Learn how people with disabilities can get healthy AND help the planet
Part of the work of Kennett Outdoors (and that of our sister site Kennett Ability Network) is to raise awareness about the many ways that people with developmental disabilities (like my daughter Margot pictured here) can get healthy outdoors. Next week, we will highlight two approaches at the national Land Trust Alliance Rally in Rhode Island and here in Pennsylvania at the Penn State Heath Recfest. We hope you have the chance to check these out!
At the LTA, we continue our work with the Advisory Council on Inclusive Health and Disabilities to promote ways to involve people with disabilities in environmental stewardship. At this year's national conference to be held in in Providence September 25-28, we are leading a panel describing some of the first steps land trusts take to engage people with disabilities. The panel includes presentations from two of the first cohort of grantees in the 2024 Partnerships for Disability Access, Inclusion and Leadership program spearheaded by LTA in collaboration with Disabled Hikers. We will also highlight some lessons regarding our own work, including our accessible garden design and how we work with mulch. One goal of our panel is to hear directly from land trusts about the challenges and opportunities they have been facing three years after the launch of the Open to All Guidelines, and facilitate the kinds of peer-to-peer brainstorming needed to take the first steps to including everyone.
We are also excited to join the Penn State Health RecFest (held on September 28th in Mannheim PA) for the first time this year. RecFest provides invaluable opportunities to see (and in some cases) try adaptive recreation equipment and get a taste of adaptive recreation programming. Being able to actually visualize what participation looks like can be the turning point for a parent debating about whether to take a risk on a new activity. We will be bringing our adapted cargo bike, special needs bike trailer, and snow slider to demonstrate.
Our experience helping Margot to ski with us illustrates how important it is to see the equipment and effort involved, whether you are a parent deciding whether to try a new activity or a land trust trying to take the first shaky steps towards meaningful inclusion. Once I could see how the snow slider offered Margot the right level of support without being too difficult for me to manage, I could being to imagine the next steps: how to get the training, coaching, and other support needed; where to find a program and facilities matching our needs; beginning to walk through each step of the activity to anticipate other barriers... and so on. If the task seems impossible, we break it down into smaller steps we can begin to image taking. Before you know it, you too might find yourself doing something you once could not imagine - in our case, blasting down a 2000' descent on a beautiful winter day!!
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