Alright, thank you very much. Welcome everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Audio Conference series which is a collaborative effort of the national network of ADA and Accessible Information Technology (IT) centers which are known as the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers, Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center (DBTAC). You may reach the regional ADA and Accessible IT Center that serves your area by calling 800-949-4232. You may access the web site of your regional center by visiting www.adata.org. The network of national ADA and IT Centers is also conducting a survey you can access on the www.adata.org web site. And we are collecting information regarding employment, state and local government services, physical facility accessibility, place of public accommodation, communication. The experience of individuals and the ADA, any information is being collected so the ADA and IT Centers can focus technical assistance, outreach and training to better serve the users of the ADA centers. Responses are confidential. It is short. You only need to respond to the area specifically related to of your area of interest. All individuals need to do is indicate the state they are responding from. Individuals can find that survey at the www.adata.org web site. All right, for individuals interested in additional information on the ADA Audio Conference series, you can always visit the audio conference home page at www.ada-audio.org. And today we are beginning a two-part series on the built environment. And today''s session, Creating Accessible Play Areas, we are very pleased to have back with us once again someone that used to moderate these sessions. Since she left us as a moderator, she has been back several times in her role as Director of Marketing and Special Projects with the National Center on Accessibility, which is housed at Indiana University. And this, of course is Jennifer Skulski. We are very pleased to have Jennifer back with us. She has promised to behave herself, even though Robin is not moderating this session. Jennifer is going to go ahead with her presentation. Following her presentation, there will be an opportunity for all of you to pick Jennifer''s brain on this very interesting and very important topic. So with that, I will turn it over to Jennifer. Welcome, Jennifer.
Great. Thank you, Peter. I think you tell me to behave myself probably because when the two of us talk on the phone, all we do is giggle the whole time. But this is really exciting to be back as part of this session. And I really appreciate the opportunity of being asked to present this session. Let me go back and kind of give people a little bit of information on my background and interest in playgrounds and accessible play. Way back after the ADA had been passed, I first started my career at the Rockford Park District at Rockford, Illinois. And as one of my other duties, I was assigned as the Accessibility C0oordinator. And this was happening at a time the park district had just completed a full safety audit of more than 67 playgrounds that had been built or constructed during the ''70s and ''80s. And the park district at that time was looking at the issue of safety and the need to renovate several of the playgrounds. And the park district actually ended up issuing a $1.5 million bond in order to start playground renovations to ensure our playgrounds were safe. So along that line, we were also waiting for the Access Board to develop accessibility guidelines specific for playgrounds. One of our natural first questions was what is the definition of an accessible playground? Through that process and under the leadership of Tom, my Deputy Director at the time, he is now the President of the National Playground Safety Institute, we went through about a two to three year process of defining what a small park and a major regional park, and a school playground might look like in terms of safety and accessibility in the absence of the Access Board having issued any type of accessibility guidelines. That is kind of where my interest began. And naturally, through looking at the different types of resources, one of the first resources I linked up with was the National Center on Accessibility. As Peter mentioned, it is a center at Indiana University. Specifically, we are in the Department of Recreation and Park Administration. And the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, which is one of the oldest college-type programs in the country specifically dedicated to physical activity and recreation. So that has been a great fit for the National Center on Accessibility, considering our major emphasis there is accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities in parks, recreation and tourism. And this spring, I was just mentioning to Peter, playgrounds has really been a main area of focus for me in the last couple of months. Specifically for a couple of different reasons. First, in April, we just hosted a national symposium on playground access, where we had guest instructors who are truly leaders in our field, including Peggy from the Access Board, John from the North Suburban Recreation Association, Sue, a landscape architect who was part of the Access Board''s Recreation Advisory Committee, Terry, one of the instructors for the National Playground Safety Institute and a handful of others. We had a great, three-day symposium. And hopefully this session, I have attempted to bring together a lot of that information and squeeze it into this short session in order to give you a starting point so that when you are working in your communities, whether or not it is as a planner, a playground owner or as an advocate for the inclusion for children with disabilities, that you have a place to start and can draw on the resources that are out there in order to move forward with designing an accessible play scape. I am not sure if that is my phone or not that is clicking. Peter, can you hear that?
No. I think you''re fine.
