Levelling the Playing Field: Promoting manageable risk taking in children with disabilities, starting with the school playground

The program will have two arms: (1) risk reframing workshops to help parents and teachers distinguish manageable from unhealthy risk and recognise the benefits of manageable risktaking (e.g., becoming more responsible, vigilant) and (2) introducing materials with no obvious play value to the school playground to provide opportunities for adults and children to practice promoting and engaging in manageable risk-taking in the context of social, creative and active play. Risk Reframing workshops: 3 workshops will be provided each lasting 2 hours in duration. The focus of the workshop is on helping parents and teachers distinguish manageable from unhealthy risk-taking and recognize the benefits of manageable risk-taking (e.g., becoming more responsible, vigilant). Our previous research findings indicated that parents and teachers would benefit from follow up workshops. Two sessions have been added to this intervention to allow for continued discussion among participants about their experiences of risk reframing. Playground Materials:introducing materials with no obvious play value to the school playground to provide opportunities for adults and children to practice promoting and engaging in manageable risk-taking in the context of social, creative and active play. Play materials will meet 7 criteria: 1) are, or are made from, re-cycled materials; 2) have no obvious play value; 3) encourage cooperative, gross motor play; 4) have multiple uses; 5) promote challenging and creative play; 6) provide interesting sensory experiences (e.g., from touch or movement); and 7) any hazards inherent to the materials can easily be identified and managed by a child. New materials will be introduced periodically to replace broken items and complement existing materials. Maintenance of the materials will be the joint responsibility of the researchers and school staff. Two groups (consisting of 3 schools in each group) will each receive both components of the intervention. Three schools will receive the intervention first and three schools will receive the intervention second. Each program will engage in 2 rounds of intervention over 2 years. In Round 1, interventions will be introduced after a 2-term delay or withdrawn for 2 terms (depending on group membership). In Round 2, each program will retain the materials uninterrupted for 3 terms. Time frame: The study will take place over 3 years. Two schools will be involved in each year. Following a short (1-2 week) baseline when pretest measures will be taken, each of the schools will engage in both intervention and control phases; only the order (intervention first or control first) will be different. Schools that have intervention first will be involved in project activities for 2 terms followed by 2 terms when the research team collects data but no other project activities occur. For the other schools, it will be the opposite: 2 terms of data collection only followed by 2 terms of project activities. We will decide which schools are in which group by lottery. A school term is approximately 2.5 months in duration and two terms is approximately 5 months. Therefore intervention period is approx. 5 months + control period approx. 5 months. The risk reframing sessions with adults will take place at the outset of the intervention for each school (e.g., week 1) and follow-up sessions will occur at the mid-point (e.g., after two months of intervention, approximately week 10) and again near the end (e.g., approximately week 19). Scheduling the risk reframing sessions will require a degree of flexibility to ensure opportunity for participants to attend.