PlayStation 2, additional controllers, power converters and a variety of games.

Unit Recreation Kit." Packed in a 100 gallon Igloo cooler, this kit contains a wide variety of recreation equipment designed to last a company of soldiers (200) for 30 days. Contents include sports equipment (footballs, flag football belts, basketball, softballs, gloves, bases), Frisbees, board games, cards, volleyballs and nets to allow for a wide range of recreation outlets.

Library Book Kit: This is a "box-o-books," containing 20 to 35 fiction and non-fiction books covering reading interests from drama and science fiction to humor and romance. Magazines, CDs and audio books are also mailed directly to recreation centers.

According to Pettoni, "The kits allow them to take their minds away, if even for a brief time, from the environment they find themselves in. Obviously, the guns and butter go first, but, if soldiers had their way, our kits would be a close third."