Okay. It is in my ear then. I will continue on. Along the lines as far as being the spring of playground discussions, I have also been teaching an eight-week course at Indiana University, which has been an elective course for undergraduate students this semester. It is really interesting to work with college students, 20-something years old, that have no interest in children''s development, safety, accessibility. They were just looking for a credit hour. And this happened to be an elective course that was open. And I think that a lot of them came in thinking this is going to be an easy A. And I think it would be safe to say that several of them considered this educational, changed their perspective on the way they looked at inclusion of children with disabilities and specifically play areas for children, both with and without disabilities. And what their expectations are in terms of being a parent, or working in our field, later on down the road when they graduate from college. So that has been interesting, too. And hopefully I can share some of that information with you as well. But what I have done, I have provided two different handouts for you. The first is a Power Point presentation that I am going to kind of use as the structure for our discussion. And the second one is a resource document that several of the articles and organizational resources that I might mention are listed there. So you can go back and draw from those later on down the road as well. But when it comes to playgrounds, this is definitely one of the areas that when it comes to providing technical assistance has probably been one of the topics that is the most emotional topic when we provide technical assistance. I can easily say I have provided hundreds of hours of technical assistance on playgrounds. And you can tell, just when I start to get into it, that I can talk for hours about playgrounds. Don''t ask me anything about Title I, but I will talk to you for hours about playgrounds. Definitely when it comes to a lot of the questions that come in, we get a lot of questions specifically from parents that usually at that point, the parent is calling because they have been involved with their school or their neighborhood or park and recreation agency. And along the lines have been trying to advocate for an accessible playground. And at some point in time, have hit some roadblocks. And the issue of the cost, of course, comes up. And do we need to provide an accessible playground, if there is only one child at the school or in the neighborhood that would even need this, it doesn''t seem that the cost benefit is there. And so it definitely sparks a lot of emotion in people. And I have a little slide here that has some bubbles of some of the most frequently asked questions that we get, everything from what is the best type of equipment for children with a specific disability or diagnosis to what types of surfaces should we use. Is it okay if we only use transfer systems or do we have to use a ramp? Or another frequent question we get is, can we use one of those wheelchair platform swings? Or where do we get funding? Isn''t there a magical pot of gold to fund our playground project? So those are some of the most frequently asked questions and hopefully as we go through some of the content, we can address some of those for you. But before we get deep into the questions, I think one of the first things you really need to look at is the population, and who are we specifically talking about? Both in terms of the population of children with disabilities and the number of playgrounds that exist in the United States. And so I put together a couple of little slides just on statistics there, so you can see between the ages of 5 and 15, the census bureau has identified roughly 6% of the population of children 5 to 15 have some type of functional impairment. That works out to about 2.5 million children. If you do some translation there, that roughly, that means that two in every seven families are affected by disability in some way, shape or form. That means they either have a child with a disability or an adult in the family with a disability. So when we talk about accessible play scapes, we are not just talking about access for the children that might be using the play area, but we are talking about the parents or caregivers that might be accompanying them as well. What does that mean in terms of U.S. playgrounds? And the next slide is a table that I actually extracted from the final rule that was issued by the Access Board for play areas that was part of the economic assessment, where the Access Board contracted a firm to draw out some numbers and figure out how many playgrounds are we talking about that would be affected under either Title II or Title III. And through that economic assessment, they estimated there are roughly between 200 and 280,000 existing playgrounds. From that number, they figure anywhere from 13 to 18,000 could be replaced annually. And anywhere from 4100 to 5300 would be new construction annually. So we are talking about a pretty good number of facilities that are out there. When we talk about surfacing and equipment, we are really talking about a billion dollar industry that has a lot of research and development and marketing dollars that goes into it. It is a very highly competitive industry. And a lot has been done in the last several years, especially with the role-making process the Access Board has gone through to develop the accessibility guidelines. But when it all comes down to it and you start talking to people about their neighborhood playground or their school playground, the very first issue, or the primary public concern that always comes out of that is safety. This is the issue that parents, teachers, supervisors, they want their children to play in an environment that is safe. And if you look at some of the statistics, you know, the statistics really indicate that there is a huge percentage of injuries that occur each year on public playgrounds, whether or not they are a school playground, a neighborhood park, a day care center or so forth. Just by tracking emergency room visits alone, there are over 200,000 cases of injuries regarding playgrounds. And an estimated 17 children die annually on a public playground. there has been some interesting research that is been done, both by the National Program for Playground Safety and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group that looks at these safety issues. Of those, the National Playground Safety Institute looked at the injury statistics. You can see, the highest, or the most frequent occurrence of injury has to do with falls to the surface. And that really comes into play when we are talking about impact attenuation and accessibility of the surface and how can we provide a surface that meets both of those criteria and meets the parents expectation for a child to play in a safe environment. I have grouped those out for you a little bit more to go through at your leisure. They are by equipment and by type of injury. But if you have the opportunity, the national program for playground safety at Northern Iowa, the University of Northern Iowa has a great web site. And they actually do an annual, I think it is every couple of years, they do a report card on public playgrounds. It is very interesting. They actually train a group of people to go out and do a safety survey of the existing playgrounds. And it is interesting to see what grades they give public playgrounds. If you have an opportunity, it is definitely a great resource to look at. When it comes to the actual standards and guidelines, it is important for, especially individuals that are out there working in the community level, whether or not it is at the Center for Independent Living or with a Parent Resource Organization or the Parent Teacher Organization to recognize that in terms of safety, there are no federal standards for the safety of the equipment and surfacing. Only federal guidelines. Individually some states have adopted these guidelines. Both the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Hands on For Public Playground Safety and the guidelines from the American Society for Testing and Materials, there are a handful of