The Toolkit

Playgrounds in Maryland should be fully inclusive for all. Inclusive playgrounds do this by making all members of the community feel like they belong. That means an outdoor playground and all the nearby areas, like parking lots and bathrooms, are meaningfully accessible.

But this doesn’t always happen in real life. When you go to a playground in your community, what do you notice that does and does not meet your needs? What about the needs of others? 

There are different ways to identify an issue. One way you can identify an issue in your community is by using a checklist. A checklist is a structured tool for identifying an issue. It helps you compare what your playground is like compared to what other people say an inclusive playground should have. The downside of a checklist is it is not specific to your community. So, in addition to checklists, you also should have conversations with people in your community. Conversations are a way to learn about how other people experience the world. When you ask questions like “How do you feel about the playgrounds in our community?” you can learn a lot.

If you want to create a new inclusive playground or make an existing playground better, you will want to form a committee. 

A committee is a group of people that work together to lead a project. This committee can be formal or informal. A formal committee usually means there are roles for each person and rules to follow for the meetings. An informal committee usually means there are no official roles and less strict rules about the meetings. Both kinds of committees can be good for an inclusive playground project. 

People who are not usually included in planning for playgrounds should be specifically invited to join your committees for inclusive playgrounds. For example, people with disabilities are the best people to share about the barriers they face at playgrounds and should be included in the process. It is also a good idea to invite people who share your goal for an inclusive playground in your community. As much as possible, your committee should include people with many different ideas and experiences. This includes people who use languages other than English to communicate, people from different races and ethnicities, and people from different locations in your town or community. 

Each person should have the chance to share their ideas about the project. Many committees have rules that they follow to help them be effective. Some groups call these bylaws. When you form a committee, you will want to develop your own rules to address things like taking turns and how decisions will be made.

A vision statement is a clear purpose for your project that you can share with others. For inclusive playground projects, a vision statement describes what you want the playground to be like in your community. To develop this statement, you or your group should think about what is possible for an inclusive playground in your community. You ask the question, “what do you want people to experience when they go to the inclusive playground in my community?” Using that question, you make a list of feelings and values you want people to experience at the playground. With that list, you can develop a vision statement. This vision statement puts all the feelings and values together into a sentence to share with others.

Here is an example. First is the list of feelings and values. Following that is the vision statement. 

Belonging, Community, Inclusion, Safety, Joyful, Confident 

We want a joyful and inclusive playground in our community that promotes confidence, belonging, and safety. 

Creating a vision statement is an ongoing action. That means you should plan to have other people involved in the process. If you already have a group of people involved in your project, ask them to be part of the vision planning process and develop this together. Be ready to get feedback and revisit the statement as your group grows bigger. 

If you are working on an inclusive playground project in your community, you will need to have a plan for how to make your project a reality. Your action plan should have goals, objectives, activities, a timeline, and resources. Each of these areas work together to make a plan that you can implement to make your project a success.

The following is an example of one goal from an action plan for an inclusive playground project. 

Goal: Add an inclusive play structure to our local park. 

Objective: Increase funding for our inclusive playground project by $50,000.

Activity: Write 3 grant applications to private foundations. 

Resources: 20 hours of volunteer time, laptop with word processor, budget information, strategic plan with partnership information, letters of support from community organizations, project work plan, funder information, request for proposal information.

Timeline: 1 year

Using and updating your action plan helps you stay on track with achieving your goals. When you stay on track with your goals, you are more likely to be successful with your project. In addition, a plan is a good document to show other people about the work you plan to do or to demonstrate what you have accomplished when it is done. This can help you get more resources over time to be even more successful.