Since 2012, in an amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal government made it mandatory for all new and renovated public playgrounds to have accessible equipment.
As I have been thinking and reading about accessible, it has been more clear to me that there is a big difference between accessible and inclusive. There is a link on the NPR website from their story about an inclusive playground in which you can find an accessible playground near you. When I used this link, some of the playgrounds simply had one ADA swing, and that counted as accessible by the new ADA mandate. Accessible really just means that you can get to the playground, or there is a few pieces of equipment that will accommodate a child with some limited mobility. They still may need a lot of help getting to that equipment, since the playground surface may not be wheelchair friendly. The design says, "Yeah, we gave you a second thought, but we're not really playing with you."
The parents of Brooklyn Fisher, a girl with spina bifida in Idaho, wanted their daughter to be able to be included when she went to the playground. What they envisioned was a playscape that allowed their child to go up on the structure with her wheelchair with other kids, access all the equipment and join in with her friends without having to be carried by her parents. They designed and raised money to build Brooklyn's Playground, which opened in 2011 in Pocatello, Idaho. It is probably the most inclusive playground in the world. Parents of children with disabilities from all over the Rockies make special trips to give their children a playground experience like they have never had before.
In Salinas, CA, Shawn and Amanda Bakker raised money to build Tatum's Garden, another inclusive playground that they were inspired to raise money for and build after they visited Brooklyn's playground with their daughter. These inclusive playgrounds, with their rubberized ground surfaces that allow wheelchairs to roll merrily along them, do not come with a small price tag. In both cases, the families raised over $500,000. What did not go into the initial building of the playgrounds stays in a fund for maintenance.
As communities around the country are considering updates to their playgrounds for their public, these two playgrounds can serve as models for how to include everyone in the play. As Brooklyn's mother said in an Aljezeera America article about her daughter's first time on the playground, "I saw her with all her best friends play like every other child," she
said. "She wasn't on a different level, there was nothing different
about how she was playing with them. They were all just enjoying play
together and they did it for hours."
Accessibility is okay, it says I'll let you in here, but I don't have to interact with you, but true inclusion is when social ties and real connections happen for people. We can do better on the playgrounds for all of our kids. It will take community support for inclusion everywhere.