states that have adopted those as part of their state code. But really, those are voluntary guidelines. Those that are issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and by ASTM. The Handbook for Public Playground Safety is actually available online. It is written for the consumer. So if you are part of a Parent Teacher Organization and part of the planning process, that might be a publication that you want to start with, so that you have a better understanding of what the different requirements and expectations are, both for zones and the different types of equipment and so forth. A standard that is written for the American Society of Testing and Materials, there are a number of standards, and the next slide shows you the list that ASTM covers. But those standards are really geared for the manufacturer. They are really written in technical terms. So when you are out there, if you are a potential playground owner, the important point there is to know that if you are going to be purchasing any type of equipment, or surfacing, you want to make sure you get the information from the sales rep that indicates that the equipment or the surfacing meets the ASTM standards. So really, out of that whole list of standards and guidelines, the only one that truly is enforceable is a federal law. Once hopefully adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice is the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines. And that really only deals with the accessiblity part of it. It doesn''t deal with the safety. It goes back and references some of the safety documents. But, again, you know from your own experience, that it is not a building code, that it is a civil rights law. So you are really dependent on filing a complaint by the Department of Justice or your own private right of action in federal court in order to see that it is fully enforced. So when we go through the process of looking at some of those major questions, this session is really meant to go above and beyond the accessibility guidelines that have been issued by the Access Board. This is really kind of a step beyond in taking the assumption that you are already familiar with the document and the Access Board has put together a great technical assistance publication that goes into the accessibility guidelines for play areas in greater depth. So from where I am taking off on access routes and equipment and surfacing and so forth is really how can you start to apply those? And how can you make those work in your own environment and your own situation? And one of the first areas that we have a number of questions come in on access routes. And some of the major issues there being whether or not the access route is planned and designed from the initial design phase throughout the life span of the playground. Because the access route, in essence, can either truly facilitate inclusion or become a physical barrier to it. So if you are starting with a blank piece of paper, this is really where we highly advocate and recommend to the planning team is that you really need to consider accessibility from the very beginning. Part of that means that you need to look at what the nature of the playground is: is this for a school? day care? a small park or large park? What would be the profile of your visitors? Is this going to be children''s use? Maybe you only have specific age groups if it is in a day care or school setting. And then also looking at what are the resources of the playground owner. Because one of the major misconceptions about playground ownership is that playground ownership is a one-time purchase. You make that initial capital investment in purchasing the equipment, designing it, having it installed and then you walk away. This is a major misperception in our field. And it is now with the movement of organizations like the national playground safety institute that we are really getting park and recreation professionals and public playground owners to understand as long as that playground is open to the public, you have a responsibility to maintain it, make sure that it is safe and accessible. So looking at what the resources are for the playground owner, we have some experience with playground owners that they don''t have any dollars for maintenance. So that highly impacts what their initial choice is for surfacing. Those are some of the types of questions you really need to look at the very beginning of the planning process. After that initial slide, I have kind of given you a couple pictorial examples of some of the issues or the most frequently type design issues that we come into experience with when we are out in the field. One of the first one is a concrete ramp that extends into the playground surfacing. This is where they decided to put the concrete ramp in after the playground had been, after they had decided that they were going to use a loose-fill surface. So it was probably part of an add-on. You can see by the treatment of the edges that it can create a tripping hazard when the loose fill is not maintained all the way up to the sides of the concrete surface. The next slide shows a concrete path with the loose fill, but it is a more gradual path. It has beveled edges. It takes into consideration the loose-fill surface might not be maintained all of the time. it gives more latitude for the playground owner to get back and fill the loose fill and meet with the concrete surfacing as needed. The next slide is a large park structure with a unitary surface. for those of you that haven''t worked very much with playground design, it is important to recognize that the choice of surfacing that you make should be made really early in the playground planning and design process, because different types of surfaces require different types of edge or perimeter treatments. This type of surface application, the surface needs to be adjoined to that concrete curb system that is the perimeter of the playground. Through that process, that means that the designers needed to plan where their intended access routes into the playground area were designed for. The next slide shows the curb cut ramp from the concrete into the playing surface. This is a good example, even though what was originally planned on paper was fully accessible, what started to happen once they got to the construction phase was that some changes were made. And you can tell there is a little piece there that is between the two sections of concrete that has been filled in with asphalt. So that leads us to believe that somewhere during the construction process that maybe not all plans were implemented as the design had indicated. So there was a need after the construction to go in and fill that asphalt in in order to ensure that there was not a significant change in levels. But that that was a smooth transition between the concrete and the unitary surface. The next slide I have is a concrete sidewalk that comes up to a curb containment border filled with loose fill. Again, this goes back to the issue of the lack of planning of that entry route leading into the playground surface, we come into this type of issue all the time where there isn''t an access route into whatever the playground surface might be. Because the loose fill has settled so much, there is a significant drop-off there. So what may have initially been installed as accessible, because the loose fill has settled so much, is no longer accessible. Just a couple other examples here, this is the asphalt ramp and landscape berm. From a concrete ramp, descending into the play area. This is really kind of an example that the landscape architect tried to use the landscaping to use a one in twenty route where he could and ramp only when necessary to get into the different portions of the play area. Also looking at the fact that kids could be coming from all different directions. So he wanted to give the kids multiple points of access. The next slide takes that concept one step further. And that is a large structure with engineered fiber and a concrete sidewalk perimeter, this is a really interesting playground design, simply because the planner decided in this large park, there were a couple of different parking areas. And a couple different picnic areas. So they had