Tag: walk audit academy

RSVP for Springfield Walk Audit Academy Community Report Out – November 9 (5-7pm)

Please join us on November 9th 5-7pm to hear about the “Walk Audit Academy – Springfield” effort and what participants found during their walk audits in Fall 2023. Food will be provided.

This project was led by WalkMassachusetts and sponsored by AARP as part of a Community Challenge Grant.

As part of the evening, we’ll highlight a little about each of the group’s walk audits. There will be a group presentation shared that night. Each group will send a few updates in advance – similar to the info we talked about during the Zoom sessions throughout the fall. (Group coordinators: we’ve sent an email with the details we’d like you to send in! Please let us know if you need it re-sent.)

Location
Neighborhood Resource Center, 437 Bay Street, Springfield

RSVP
Send an email to Jonny – jgp@dev.walkboston.org – if you will be attending.

Who is invited?
This event is open to anyone in the Springfield community (and beyond) that is interested in learning more about walk audits and safe streets efforts – just make sure to RSVP! Doing so will help us plan and ensure that we are able to provide enough food for all attendees. As you RSVP to Jonny, please let him know if you have any questions, a need for Spanish interpretation, or dietary restrictions: jgp@dev.walkboston.org

AARP 2023 Community Challenge Grant Announcement!

“AARP is thrilled to include Walk Massachusetts as part of our Community Challenge Grants this year. Their project in Springfield will empower residents to make their community more accessible and livable for people of all ages.” – Mike Festa, State Director AARP Massachusetts

We are excited to announce that WalkMassachusetts is one of 310 recipients (out of over 3,600 applicants!) of an AARP Community Challenge grant! AARP Community Challenge is a grant program to make tangible improvements in communities that jump-start long-term change. It is part of AARP’s nationwide Livable Communities initiative, which supports the efforts of cities, towns, neighborhoods and rural areas to become great places to live for people of all ages. To learn more, visit aarp.org/Livable.

This grant will fund the Walk Audit Academy (WAA), a walk audit training program that we will lead with WalkBike Springfield. WAA was piloted in Worcester with the REACH program, UMass Worcester Prevention Research Center, Health Resources in Action, and funds from the CDC. WAA is an experiential learning theory-based curriculum that guides learners in: 1- discovering and documenting their local transportation and land use decision making context; 2- learning walk auditing basics; 3- developing an action plan; and 4- implementing the action plan.

WAA includes a video series, produced by WalkMassachusetts, that guides learners in the process of planning, conducting, and summarizing walk audits. It employs a “flipped classroom” model to extend the capacity of WalkMassachusetts and WalkBike Springfield, and enable community groups to engage in co-learning that benefits the entire Springfield community, with emphasis on environmental justice block groups (minority, income, English isolation). WAA walk audits are intended to build community, and collect information about infrastructure conditions that can be shared with elected/appointed officials to improve walking safety, convenience, and comfort. WAA will allow Springfield residents to better participate in their planning and transportation processes, ensuring that local voices are heard. WAA will also help to improve the safety and walkability of Springfield, which in 2021 had 9 fatal pedestrian crashes, the same number as Boston which has a population over 4x that of Springfield.

Safer streets benefit everyone— however, older adults will benefit from safety improvements the most, as people ages 50+ make up the vast majority (69%) of crash victims in MA (2021, WalkMassachusetts Fatal Pedestrian Crash Report). Improved neighborhood walkability also results in better physical, social and cognitive health for the whole community, and more accessible streetscapes mean more independence for people with disabilities, whose mobility options are most limited.

Thank you again to AARP for their generous support! To learn about the other Community Challenge grantees, visit: www.aarp.org/CommunityChallenge

Walk Audit Academy (Worcester)

We embarked on a new project that built on our virtual walk audit process and expanded our digital training opportunities: The goal of the “Walk Audit Academy” video series was to help people feel comfortable enough to perform their own walk audit, and to expand the number of people that we can reach. Karin Valentine Goins and the UMass Worcester Prevention Research Center (PRC) sees the video series as a way to create a sustainable training model based on the Capabilities for Public Health Agency Involvement in Land Use and Transportation Decision Making that PRC created through the CDC’s Physical Activity Policy Research Network (PAPRN) and the National Cancer Institute’s Speeding Research tested INTerventions (SPRINT) program.

In the “Walk Audit Academy” video series, we describe what goes into performing a walk audit and things to consider when planning a walk audit in a community. Modules in the series cover preparing for, conducting, and distilling results of a walk audit. The small, bite-sized videos are also less intimidating than one long video, and relevant segments can be shared on social media or for different audiences.

WalkBoston staff members lent their talents in front of the camera to share what goes into putting together a walk audit: including looking at crash data, creating a route, and what to remember to include on an invitation.

In November 2022, we piloted it with a cohort of volunteers in Worcester to train community leaders on how to lead walk audits and implement change, in a ‘flipped classroom’ style. People were able to learn at their own pace with the short videos and supporting materials. The five groups created their own routes, invited participants, and led their own walk audits. We offered sessions on Zoom for group feedback and discussion as well as drop in Zoom ‘office hours’ throughout the month of November to answer questions.

In January, we gathered again, and this time it was in person at the Worcester Senior Center! The participants gavean overview of each of their groups, where they led their walk audit in the city, and the findings and recommendations that came out of it. Some groups shared slides, others photos, and one group even put together a short video of their own with amateur drone footage from their walk audit.

There was a great energy in the room that night, and a real sense that something special is happening in Worcester right now. As we reflected on the evening, we realized that we were able to help teach 5x the amount of people compared to a traditional walk audit through this process. We look forward to rolling it out further in the coming months.