In Canada, approximately 5% of children 0-3 years and nearly 10% of children 4-5 years, experience some form of disability (e.g., mobility, seeing, learning; 1). Yet, children with a disability are 25% less likely to attend child care compared to children without (2). Moreover, among children with a disability that do attend child care, 80% experience some form of exclusion (3).
New Videos and Tips for Supporting Children with Disabilities in Natural Spaces
We invite you to take a look at these resources and we hope they are useful in your journey towards inclusion! Please let us know if these resources inspire new ideas for promoting inclusion. We are always open to feedback and collaboration!
See our new modules here: https://www.outdoorplaycanada.ca/sprout-able-modules-and-resources/
These videos were inspired by an evidence-informed series of videos developed by OutsidePlay.org on how to support risky play in early years programs.
Barriers to Inclusive Participation
Barriers to inclusive participation in child care are a result of challenges in both the physical and social environment, where such barriers are further compounded in outdoor settings. For example, traditional use of sand in playgrounds, decks without proper ramps, uneven ground cover such as pea gravel and a lack of sun or wind protection, are all common physical barriers in outdoor play spaces. Moreover, approximately 80% of early childhood educators in Canada report challenges in providing inclusive care, citing limitations such as a lack of knowledge, experience, and training necessary for supporting children with disabilities. This is worsened still when play and learning is brought outdoors (4).
The Research Project
In response to these challenges, our team at the Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play are leading a 4-year project exploring and addressing barriers and facilitators in the physical and social environments to outdoor play and learning in natural spaces for children with a disability. To inform this work, we began with a pilot study, learning from programs in both Ontario and Quebec on their strategies in supporting inclusive outdoor play and learning. We then began to build-out our project, informed by that initial pilot work. We have begun collecting first-person perspectives from the children attending childcare programs in Ottawa (via Go-Pro cameras), their parents and educators, as well as perspectives from both local, regional, and even international community partners with lived experience of disability and/or inclusive outdoor play to identify both barriers and facilitators of the natural environment to outdoor learning and play.
This project started in December 2023. As we have just passed the two-year mark of this project, we are excited to begin sharing resources we have developed, informed by our work thus far!
Based on data collected in Ottawa, Waterloo, and Montreal, we identified four common barriers educators face when supporting children with disabilities in natural spaces:
- health concerns and communicating around this with families,
- physical safety and communicating around this with families,
- identifying and addressing sensory needs,
- and finally, supporting risky play for children of all abilities.
Informed Solutions
To help educators think about how they might navigate these common challenges, we created a series of tip sheets and video modules discussing each of these challenges. In each video, the educator finds themselves presented with a situation in which they must choose how to respond. The video provides two possibilities and plays out the situation depending on the response from the educator, highlighting the impact of the educator’s response. These materials were developed with our intersectoral team, including early childhood educators who routinely bring play and learning outdoors in Ottawa.
The Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play is a research-practice-policy partnership between Outdoor Play Canada, the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the CHEO Research Institute, Algonquin College, Andrew Fleck Children’s Services, University of Toronto, and the Canadian Disability Participation Project. To learn more about this collaboration, visit our website: https://www.outdoorplaycanada.ca/ccop/ or email us directly: info@outdoorplaycanada.ca .
References
- Statistics Canada. (2022). A profile of children with affirmative responses to the 2016 census questions on difficulties with activities of daily living. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2022003/article/00006-eng.htm
- United Nations Children’s Fund. Seen, Counted, Included: Using Data to Shed Light on the Well-Being of Children with Disabilities.; 2021
- Van Rhijn T, Underwood K, Frankel E, et al. Role of Child Care in Creating Inclusive Communities and Access for All. Canadian Public Policy. 2021;47(3):399-409. doi:10.3138/CPP.2021-010/ASSET/IMAGES/SMALL/CPP.2021-010_F01.GIF
- Irwin SH, Lero DS. Inclusion Quality: Children with Disabilities in Early Learning and Child Care in Canada. Breton Books; 2020.
