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Inclusion

Including Everyone

In most cases, it takes more than ramps and accessible parking spaces in order for people with disabilities to be fully included into programs and have the same opportunities for successful physical activity as those without disabilities.  Many barriers experienced by people with disabilities cannot be seen, such as negative attitudes, lack of knowledge, or difficult communication.  There are basic steps to ensure that all people are given the same opportunity to participate in physical activity.

  • Ensure that the physical environment meets accessibility requirements.
  • Ensure that all programs and services that are offered to the general population are also offered to people with disabilities, making every attempt to integrate programs instead of offering "special" programs.
  • Provide disability awareness education to volunteers and staff.
  • Ensure that written materials and other means of communication are accessible.
  • Ensure that policies and procedures do not discriminate against people with disabilities or limit their participation.
  • Provide necessary adaptive equipment to allow people with disabilities to participate fully, including accessible fitness, sports, or recreation equipment. 
  • Provide necessary staff training on how to use adaptive equipment and how to adapt activities for different kinds of disabilities.

Understanding Disability

One of the first steps toward full participation and inclusion of people with disabilities is an understanding of the universal nature of disability.  Someone can be born with a disability, acquire a disability through an illness, chronic disease or injury, or get older and lose some of the abilities of their youth.  Disabilities can vary widely in terms of type, severity, and duration. Some disabilities are visible; others are invisible.  Disabilities can affect a persons ability to walk, see, hear, understand, or speak.  Because of this extreme variation, it is important to understand that every disability is different and the same disability can affect each person differently, so treat every person as an individual.

Tips for Interacting with People with Disabilities

    • Always treat people with disabilities the same way you would treat anyone else.
    • Speak directly to that person rather than through a companion who may be present.
    • Offer assistance, but wait for acceptance and any directions before actually assisting.
    • As with anyone else, let a person with a disability make their own decisions regarding what they can or cannot do.
    • Be considerate of the extra time it might take for a person with a disability to get things done or said.

Resources

Inclusive Play for All Children: The Opportunities are Boundless!

By Amy Rauworth, MS, RCEP

  

Ready…set…go play! Where did your thoughts just take you? Perhaps to a distant memory from your childhood, a local park, your backyard, or a favorite school or neighborhood playground. Remember that you are never too old to play. I encourage you to make it a point to enjoy good old-fashioned play as much as possible and before you know it, activity will no longer be a "chore" that you must check off your list. Don't let play be a distant childhood memory — embrace it in your everyday life and reap the rewards!
  
Most children do not need encouragement to play; however, active play is sharply declining as technology provides us all with entertainment opportunities that require little or no movement. Playgrounds offer an excellent venue for children (and adults) to participate in active play. But for the estimated 6 million children with disabilities, opportunities for active play are limited by the lack of accessibility in playground environments.

With the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, the theoretical right to access play areas became law. The Access Board guidelines, issued in October 2000, are the regulatory standards used for new construction and alterations of all public playgrounds.These guidelines have been created to provide access for children with disabilities to get to and from playgrounds and on and off of play structures. The full text of the guidelines is available for viewing at http://www.access-board.gov/play/index.htm. A new feature provided by the Access Board is an online training course that can be found at http://www.access-board.gov/news/play-course.htm.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the grand opening of the Can-Do Playground on July 11, 2007 in Wilmington, Delaware as a representative of the Inclusive Fitness Coalition(IFC) www.incfit.org . This Boundless® playground, like many others, is a welcoming place where children of all abilities can be in the middle of the fun. A Boundless® playground celebrates the principles of universal design while addressing the developmental needs of children.

The Can-Do Playground endeavor brought together both the private and public sectors of this community that included a non-profit organization founded by the six Wilmington-area Rotary Clubs and enthusiastically led by Thomas A. Talley, a champion of this project, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, and the Delaware Department of Transportation. Together, these public and private entities secured and prepared the land for construction, while raising $489,500 to complete this project.To learn more about the Can-Do playground, go to: www.candoplayground.org.

This playground features equipment from GameTime (http://www.gametime.com/), one of Boundless Playgrounds' seven Industry Partners, who are making it easy for communities to build inclusive playgrounds by offering Boundless Playgrounds' Certified Models in their catalogs and on their websites. To view pictures of this playground click here.

The Can-Do Playground is just one example of community mobilization inspired by Boundless Playgrounds®. The organization is led by Amy Jaffe Barzach,executive director/co-founder whose journey began with the tragic loss of her 9-month-old son to spinal muscular atrophy, a rare, degenerative neuromuscular disease. Today, she works to create a world where all children can have the opportunity to be "king of the hill."

The Benefits of Inclusion

For children with disabilities:
  • Offers opportunity to learn social skills in integrated, more natural environments
  • Provides more stimulating, motivating, normalized environment
  • Increases availability of age-appropriate, non-disabled role models and peer supports
  • Allows participation in a variety of in-school and extracurricular activities
  • Creates the opportunity to develop potential new friendships with peers who live in same neighborhood
  • Improves self-esteem

    For children without disabilities:

  • Can improve attitudes towards children with disabilities
  • Can teach others how to interact with, be friends to, assist, and advocate for peers with disabilities
  • Increase availability of special resource personnel, instruction, and equipment
  • Gives perspective (i.e. having a "hurt" knee, acne, or losing a boyfriend suddenly seems somewhat trivial compared to the daily challenges faced by children with disabilities
  • Reduces prejudices of future parents of children with disabilities, future taxpayers, future teachers, and future business persons by providing greater personal knowledge of disability

    *Block, ME (1994). Including Preschool Children with Disabilities. JOPERD-The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 65.

About Boundless Playgrounds

Boundless is the first national nonprofit dedicated to helping communities create extraordinary inclusive playgrounds where children with and without disabilities can develop essential skills for life as they learn together and play. Today, there are more then 100 Boundless Playgrounds in over 20 states and Canada with dozens more in development. To learn more about the National Center for Boundless Playgrounds and how your community can create an inclusive playground, go to: www.boundlessplaygrounds.org.

Looking to Build a Boundless Playground for your community? Schools Out! Go Play! Scholarship Program

The CVS All Kids Can program is pleased to announce that during the summer of 2007, it will be awarding sixty $1,000 scholarships. Scholarships will be applied as a $1,000 credit toward the $1,795 registration fee for the Boundless Playgrounds Go Play! membership program. To learn more, visit www.boundlessplaygrounds.org.