decided that kids and their families could be coming from all different directions. So instead of using that traditional one point of entry into the playground, they had decided that you should be able to get to the playground surfacing from any direction and all directions. So what they did, both this slide and the next slide, in close-up detail, they have a concrete sidewalk. It is the perimeter surrounding the large structure. And then they beveled the edges to do zero ¬depth entry into the loose fill playground surface. The second slide with the close-up detail, we have kicked back some of the loose fill so you can see the beveled edge there. I have gotten two questions just in the last day of what should be the slope for that beveled edge? At this point, it is really hard to recommend what the slope should be. There is different schools of thought on whether or not it should be 1 in 16, 1 in 20. And how far into the loose-fill surfacing should that extend. So we are kind of looking at a variety of different designs so far. And really, the jury is kind of out on which one is most effective so far. But there are a couple designs that we have seen so far that seem to be right on target. What the issue ultimately comes down to is the maintenance of the loose-fill surface all the way up to the unitary surfacing. Because you can see, even though by us kicking back that loose-fill surface, if that is not maintained over time, it is going to start to settle and sink back. So what was originally installed as an accessible route might not after that be an accessible route. The next slide is a big blue playground structure. And this is actually a really interesting approach that has been taken in the Indianapolis Indy Parks and Recreation Department. This is very early on in their planning process. They decided at their large parks that all of their elevated structures would have a landscape berm or ramp access on to the elevated structure. They just made that commitment as an entity that they weren''t going to count how many components they had and whether or not they would use a transfer system or would be required to use a ramp. They just decided flat out, all of our large park structures, kids are going to be able to get to the elevated structure without having to leave their assistive device. So this is an example of the agencies commitment and how the landscape architect has carried that through, using the natural environment rather than going out and purchasing the different platforms or ramp platforms from the manufacturer. So a little bit of creativity. And they have done that in a couple of different ways. The next slide is an example from another elevated structure that shows multiple choices for kids to get to the same destination. And basically what that is, the picture on the right shows an elevated structure platform with a canopy over it. It is kind of a central meeting area. The picture on the left shows a narrow pathway. It is kind of a balance beam approach, where kids could go through the balance beam to get over to the canopy. Or the second access route is a wider platform that you can either pass through using an assistive device like a wheelchair or if you are a mom or dad and don''t want to use the balance beam, you can use the wider platform as well. There are multiple ways of getting to the same location or destination in order to give kids choices of where they want to go. Then probably one of the most frequently asked questions that we get is about the use of the transfer systems on to elevated play composite structures. And probably out of all of the points that I can make today, that, again, goes back to the issue of choice. And, you know, we have done some observational research at the National Center on Accessibility, looking at kids that used assistive devices. And I can easily say at this point, in my ten-plus year career at looking at playgrounds, we simply have not seen any children spontaneously transfer out of their assistive device to use a transfer system. And going back to the discussion that we had at the national symposium on playground access, John McGovern, who was part of the Regulatory Negotiating Committee and the original Recreation Access Advisory Committee, to the Access Board, made some really interesting comments on that. And basically said, transfers, they can work if you have the ability to transfer, but use a ramp where you have the opportunity to do that. And I think that is a really important point to make is that we really need to give kids choices. Because if you look at the playground environment in general, the playground is very different from the classroom. The playground is where kids learn what their differences and their similarities are with each other. And so right away, in the playground environment, if we have asked a kid who uses an assistive device, like a wheelchair, to get out and transfer in order to use the same slide the an ambulatory kid can do with steps, we are asking them to bring attention to themselves. Right there we have created a barrier to inclusion naturally happening by asking that child to make that type of a choice. So, again, where you have the opportunity to design for different options or give children choices on whether or not they decide to leave their assistive device, that is definitely the side that we would advocate to you. The next slide is really interesting, too. Because we have seen so many transfer systems that are out there. And you know, obviously the accessibility guidelines say you can use them as a form of access. But nowhere in the accessibility guidelines does it say they have to be ugly steps. So this next slide is an example of that. The manufacturer has gone one step further to make the transfer system more of a play, creative play environment. They have used a molded plastic there that looks like a mountain that can be climbed up. So by using a little bit of creativity, just taken what can be a sterile design and made it more of a creative play scape for a child. The next area of questions that we get from people is on equipment and what type of equipment to use. And this is a really interesting area. It seems like especially in the last couple of years, we have got an lot of questions from people that they are almost looking for prescriptive equipment based on the child''s disability by asking questions like, what type of equipment is best for a kid with autism? What is best for a kid with spina bifida? What is best for a kid with cerebral palsy? And the point we try to get back to is that when you are looking at equipment and deciding on what type of equipment to use, really the equipment should facilitate child development for everyone. You are not really looking at this device is best for kids with autism. Or this device is best for kids with spina bifida. You are really looking at child development in general. And if the equipment is designed with play value in mind and designed with experience for the user in mind, the equipment should facilitate child development for everyone. When we talk about child development, you know, again, one of the major misperceptions that is out there, especially in the planning process is that people naturally, community groups, parent teacher groups and so forth, their first point of the design process is by starting with a catalog. And we really recommend to people to not start with a catalog. In fact, when I was teaching my undergraduate class, that was their clear direction, that you are not to look at the catalog first. you are to sit down and go through a planning exercise where you are really talking about what are the outcomes, or what are the types of experiences you want children to have on the playground, and then you are choosing what the different designs or equipment might be in order to facilitate those different experiences. And when we talk about child development, we are really talking about such a range of experiences. Everything from facilitating exploration, investigation, sensory rich experiences. Different types of experiences for symbolic or pretend or dramatic play. Different experiences, both in small and large motor skills, where you are facilitating flexibility, balance, agility, strength. Of