Increasing levels of physical activity and improving public health by promoting walking, bicycling, and

accessible recreation facilities.

Active Community Environment Teams

Places where people of all ages and abilities have the opportunity to live, work and play in a safe and inviting environment which enables physically active recreation and transportation, particularly walking and biking. These places:Support and promote physical activity for ALL peopleHave sidewalks, safe roads for biking, multi-use paths

and trails, parks and open spaces and facilities for recreation

Have quality connections between homes, stores, workplaces, schools, downtowns and/or village centers

Active Community Environments

Promote walking and bicycling opportunitiesProvide accessible recreation facilities Address street design and housing density Foster trail connectivityImprove availability of public transitEncourage neighborhood school sitesProvide safe routes to school

Active Community Environments:

Municipal Offices & OfficialsParks & RecreationPlanningPublic WorksSchool departmentCity/Town Manager

Local AdvocatesBike/Ped committeesTrail committeesConservation commissions & Community

Forest boards

Local environment influences

Time & ResourcesPeople are busy – reluctant to take on

additional tasksBudgets are tightWork occurs in silos

Knowledge & UnderstandingRelationship between built environment &

health little known / understoodRegulations, or lack thereof, perpetuate the

problemBenefits can come from changing how things

are done instead of what things are done

Local Realities-Competing Interests

Encourage environmental and policy change that will increase levels of physical activity and improve public health by promoting walking, bicycling, and the development of accessible recreation facilities.

Advise policy makers and planners in supporting and enhancing community designs that encourage all citizens to be physically active in their daily lives.Promote communication across sectors / silos within

municipalities to discover opportunitiesACET’s are the key to implementing Active

Community Environment concepts.

ACE Teams

Promote “Health in All Policy” (HiAP) deliberations within their district/community.

Identify needs and prioritiesSponsor educational/workshops, invite experts to

inform and educateAdvise Local / Regional Planning Organizations Provide guidance to other local/regional policy makers.Conduct community assessments (Built Environment

Assessment Tools, Health Impact Assessment)Advocate for policy changeProvide guidance on the allocation of fundingReview comprehensive plans

ACET Functions i.e.

An ACET may be formed within a single larger community, or among several smaller communities depending on local resources and conditions. Many communities are not large enough to

sustain an ACE Team – look for logical / existing partnerships

Bigger is not better – ACE is local and involves day to day decisions. If an ACET is too regional in nature it will lose its ability to influence local municipal decisions.

ACE Teams will take many forms across the state due to local conditions but should at all times strive to work at the most local level practical.

ACE Team Organization

City / Town administrators and or elected officials

City / Town plannerDirector of Parks & Recreation or their

representative.Director of Public Works or their

representative.Superintendent of Schools (in RSU locales –

local high school principal – or commensurate highest school level staff for local community)

Representative of local trails / bicycle-pedestrian coalition or similar citizen based organization

Representative of local business community

ACE Team Core Membership

Local / regional health/Healthy Maine Partnerships

PTA / PTO repsPlanning board membersSchool board membersP&R advisory board membersPolice Department representativesCitizens (especially older 50+ and younger

17-)

ACE Team At Large Membership

Active Community Environments are made up of policies, practices and the physical built environment.Active Community Environment Teams

consider all of these when developing their work plans.

While an ACE Team may focus on one aspect of ACE at a time, it is understood that this is a short term project oriented focus, in support of the overarching ACE community transformation concepts.

Using ACE Team (ACET) nomenclature helps to keep the focus of the effort on big picture issues.

What’s In A Name?

Given the range of readiness and capacity any one of the following will be acceptable forms of evidence that an ACET has been established:a resolve by the Council or Board of Selectmen indicating

which municipal officers were appointeda record of an appointment vote by the council or select board

indicating which municipal officials were assigned to the teama copy of the meeting minutes once the team is established

indicating membership and appropriate municipal official representation

any other such document indicating that a team is established, has a regular meeting schedule, has ACE concepts as its primary focus, and has representation from a sufficient number of municipal officials and citizen interest groups.

When is an ACE Team official?

