By Lynette Cox
Children at Play Network Honored with A. Keith Inman Pediatric NeuroRecovery Community Service Award
Bernheim’s Children at Play Network (CAPN) was recently honored with the A. Keith Inman Pediatric NeuroRecovery Community Service Award from the University of Louisville’s Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery. Established in 2022 and named for A. Keith Inman, president of Kosair Charities from 2017-2021, the award recognizes those who support children and adolescents with spinal cord injury and their families through a gift of their own time and community-based support.
“We were honored to accept this prestigious award from the Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery,” stated Claude Stephens, director of the Children at Play Network. “Bernheim is committed to providing inclusivity and equal access to nature for everyone.”
The Children at Play Network has prioritized accessibility throughout Playcosystem, a 17-acre nature playground, located across from the Visitor Center at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum. Accessible pathways, installed using ADA Standards of Accessible Design, lead through the playground, and guests of all abilities can enjoy accessible play features. A wheelchair accessible treehouse was completed in October 2025. Guests will also enjoy accessible play at the water pump and at a sand table incorporated into a large sandbox.
Jenny Gardner, Play Environments Manager for the Children at Play Network says, “Working cooperatively with children with lived disability experiences is one of the most rewarding aspects of our Playcosystem design efforts.”
Louisville Lightning, the adaptive sports program of the Jefferson County Public Schools was the other award recipient this year. CAPN collaborated with Louisville Lightning while designing elements for Playcosystem.
“Their students were instrumental in helping us think through the design of the accessible treehouse and pathways,” added Gardner.
The University of Louisville’s Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery is a unique program known internationally and nationally for providing integrated program of out-patient restorative-based therapies working hand-in-hand with research to advance recovery after pediatric spinal cord injury.
The award was presented at a gathering of neuro-specialists, physicians, researchers, and therapists from the U.S., England, Canada, Australia, and France attending a conference, the Pediatric NeuroRecovery Summit hosted by the UofL Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery with Frazier Rehab Institute. Jenny Gardner gave a presentation about playground design at the conference.
Funds from the award will go directly into future accessibility efforts at Playcosystem.
Past award recipients include Kosair for Kids, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Kentuckiana, Amy Brown and Jennifer Nachreiner who founded RISE AGAIN, a nonprofit organization supporting those with spinal cord illness or injuries, Alyssa Lemons, founder of Parents of SCI, a Facebook group for parents and caregivers of children and adolescents with spinal cord injury.
About the UofL Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery
The Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery serves children and adolescents, ages six months to 21 years old, who have suffered spinal cord injury. The program assists with regaining movement, independence and hope by supporting them through recovery-based therapies as they grow and develop. The program is centered around pediatric spinal cord recovery research through UofL’s Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center led by Andrea L. Behrman, PhD, PT, FATPA and a pediatric translational outpatient therapy, led by Laura Leon Machado, DPT, MBA, ATP, UofL Health-Frazier Rehabilitation Institute.
About Children at Play Network
Launched in 2017, the Children at Play Network (CAPN) is a Bernheim initiative that works at the community level to advocate for free play in the outdoors so that every child has a place in nature where they feel safe, healthy, empowered, and joyful. Learn more at childrenatplaynetwork.com.