course you want to give challenge and variety. You want to give children the opportunity for constructive play. Also, for social play. Don''t forget, the playground, very different from the classroom environment is that the playground is an unstructured environment. And this is where children can truly learn in a non-threatening environment. Different types of life skills. Whether it is listening with each other, negotiating. Different types of cooperation. Think about the different types of water equipment. Elements that are out there now. Or the simple use of the seesaw or the teeter-totter. You remember when you were a kid and you were on a teeter-totter, it required cooperation in order to go up and down on the teeter-totter. It also involved a certain degree of trust for your partner that they were not all of a sudden, while you were in midair, going to step off of the teater to that and let you drop off to the bottom. There are different social skills and life skills we want to teach in the playground environment that children will be able to take with them throughout their lifetime. This is also an area where free play, games with rules, different socialization can take place as well. we talked in the class I was teaching, if you look back to your childhood experiences, even your adult experiences, when you were totally immersed in the experience, and Jane does a really good job of talking about immersion and play. Can you remember when you were a kid and outside and you lost all track of time. You were so immersed in the activity that your mom called you in to come in for dinner and you didn''t want to. You didn''t have time to come in, because you were so immersed in the experience. That is one of the experiences you want to facilitate in your playground design, so children have an opportunity to be immersed in the design. Ultimately what it comes back to, this is my recreation soap box, these are the types of experiences and the type of sensations we need to have and be able to develop from childhood on through our adult life. This is how we create balance in our life. If we can create a sense of balance as a child and bring that through to our adult life, when we are stressed at work and we have recreation and we know what the different activities are that we can immerse ourselves in, that is how we can reduce stress and hopefully lead, have a quality healthy life so that we are not overwhelmed with different types of health issues and so forth. The next couple of slides I have given you a list of different questions to ask when you talk to the manufacturers. And really probably out of that, if you don''t have experience with it, manufacturer''s equipment, this is when we would really recommend that you ask to get a list of their customers and installations in the area so that you can go and visit them. Because what you see in the catalog might be totally different from what the actual installation looks like. This is an opportunity for you to talk to their customers and get a greater sense of what has worked, what hasn''t worked. If they had the opportunity to do it again, what they might do different. This is how we all can truly learn from the rest of our colleagues in the field. there are so many examples of great playground designs out there, if you use the sales reps, manufacturers and organizations like NCA, we can develop that network and push the envelope on playground design. That gets me back to my soapbox again, when we look at specific types of equipment, it is so funny when we go out and visit different playgrounds. It still seems that the only elevated activities are the tic-tac-toe panels. And I have a slide there of a little girl with down syndrome. She is standing next to a tic-tac-toe panel with a little boy. And if there is anything, and this is kind of my tongue-in-cheek comment, yeah, that is probably what we have taught children with disabilities to do, play tic-tac-toe and how to use the steering wheel on the elevated components because we haven''t developed anything else fun with play value for them to do on the elevated structures. So this gets back to the issue of looking at the different types of experiences that you want children to have. And really pushing that through with the design. The next play panel example that I have given up there takes that desire to provide a sensory-rich experience. And it just pushes it one step farther. And that play panel, it is an example of musical scale with big round buttons. If you push the button, then different musical notes will play. And there are a lot of different examples of that that are coming out on the market. But, again, looking at what are the different types of experiences that you want, and how can they be designed into the structure so that they promote child development for all of the children using the playground area. The next example is actually a really neat example that I visited last summer. It is in a Chicago area park district. Again, a very subtle design. I am not sure what the technical name for the manufacturers are of these two pieces of equipment. But basically they are poles that have a foot rest on them that you can stand up on. And they kind of move back and forth. They have hand holds. And you are just simply kind of balancing on them. And simply by modifying one of the platforms to make it a little bit larger, it provides enough room for a child to transfer on to it if they can''t stand up. They can sit on it instead. if an adult wants to try it, or a child with big feet wants to try it and the original or traditional-type design platform is too narrow, the modified one provides them with more room to do that. Right there, they have integrated those two pieces together. That can be used for both children with and without disabilities. The next example is at that same playground. Again, this is giving choice to kids that might use their assistive device and whether or not they want to choose to transfer. This is the sand area. You can see there is an elevated play table there. There is also a transfer system so the child can transfer down into the sand. Another example, the following slide shows an elevated play table as well. And then the third slide shows another example with that same sand table, the transfer system and then the containment area or the perimeter of that is a concrete curved border. If they just went back and made that concrete border just a little bit wider, that is a great sitting opportunity for mom or dad, too, to sit down there. And again, it gives choice to the user. It also gives choice to mom and dad, whether or not they want their child to actually transfer or fully immerse themselves in the sand. And take that sand home with them in the car or in the washing machine. The next example of equipment, I have a couple different here on swings. We get this question a lot at NCA as well as, what type of swing would you recommend. and probably your best bet there is to go with a variety of both; the bucket swings are really meant for toddlers, the belt swings are meant for older children, or in this case, the example there is dad swinging right next to his daughter. And the next slide shows the example of the molded plastic chair swing. I think it is important for those of you that are going to be purchasing or choosing equipment to know there is nothing in the accessibility guidelines that requires you to choose the plastic molded swing. The safety concern to look at there is what the weight of the swing is, so that it doesn''t become a safety issue if a child might be walking in front of another child. The Consumer Product Safety Commission a few years back actually issued a notice recommending to playground owners to remove, they were animal swings. Molded metal animal swings. They had a number of instances where because of the weight of the swing, children walking in front of them were being hit by these large animal swings and becoming injured. The concern for the large molded swing there is similar to that. And again, talking to the manufacturer and also talking to their customers that have already purchased them and installed them, what their recommendations are. You know, we kind of get mixed reviews in