Outdoor play for those with a disability

I have always had a great affection for outdoor active play. Before starting TFH I had an outdoor toy business. It was parents writing to me, asking for some means of allowing their child, who had poor trunk support to enjoy a swing, that got me interested in the concept of toys for handicapped children. Hence TFH. This was in 1982, years before the word handicapped became offensive.

One of our first products, and probably still the one most associated with TFH, was our full support seat. It has been copied, the best form of flattery, but, I like to think, not bettered. We have three versions, child, teen, and adult.

They are very versatile. They may be attached to our swing frames but also to those of other makers.

We’ve always sold a lot of our seats and when it was pointed out to us that it was sometimes difficult to lift a squirming child into one because the seat retreated as you tried to sit the child in it, we came up with a neat solution, the retention straps.

Some children adore swinging, it is a form of flying, and, if you are restricted in your ability to enjoy outdoor play, it is understandable.

With practice some will learn to ‘pump’ themselves but that requires quite a lot of co-ordination. For those who can’t, it is, let’s face it, rather a boring task to spend a long time pushing. Entirely by chance, we discovered a more entertaining way of giving a swing, the Swung. This simple and inexpensive adaption allows an able-bodied user on one swing seat to power a second swing seat, hugely adding to both users’ entertainment. We’ve had a lot of favourable comments on it. I am surprised we don’t sell many more. Perhaps this blog will encourage you to look at it.

After some years of selling the full support seat we were asked whether we could make a wheelchair swing. I looked at what was available. There was one. It was enormously expensive.

So, we designed our own and it came in at a fraction of that price. It has been an absolute winner, and is sold all over the world. Again, like the swing seats, it will fit most existing frames made by other manufacturers.

Our most recent invention has been the Frammock. The Frammock has a number of virtues. It can be either a gentle rocker or an exciting ride. Rather like the Swung, the Frammock allows one user to be given a ride by another. The first lies down, the second stands on the back of the Frammock, holding the ropes and facing her friend and, by pushing down or pulling up, causes the Frammock to swing. And swing it does! A very exciting and exhilarating form of play.

Outdoor play, as the name suggests, involves the great outdoors. In Britain, with its temperate climate, children can play outdoors most of the year, but TFH is in Sweden, Canada and the US, places with rather harsh winters. The answer is the indoor swing which conveniently folds away and will carry almost all our equipment.

Tony Tidmarsh

President TFH