This fully accessible playground was constructed at The Ron Joyce Children’s Health Center, a brand new facility associated with McMaster Children’s Hospital.  The only facility of its kind in Canada, it was purpose-built to offer a range of integrated programs and medical services to children, youth and their families.  A custom accessible playground was designed as a part of the rehabilitation and therapy program for children with a wide spectrum of disabilities.  The playground had to meet AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities) requirements as well as Annex H of the CSA Children’s Play spaces and Equipment Standard (CAN/ CSAZ614-07).

The multi-level playground was designed with input from over 20 doctors, accessibility consultants, and therapists who work with children at the center.  It is themed to represent the City of Hamilton including its iconic bridges, steel mills, and the colourful autumn trees of Cootes Paradise.  The play components engage children’s senses – the feel of the hand carved wood, the muted colours of nature, the sounds of clatter as they wheel or walk over rumble bridges.  The structures offer graduated challenge for children so they can further develop their kinaesthetic awareness and abilities.

Children and their therapists can choose from a variety of routes and paths that include ramps, stairs, beams, climbing walls and ropes.  Children will gain strength, courage, confidence and endurance as their treatment progresses.

• Pathways: Interconnected, coloured, and accessible pathways link play opportunities; blue represents the Hamilton waterfront.  An outer perimeter pathway serves as a running, walking circuit or mini wheeling track.

• Berms: The steel mills and smoke stacks reflect the City of Hamilton and were custom designed and constructed to serve as play houses along the connected elevated paths.  The colourful autumn trees of Cootes Paradise can be accessed at ground level or atop the berm and were designed so that caregivers and therapists can see children while giving them a sense of being in a private, enclosed spaces

• Climbing routes/elements: The topography of the playspace enables multiple routes and elements with varying degrees of steepness and difficulty so children can climb, roll, balance and develop upper body strength as they manoeuver up climbing walls, along raised balance beams, and over boulders.

• Bridges/Ramps: The clatter bridge introduces a fun element that stimulates proprioception, vestibular stimulation and kinesthetic awareness.  Ramps connect children to slides and create pathways underneath for children to walk/run/wheel under.