Ask an adult to describe PotashCorp Playground at Prince Phillip School in Saskatoon, and you’ll hear about how safe and innovative the new multi-sensory park designed for children with special needs is. Ask a 9-year-old and you’ll get a more direct answer.

“The old playground was boring,” says Liam, a student in the only school within the Saskatoon Public School Division that offers classes specifically geared to autistic children.  “The new one? I love everything there.“

Designed to create a safe and stimulating play experience for children, with particular attention paid to the needs Prince Phillip School’s autistic students, the park is the first of its kind in Saskatchewan. Featuring a rubberized floor surface, enhanced sensory panels and Saskatoon’s first Harmony Park Outdoor Musical Playground, the park lets children learn, play, and – perhaps most importantly – express themselves.

“Many of the children with autism who attend our school are on the lower functioning end of the scale, so their ability to verbalize what they want and need can be limited,” says Laura Orenchuk. Co-Chair of the Prince Philip Playground Committee. “For some of them, the best way to express themselves is physically, and the playground can help them do that.”

The park, which opened in May, has become an instant hit within the Prince Phillip community, according to Orenchuk. “With the old playground, you’d find 15-20 kids (out of about 200 in the school) on the playground at any given time,” she says. “When the playground re-opened in May, the school administrators actually had to enforce some boundaries about what ages  could play here and when, because everyone wanted to play on it at one time.”

Like many projects of the heart, replacing the playground started with a simple idea and a handful of concerned parents. “There had been buzz for a long time about replacing the old wooden park,” says Orenchuk. “It was falling apart, so very few kids actually played on it and repairing it wasn’t really an option. We got some parents together and decided the best thing to do was to replace the structure. So we started to fundraise, and that’s when PotashCorp came into the picture and made our dream a reality.”

Once funding was secured, the playground committee faced a unique challenge: how do you design a park to meet the special needs of Prince Phillip School students? According to Orenchuk, the answer was to ask the experts. “We started by meeting with the autism teachers in our school about what needs their students had, and what components a playground geared to them would feature,” says Orenchuk. “Once the word got out that we were looking to build this kind of structure, the ideas started coming together. We made a wish list and started contacting playground construction companies, and it took off from there.”
 
Among the companies the committee contacted was Play Works Inc., an Edmonton-based developer of innovative playground equipment. Working with representative Colin Hawkins, the committee developed a design that incorporated the recommendations of the school’s teachers, including opportunities to weave music and other sensory integration into the play experience. “Colin was instrumental in helping us pick what would work, given our needs,” says Orenchuk. “He worked with us and tinkered with the design until we had our dream playground.”

What has made the playground successful, according Liam’s mother Kristine, is that the park can be both a stimulating and calming place, depending on the needs of the child. “Because of the way the new park is set up, Liam can go and find an activity that meets his needs, and as a parent, I can have peace of mind because the park is safe,” says Kristine. “If he’s over-stimulated, he can go for a ‘body break’ to calm down. If he needs excitement, he can get that too. The experience they have at the playground can really turn around his day.”

As is true of many success stories, the park has already inspired imitators: according to Orenchuk, groups from all over the region are contacting Prince Phillip School committee members  to ask for tips on designing a park for their own organizations. “We’re getting calls from all over asking us ‘how do we do this for our school?’,” says Orenchuk. “The park has been inspiring for so many people.”

For Kristine, though, the park offers something more than a place for Liam to play. “The best part about this park is to see him be as independent as he can be,” says Kristine. “For Liam, time in the park is time for him to be creative - to self learn. It’s very rewarding as a parent to see the kind of growth he’s experienced at Prince Phillip School, and I think the park has contributed to that growth. You can’t put a price on that.”