Santa Clarita Valley Adventure Play was founded in 2014 by Jeremiah Dockray and Erica Larsen-Dockray after Jeremiah stumbled across the concepts of adventure playgrounds in a historical article in 2013. From there on he began digging for more information on their existence and found Pop-up Adventure Play, an international non-profit which advocates for adventure play and offers the in-depth online playworker development course. Jeremiah was hooked and began their course outside of his work as a reality TV editor.  

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Alongside him, his wife Erica who is an animation and media arts teaching artist, was equally interested and soon was exploring the research of playwork and incorporating it into her classrooms. 

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Early on in his studies in the playworker development course there was a task to find a place and imagine it as an adventure playground. Through a few strokes of destiny, Jeremiah decided to check out an overgrown lot that was just down the road from their home for the task. From the road it looked quite the mess but once he stepped into it realized it was a park that was untouched for quite some time and a perfect place for an adventure playground. 

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Soon after Erica fell in love with the space and they found themselves asking their real estate agent everything they could about it. In January 2014 they purchased the property in hopes to one day develop it into an adventure playground. 

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Soon after in February 2014, the pop-up adventure play group stopped by on their US tour and Jeremiah and Erica got their first taste of holding a pop-up adventure playground, in-person playworking, playworking education and so much more. They of course took the group out to the park to share their excitement. Everyone could see the massive potential.