A bike-ped committee, a trail committee, even a neighborhood playground committee all organize around elements that are part of the overall Active Community Environment, but that are not in and of themselves Active Community Environments. A town bike-ped committee is not an Active Community

Environment Team, because for the most part it exists to promote only one aspect Active Community Environments – increasing bicycle and pedestrian opportunities. A playground committee is not an Active Community

Environment Team. A downtown development committee is not an Active

Community Environment Team. A community forest committee is not an Active Community

Environment Team.

But we already have a group that does that…

All communities have limited capacity for volunteers and citizen advocates to work on community oriented committees. Similarly there is a finite supply of municipal officials and their time. As such it is advisable to build on existing resources

as opposed to attempting to duplicate or overburden these resources. If a bike-ped committee already exists in your

community, this can be the foundation for a larger and broader scoped ACE Team, or they can provide representation to an ACE Team, maintaining their content specific focus, but building ties to the more all-inclusive ACE initiative.

Back to Limited Capacity

It is too easy to allow a group to narrow the focus of this work on any of its elements instead of maintaining the greater perspective; Too easy to focus on improving bike-ped

conditions, forgetting that access to school facilities before and after school hours are also part of the mix;

Too easy to focus on safe routes to schools forgetting that community design and mixed use zoning are also part of the mix;

Too easy to focus on built environment when policy and perception are as, if not more important.

Eye on the Ball

Changing the built environment takes time, energy and persistence.This work is not for those requiring immediate

gratificationSome short term success must be won, but as

incremental steps toward the larger community transformation.

For the Long Haul

Strategies for Creating ACET’sBuild awareness of the relationship between built environment and health. Recruit community champions & municipal officials.

The challenges in recruiting appropriate members to Active Community Environment Teams should not be underestimated. All potential members, by the nature of their

positions and work in the community will already be very busy. While one would hope that the work would sell itself the reality is that convincing potential members to actively engage in this process for the long haul will take a concerted effort and likely multiple strategies.

Recruitment

Before inviting municipal officials to attend an ACE Team meeting you will want to identify the local community advocates, bike/ped committee, trail committee, community forest board members, citizens who “get it”.

These people will provide an “incentive” that is often helpful in encouraging municipal leaders to view this as a topic deserving their attention.They may be more inclined to attend

meetings with members from their community as opposed to representatives from outside agencies.

If your local advocates happen to be elected officials, all the better.

Invite the community advocates and municipal officials to a meeting titled something like “Local Governments’ role in combating the obesity epidemic”. Or maybe “Improving Public Health and Economic Health through Healthy Community Design” . Get creative and develop the local hook.

Present power point “Active Community Design”This will give a general overview of the connection

between built environment and health.Present power point “Healthy Communities –

Local Governments”This will bring home the message about the role local

governments play in impacting “healthy community design” and the local built environment.This second presentation nicely sets you up for introducing

the idea of ACE Teams, what they are, who belongs & why, what they do etc, and perhaps to get commitments from folks at meeting end to create the team

Teach about Healthy Community Design

After the teams are created you will want to spend a little more time educating the team about health and the built environment before moving forward on projects, or at least simultaneous to moving forward on other work.http://designinghealthycommunities.org/This is a 4 part series aired in early 2012

Will expand upon the power point concepts.Should help to drive home the need.

Find a way to view together and discuss before proceeding with ACE Team work.

Designing Healthy Communities

Maintain a balance of expectations. It will be easy for the new team to muckle onto a project,

like a sidewalk, or a bike lane, and race ahead as if that is what the ACET is all about.

Built environment work is policy as much if not more than projects – and then there’s perception…Communities can do much to improve the built environment by

reviewing policy and its impact. This work is also brick and mortar work and that takes time.

Temper expectations for immediate gratification – this is not necessarily project, but process oriented work, and will take time. There has to be a balance between short term projects to keep

people engaged and the long term policy and environmental change that will have a larger impact for the community as a whole.

Proceed with Caution

Ultimately ACET is about creating an environment within Maine communities where “Health In All Policy” is a constant – if not driving the process at least being considered.

HIAP

All the resources referred to in this presentation are posted on the CTG Workgroup Wiki which you can access by following a link posted on the District Coordinator Wiki on the ACET page.

For non CTG participants the link is: http://ctgstatelevelworkgroups.mecdcpopulationhealth.org/PA-+ACET

If you have any questions about the information provided in this presentation, please contact Doug Beck at doug.beck@maine.gov or 287-5041.

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