both of the molded swings and the belt swings on which is best for which type of child with a disability. I think that really kind of gets back again to choices. We have heard from some parents that they really like the molded swings, because it helps give their child some stability. We have heard from other parents that they prefer the belt swing simply because their child, based on the rigidity of their muscle tone and so forth, that they can''t sit in a molded swing. Sometimes a parent will prefer to sit in a belt swing and actually have the child on their lap. So providing a variety of different swing types to yet again give choices to the user and parents as well. Because what parent doesn''t want to have that experience with their young toddler or child when they are out of the playground? Sometimes they want to become just as actively involved with a child rather than just sitting on the park bench and watching them go by. Then probably one of the, another of the most frequently questions we get is in regards to the wheelchair platform swings. That is the next slide there. And, again, this goes back to the CPSC recommendation, both for those large swings and multiuse swings. These wheelchair platform swings are not recommended for public playgrounds. They are only recommended, I actually can''t tell you who recommends them. But they are only recommended use for supervised playgrounds. Usually you will find them in some type of rehabilitation hospital. But they are not recommended for playgrounds. And you can see from the next slide, they just really become a safety issue. In the short time, this spring, when I was visiting this particular supply ground, there were at least two little boys that at different times had come up to the wheelchair platform swings, laid down on it and asked their parent or grandparent to swing them. So you can see, here is just one child swinging on the platform. What happens when we get three or four kids swinging on it? it has a real safety risk issue that can arise from that. So we do not recommend those for public playgrounds. I will cover surfacing and we can open it up for questions. One of the main areas or questions we continue to get, what is an accessible surface. The Access Boards Accessibility Guidelines actually references the ASTM, requirement of 1951 which is the test method for playground surfacing around equipment. And basically what that test is, it is called the wheelchair work method. And basically it is 165-pound adult, plus or minus 11 pounds, is placed in a manual wheelchair and required to push the manual wheelchair over a specific distance and up a ramp. The manual wheelchair is hooked up to a computer. And it actually records data about the force required to go over that surface. Really, for those of you picking surfaces, and you are working with the different surface manufacturers. The surface manufacturer can say they pass ASTM1951. The current equivalent value to actually pass it would be the same of traveling up a 7% ramp. So basically what that means, if your surface passes 1951, you should be asking what the value was that the surface passed at. So if you are looking at choosing the different surfaces, it could mean if you are choosing a surface that barely passes 1951, in essence, you are going to be asking whether or not a child or an adult using a wheelchair visiting your playground, to go over a surface that is level, but they are going to be using the amount of force or the amount of work required to always go up a 7% ramp. So when we talk about this at NCA, it could be the issue of, the child has had to exert so much energy just getting over the surfacing that they no longer have any energy left to play. And you have designed a play environment. This is the whole reason that you have provided the environment, is for them to play. If they are too tired to use it, you have kind of defeated your purpose there. Important for you to know, the ASTM standard is actually under revision. The ASTM committee is actually meeting in Toronto on Thursday and looking at adopting a new field test method. Some of you may be familiar with it. it was developed by Beneficial designs. It is called the rotational penetrometer. I have a picture there of the rotational penetrometer. That is a wheelchair caster placed on a tripod with a spring-loaded caliper. so you drop the wheelchair caster down on to the surface. you take the first reading, which is your firmness. move the caster back and forth. the second reading will give you your stability. so hopefully within the next several months, we will see that test method passed. and this will truly give playground owners a lot more information in the field. you can purchase one now and use that for your playground surfaces to test firmness and stability. I wanted to give some time for questions. so the rest of the slides there, if you have questions there, we can go back to those. those are some of the existing issues of the different types of surfacing issues that we come along with.
Jennifer did tell us she could talk for hours on this topic.
I know!
Let us bring Lance back in to give people instructions on how to ask questions.
Jennifer, real quick, while people are getting in there, someone submitted online, and you touched on this at the top and throughout your presentation. The biggest users of play areas are children. But this individual was asking about parents and grandparents and guardians that have disabilities and what responsibilities or considerations are given to those individuals that need to perhaps rescue or assist a child.
That is a perfect question. That totally leads into what the issue is. One of the designs that we are seeing become more frequently used is the notion of unitary surface as the primary access route throughout the playground and to the accessible equipment. And then it is filled in with a loose fill for the rest of the equipment. The problem there is, you can''t ask a child, if you get hurt, could you make sure and get hurt on the accessible route? So, just because the major issue when the loose fill surface isn''t maintained up to the level and in the areas that a caregiver might not be able to get to. So definitely in the planning process, that is something that needs to be taken into consideration.
Sure. Excellent. All right. Lance, let us go to our first question, please.
Hello, my name is Candy. I am calling from Springfield, Illinois. You eluded to the funding area. I am wondering if there is a specific grant source or something like Ronald McDonald or something like that who is more willing to fund an accessible playground?
You know, I wish there was an easy answer to that. But looking for funding in general, whether or not it is for your playground or for your school or a community build project, it requires the same type of research and the same type of global approach. We have on the National Center on Accessibility website, we have a monograph on funding. In search of the money tree. That has a listing of several different resources there and starting places to look at. Really what we recommend to people, I am trying to see how to tactfully put this. We don''t really recommend to people to use the telethon type approach, especially for those of you that work in disability and advocacy. There is a certain stigmatization, when we start to say these poor kids with disabilities, they have nothing else. They need this playground. Then we are creating and we are fostering stigmatization and stereotyping of children with disabilities. So really when it comes to the approach, and looking for the funding, we would recommend something that your approach or proposal through the funding process is that the playground is going to benefit all children, not just children with disabilities.
All right. Great. Thank you for your question. Lance, can we go to our next question, please.
Go ahead with your question. If you are using a speakerphone, if you could pick up the handset or get closer to the speaker. We are having difficulty hearing you.
In the presentation, you talked about, Jennifer, two questions. What is an accessible playground definition, as well as what is an accessible surface. I am not sure you actually defined that.
