TWP was formed through the efforts of a coalition of local United Way agencies, health and human service agency administrators, recreation professionals, university faculty members, parents of children with disabilities, and other educational professionals in the Cedar Valley region of Iowa. The coalition examined the existing challenges and opportunities to providing inclusive services, and recognized that agency staff of existing recreation and after-school programs did not have the understanding, skills, or training to integrate youth with disabilities into existing community programs. In addition, the coalition determined that the community lacked the infrastructure for interagency collaboration to link children with disabilities with various services (Scholl, Dieser, Davidson, 2005). The coalition concluded that the best solution to address these challenges was for various agencies to work collaboratively to enhance existing services.

1. building the capacity of parents by sharing information about community recreation options,
2. building the capacity of children with disabilities by teaching recreation skills and supporting them to become active in a variety of community programs, and
3. building the capacity of supervisors, managers and program staff of mainstream recreation programs by providing them training in inclusive recreation practice, access to necessary adaptive equipment, and extra staff to provide necessary and reasonable accommodations. (Scholl, Smith, et al., 2005)