Day 1:
Access the World
Learning to Play Builds Lifelong Benefits
Designing Great Places for All Children to Play
Will You Play with Me? Programs and Play Strategies to Transform Access into Inclusion on the Playground
Day 2:
Take it Outside!
The Engagement Zone: Good Design Practices that Foster Children's Engagement in the Environment
Play as a Lifelong Journey: An Approach for All of Us, Young and Old Alike, Based on Fred Rogers' Timeless Wisdom
Access the World
Muffy Davis, Paralympic Medalist and Motivational Speaker & Jeff Burley, Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist
This dynamic, playful couple will share and discuss the video of their 9-month humanitarian world trip to 14 countries. They will discuss the planning and logistics of traveling with a disability. Additionally, they will discuss how they travel and adventure and play now with a young child.
Participants will be able to:
- Have a greater understanding of the possibilities and potential of traveling with a disability.
- Understand some of the necessary planning and logistics for traveling with a disability.
- Be inspired to travel themselves, volunteer and discover the world.
- “For those who say it can’t be done, get out of the way of those who are doing it.”
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Learning to Play Builds Lifelong Benefits
Billy McLaughlin, World-class guitarist, composer and inspirational performer
Learning to play music teaches important lessons that become valuable life-skills. Lessons we learn playing music and other forms of play are key to succeeding in life at any age.
Participants will be able to:
- Appreciate that it takes time to build skills that make play rewarding.
- Understand that each of us is loaded with untapped potential.
- When life gives us challenges patience and determination help us succeed.
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Designing Great Places for All Children to Play
Ingrid M. Kanics, OTR/L, President, Kanics Inclusive Design Services, LLC & John McConkey, Marketing Insights Manager, Landscape Structures
Learn about the importance of barrier-free design in creating inclusive play environments. This presentation will highlight the use of Universal Design Principles and sensory rich elements in your design to create play environments that support all children. Examples of these practices from indoor and outdoor play settings will be provided throughout the presentation.
Participants will be able to:
- Describe the seven principles of universal design.
- Apply the principles of universal design to indoor and outdoor play environments.
- Discuss the importance of sensory-rich play environments to the development of every child.
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Will You Play with Me? Programs and Play Strategies to Transform Access into Inclusion on the Playground
Marnie Norris, Director of Programs, Shane’s Inspiration
An engaging workshop that helps attendees transform their accessible play spaces into truly inclusive playgrounds that support the needs and integration of children of all abilities. Case studies, hands-on play strategies, and ability awareness activities from Shane’s Inspiration will illustrate the power of inclusive play!
Participants will be able to:
- Understand the need for and benefits of social inclusion for children with disabilities and how an inclusive play space can deliver those benefits powerfully.
- Gain a greater awareness of how an accessible play space can be used to promote communication, social interaction, and sensory integration for children with disabilities.
- Be able to identify what components (both physical space and programmatically) are necessary to create a fully-inclusive play space.
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Take it Outside!
Bethe Almeras, MS, Education and Outreach Director for Head Start Body Start National Center for Physical Development and Outdoor Play
Are you providing engaging outdoor play experiences for the children in your care? Learn the importance of outdoor play on children’s health, identify the key features of quality outdoor play spaces, and extend your thinking about adults’ roles in facilitating movement and learning during outdoor play. Leave re-energized and ready to take it outside!
Participants will be able to:
- Identify the importance of being outdoors on children’s physical and social/emotional health and wellbeing.
- Identify key features of a quality outdoor play space.
- Define the adult’s role in setting up the outdoor environment and facilitating and supporting children’s outdoor play.
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The Engagement Zone: Good Design Practices that Foster Children's Engagement in the Environment
Carol A. Krawczyk, ASLA, CEO of Research-Based Design
As our society becomes more aware of our diversity and range of abilities, we come to the realization that, as individuals, we are only temporarily able. This presentation will look at the lessons learned from three years of research regarding how children of a variety of abilities and ages respond to the environment. We will then engage in an interactive session to discuss design practices that truly engage children in the environment.
Participants will be able to:
- Identify problems in the physical environment that disengage children.
- Identify important factors that engage children in natural environments.
- Develop design strategies that support engagement of all visitors.
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Play as a Lifelong Journey: An Approach for All of Us, Young and Old Alike, Based on Fred Rogers' Timeless Wisdom
Hedda Sharapan, M.S. Child Development, Director of Early Childhood Initiatives, The Fred Rogers Company
There was a playfulness about Fred Rogers from which we can all learn, and it wasn’t just about or for children. Through fun and treasured video segments, we’ll explore what play means in our lives as adults … and as adults who care about children of all abilities.
Participants will be able to:
- Name the benefit of playfulness in our adult lives.
- Embrace their playfulness and encourage it in others.
- Understand the importance of nature play to children of all abilities.
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