Well I tried to be elusive today! Well, bottom line is, what is an accessible playground? You are really going back to the Access Board accessibility guidelines. And I didn''t really go into those too hot and heavy. Because one, I was directed not to, because you have already had that session. And because the Access Board has a number of technical assistance publications on that. The surfacing in and of itself is its own kind of can of worms there. What you are looking for in terms of surfacing. If you are going to purchase a surface or make your own surface, first, your surface needs to meet ASTM 1292. And that means that it is meeting the test for impact attenuation. So if a child falls on it, it is impact attenuating. Next it needs to meet the test for 1951. The current problem with ASTM 1951, it is a lab test. That means, and there are a handful of manufacturers that have surfaces on the market that claim that they are ADA approved. And we know there is no such thing as ADA approved. Or that they meet ASTM 1951. But they meet it in the lab. So you as a playground owner, your best practice would be that if you are about to purchase a surface that you write a purchasing agreement that requires once that surface is installed, it is immediately tested. I think it is between 30 and 90 days after installation. For 1292, the test for impact attenuation. And that it be tested with the rotational penetrometer with accessible or for the firmness and stability. Now I have an article on the NCA site. It is also listed in your resource site. I hadn''t gotten the point in the presentation. This is about the City of Detroit. The City of Detroit a couple of years ago decided that they were going to go to all poured in play surfaces. And they had some bad experiences with some bidding. So they really firmed up their purchasing process. And they are presently one of the only agencies in the country that is doing this. And if we get more to do this, it is going to give the playground owner so much more purchasing power. Basically in their purchase agreement, they require that once the surface is installed, anywhere between 30 and 90 days, it has to be tested for those two tests, ASTM 1292 and with the rotational penetrometer. And since it has not yet been adopted by ASTM, the City of Detroit actually dictates what they believe the value should be for the test results. Then the City of Detroit requires that the surface be tested again at two, four and five years. And their expectation is that if they have segments of the surface that fail, they hold the manufacturer''s feet to the fire. They basically say, you gave us a five-year warranty. This part of the segment of the surface failed. You need to come back and fix this. The article is on our web site. And both the City of Detroit and Ross Hoover from the Canada playground advisory committee are both willing to share that information with those of you that are out there that are interested in tightening up your purchasing agreement.
All right. Thank you for your question. Jennifer, that maintenance of accessible features is a requirement of both Titles II and III of the ADA. It addresses the facilities and buildings, people think of that. But when it comes to play areas, that is obviously a big issue. All of the accessible play components. But if you don''t maintain the accessible path of travel, children or adults can''t get to the play components to begin with.
Absolutely. That is probably one of the most critical points, especially with the loose-fill materials. Is that you can purchase it and install it, so it is accessible. But one good weekend or one good week during the school year, the weather is nice, you have a lot of kids out there, and your surface conditions can totally change. You as the public playground owner have the responsibility. So currently, the deficiency with ASTM is there is no field test. But hopefully, and with our work with ASTM, hopefully there will be one. We already have a device that is out there that could be used. As the playground owner, you can make that part of your best practice without it actually being part of the ASTM standard.
Lance, can we have our next question, please.
Go ahead with your question, Kim.
(inaudible) statistics to establish what is needed for accessible playgrounds or do you ask parents of disabled children what they feel ought to be on playgrounds?
Did you catch the first part of the question?
Not the first part.
Could you repeat the first part of your question, a little slower, please.
Do you guys know what statistics is needed to establish what is needed on an accessible playground.
It really depends on where the playground is. And on parks and recreation, generally what we would recommend is that you are involving the community in the planning process. So the planning process and what is needed at one playground might be totally different from what is needed at another playground. So if you are working with a school, you should naturally include the parents and children and teachers that are involved in that school. Then if you are working with neighborhood playgrounds, you might have totally different expectations from one neighborhood to another neighborhood. And that is really where the community involvement comes into play.
Okay. Thank you for the question. Lance, our next question, please.
Go ahead with your question, Becky. Okay. The next question.
Yeah I have a couple of questions, do I just ask one for now?
Yeah, let us get one answered. If we have time, we will come back around to you, again.
The first thing, I love the soapbox. I think it is excellent. My main question, is the transfer service, when you are talking about people transferring to different surfaces, are those, how are they making those surfaces in order to reduce things like skin breakdown. Those types of things. Not the surface they are actually riding on, the actual transfer surface, whether it be a swing or a platform or something like that.
That is a really good question. And those actually were not, I know there was discussion in the regulatory negotiating process. But they are not actually addressed in the accessibility guidelines as they sit right now. that is where usability testing, if you are considering different types of equipment or transfer systems, of actually going and visiting some of the installations and actually testing them out. A lot of the manufacturers are using, for the transfer systems, they are using powder coated metal. One of the issues that comes into play with that is coloring, what color you choose. In the summer, if you have chosen a dark color, it is going to conduct a lot more heat. It is going to become a lot hotter. So right there, you have kind of fostered a barrier without intending to do so. Again, that is going to - there is nothing in the accessibility guidelines currently. But that is definitely where the usability testing can really, and talking to the customers can really be of benefit to you.
All right. Thank you for the question. Lance, can you go to our next question, please.
Hi, Jennifer.
Hi, John.
How are you?
Good. Thank you.
I just wanted to respond to Candy''s question, from Springfield, about funding playgrounds. In Illinois, if you have access to a park district, park districts and municipal recreational departments that are part of a special recreation association have a special funding source that can be used to make playground surfaces accessible. And also make playground components accessible as well. So candy stout, if you are not talking to the Springfield park district, I would urge you to do so. If you have questions, you can get ahold of me, too. That would be great.
