Dr. Suzanne Beno (left) and Dr. Emilie Beaulieu (right) led the development of the Canadian Paediatric Society’s Outdoor Risky Play Position Statement, Healthy childhood development through outdoor risky play: Navigating the balance with injury prevention. 

The Position Statement formally recognizes the critical role of outdoor, risky play in children’s health, well-being and development. It encourages paediatric health care providers to consider outdoor risky play as a way of addressing common health issues in children. It invites public health authorities and policy-makers to support and promote outdoor risky play opportunities in Canadian communities. To develop the Position Statement, Drs. Beno and Beaulieu led a rigorous and collaborative process to ensure that the statement is informed by a thorough review of available research, paying close attention to equity in play, and diversity of experiences of Canadian children and their families. The Position Statement is timely. It reflects growing concerns raised in Canada and internationally over children’s decreasing opportunities for free – unstructured and unsupervised – outdoor play, including risky play, and the negative impacts this has had on children’s health and wellbeing. Drs. Beno and Beaulieu’s thoughtful consideration of available evidence calls for a need to balance injury prevention and risk-taking, and keep children “as safe as necessarily,” not “as safe as possible.” The Position Statement has brought increased attention to children’s outdoor risky play, in Canada and internationally, both in professional circles and in public discourse. Awarding Drs. Beno and Beaulieu this award is a way of recognizing the important impact they have made on children’s health and well-being by promoting outdoor risky play through policy change. 

Congratulations Dr. Beno and Dr. Beaulieu!

Carolyn (left) is a teacher with the CHEO school, teaching French and outdoor education. Carolyn is a major outdoor play advocate at the CHEO school. CHEO School students have complex medical needs, with intensive treatment (physio, speech, occupational) schedules that would otherwise prevent them from regularly attending school. During her years at CHEO School, she has steadily increased the number of hours her students spend learning outdoors. She uses various outdoor areas located on the Hospital Campus, including the Outdoor Classroom, which she began creating shortly before the pandemic. Despite the many physical challenges the children in her care face, limited resources available to the team, and push back from parents and other educators, Carolyn has remained steadfast in her commitment to bringing her students outdoors (almost) every day. She has additionally joined the OPC team as an advisory member for our SPROUT-Able project and has meaningfully contributed to that project. Carolyn is a true outdoor play champion! 

Sarah Regan (right) is the outdoor classroom and garden teacher at Homma elementary school in Richmond, BC. Sarah offers daily opportunities for children to engage in all weather outdoor play and learning in all seasons throughout the school year. Sarah’s teaches all curricular content entirely outdoors and a new class of children join her in the outdoor classroom and school garden every hour throughout the school day. This means she teaches children aged 5 to 12 entirely outdoors everyday of the week, no matter what Westcoast weather arrives! Sarah prepares the play and learning environment with affordances for play that offer novelty and joy for children of all ages, while also reinforcing ethics of care for the natural world. Sarah has a particular skill for scaffolding academic learning from children’s unstructured play, and creates beautiful documentation to make this learning visible to parents, school administrators, colleagues and the children themselves. This serves to legitimize outdoor play as an important part of every child’s school day, while also highlighting how powerful play is for children’s cognitive development. Sarah’s commitment to this work, her advocacy and her expertise has built capacity for the entire school community to enjoy all season outdoor risky play with large loose parts (tires, pallets, spools, construction lumber, mud kitchen, dig pit shovels and tools etc) beyond the confines of her teaching hours. When the school day is over, community groups, summer camps, and families specifically come to the garden to play and host birthdays parties in the garden. Sarah also shares her wisdom generously by contributing to research studies, speaking at conferences, and hosting study tours that come from all over the world to watch her teach using outdoor risky play as a pedagogical approach to curricular learning. 

Congratulations Carolyn and Sarah!

Dr. Eun-Young Lee is an internationally recognized scholar whose research has advanced the equity-driven study of outdoor play at the intersection of climate change, social justice, and public health. As an Associate Professor at Queen’s University, Dr. Lee leads interdisciplinary work that bridges kinesiology, population health, and environmental justice to understand and enhance individuals’ access to outdoor play. Their pioneering contributions include several first-author publications that critically examine how environmental conditions and climate change impact diverse groups’ opportunities for safe, active outdoor play. As the lead of the In Situ Population Health Research Group, Dr. Lee has advanced the use of intersectionality-informed quantitative methodologies in large-scale datasets to uncover disparities in opportunities for healthy movement behaviors. Their work has informed inclusive public health strategies and policy recommendations supporting outdoor play across diverse populations. Dr. Lee’s influence extends beyond academia. Through global collaborations such as the Global Matrix Report Cards and PLaTO-Net, they contribute to international monitoring frameworks for active play and have co-authored key position statements guiding practice and policy, particularly in equity-denied and climate-vulnerable communities. Their visionary leadership and methodological rigor continue to shape how outdoor play is conceptualized, measured, and promoted as a fundamental right. Dr. Lee’s work not only advances the field scientifically but also advocates for the social and environmental conditions necessary for outdoor play to thrive equitably for all. 

Congratulations Young!

Trinity Lowthian recently completed her Honours Bachelor of Food & Nutrition Science and will be starting her Master of Human Kinetics this Fall at the University of Ottawa. A strong interest in sport led her to try wheelchair fencing in 2022, where she quickly achieved international success and was named to the Canadian Paralympic Team for Paris 2024. At the Paralympics, Trinity earned Canada’s best-ever wheelchair fencing result at the Paralympics, placing fifth in women’s epee. She coaches wheelchair fencing at the Ottawa Fencing Club and developed and leads a provincial wheelchair fencing circuit in Ontario while also completing an internship at the Canadian Paralympic Committee. 

Over the past two years, Trinity has been an integral partner on the Sending Preschoolers Outside (SPROUT)-able study led by the Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play, where she has consistently demonstrated a deep commitment to advancing outdoor play opportunities for children of all abilities. Trinity is a true champion of inclusion, using both her professional and lived experiences to inform and strengthen projects aimed at promoting equitable access to outdoor play. She has contributed meaningfully to grant writing efforts with Outdoor Play Canada and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, ensuring that the voices and needs of diverse children are embedded in the design and delivery of programs. Most recently, Trinity played a key role in conducting an accessibility audit of the Forest Explorers program. Her contributions were instrumental in developing a strategic planning document that is now guiding the program’s efforts to become more inclusive. Trinity embodies what it means to be a youth leader in outdoor play. Her passion, thoughtful advocacy, and collaborative spirit are leaving a powerful and lasting impact across research, practice, and policy. She is not only helping shape a more inclusive outdoor play movement, she is inspiring others to do the same. 

Congratulations Trinity!