Excellent. Thanks, John for pointing that out.
Thanks.
Lance, can we go to our next question, please?
Hi, Jennifer. How are you doing?
Good, thank you.
First of all, if she also would like to talk to the state park system, she could do that. Do your studies show a preference of the surfaces of wood or rubber? Can you talk a little bit about the maintenance and the environmental impact of each of those?
I think you are talking about the NCA surface research is that we at the National Center on Accessibility have been working to implement some surface testing, it is actually twofold. The first part of it is looking at the initial cost for installation and maintenance of the surfacing over a five to seven-year period of time. The second part of that testing is actually with children with disabilities. At this point, we have not been able to move forward with that yet. So we do not have any really rich data on what the actual preference is of children with disabilities that would be using different types of assistive devices. Definitely there is maintenance issues. Whether or not you are using rubber surface. Or whether or not unitary poured¬-in-place rubber surface or a loose-fill material. And the last section of slides kind of give you some of the examples that you come up with. One of the issues that we are hearing a lot when it comes to the rubber surfacing is that in certain conditions, as the poured-in-place rubber ages, it is actually becoming harder. And it might, after a certain number of years, not meet the ASTM requirement for impact attenuation. On the flip side of that, with the loose-fill surfacing, so there is a surface that does not require that kind of ongoing day-to-day or weekly maintenance. But on the flip side of it, the loose-fill surface, based on the usage you are getting at your playground, might be an issue of going back and sending crews back daily or weekly or monthly, whatever the use is, to go in and continue to fill those areas. So really it comes down to one of the first questions that the playground owner really has to ask. What are my resources available? I think the City of Detroit is a really good example. They had decided a couple of years ago that they only have capital improvement budget. They do not have a maintenance budget. So they made the decision, because they don''t have the resources for maintenance, that their new installations were going to be unitary surfaces. They recognized that that cost more upfront. But they believe that later on down the line, the cost for the maintenance of the loose fill that eventually, it will even out. Unfortunately, at this point in time, we don''t have any data to show what the cost difference is for the maintenance of those two different types of surfaces. We need more research.
All right. Thanks. Thanks for the question. Our next question, please, Lance?
What advice do you have for modifying an existing playground? We are not starting from a "blank sheet", but a well-established city park to which we would like to bring accessiblity.
That is a great question. My first recommendation is to get a certified playground safety inspector that has gone through the National Playground Safety Institute to come out and do a safety audit of your existing playground. This continues to be an issue that playground owners make the assumption that just because they purchased equipment that it meets the safety requirements. Well, equipment by and of its nature needs ongoing maintenance, whether or not it is the S hooks in your swings or different bolts or transition platforms between your platform and your slide and so forth. You really need for your existing structures, you need to really do a safety audit. From there, I would recommend that you also ask someone to look at the accessibility to see, you know, basically to do the numbers game to start with, to see if you have your recommended number of ground level activities. And if you have your access to your elevated structures. There are a number of different type of resources. You are welcome to call me. I have given my Email there as well. If you have more questions, I could try to get you hooked up with someone in your area that could help you.
All right. Thank you for the question. Lance, I think we have time for one more question.
Hi, this is Kathy.
Go ahead with your question. I think we lost them. Another question, lance, please.
Yeah, my question is, is there a requirement as far as how much or what percentage of a playground needs to be accessible?
The requirement is not the percentage. The big picture approach the Access Board attempted to take with the accessibility guidelines is that the playground, when viewed in its entirety, should provide the same variety of the different types of experiences for children with disabilities as it does for children without disabilities. So it is not really a percentage. It actually looks at the different type of experiences that you have. So if you have a swinging experience, at least one of those swings experiences should be accessible. If you have a sliding experience, at least one of those sliding experiences should be accessible and so forth. The Access Board, on the Access Board web site, if you go to access-board.gov, they actually have their technical assistance publication on there specific to playgrounds. And that explains it in a little bit greater detail. I have listed here on the horizon, we have been working with the Access Board for about the last year and a half. They have actually contracted a development firm and have developed an online training module, specific to the accessibility guidelines application to play areas. So our word from the Access Board, hopefully that will be going live sometime this summer or this fall. So that will be another resource as well.
Thank you.
Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for the question. And so what usually happens, we could probably spend another hour taking questions. But unfortunately, we have reached the bottom of the hour. For those of you that didn''t get your questions answered, I would encourage you to contact your regional ADA & IT center at 800-949-4232 for follow-up with Jennifer at the National Center on Accessibility. I want to remind you of our upcoming session, the second part in our built environment series. That will be taking place June 20 and that will explore permanent rooms and spaces and accessible signage. We will have Mark Derry again from Eastlake, Derry and Associates to explore that topic. And you can find additional information about that session and information on how to register by visiting the ADA audio home page at www.ada-audio.org. As I mentioned at the top of the session, the national network of ADA & IT centers is looking to collect information on individual''s experiences with the ADA. And you can find that survey at www.adata.org. As well from that web site you can find the web site of the regional ADA & IT center that serves your state. I want to thank Jennifer for joining us this afternoon. We always appreciate her expertise in the area of recreation. It is always a pleasure having her join us. And on behalf of the ten National ADA & IT centers, I want to thank all of you for joining us and hope you will be able to join us on June 20. Thank you and have a great afternoon.