Big4 West Beach is the latest holiday park to create a sensory room to help cater to the needs of guests with autism or other additional needs.
Big4 West Beach General Manager- Sales and Marketing Abby Howard said the team was inspired after seeing the community response to the sensory room at Big4 Renmark.
“We saw how the room was received by their customers and community and thought it was an excellent initiative to further our focus on being an inclusive holiday park,” she said.
To help design the space, Big4 West Beach reached out to Gail Watts from The Reilly Room Project.
The Reilly Room Project is a non-for-profit organisation which honours the memory of Reilly Watts. Their volunteers help to install sensory rooms in holiday settings and support businesses to better welcome ASD families and give them a great holiday.
Ms Howard said the team at The Reilly Room Project helped ensure the project ran smoothly, managing all aspects of the design process.
“Once we confirmed the size of the room the process was seamless, the Reilly Room team managed the purchasing and installation of the sensory products,” she added.
Once the room was finished, the next step was making sure all staff were fully educated on all aspects of the sensory room.
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“Making sure the staff really understand the room and how it is utilised was important and critical to the success,” Ms Howard said.
“We also ensure that we are very sensitive when discussing the use of the room with customers.”
For guests, the sensory room has been a big hit and Ms Howard said they had received positive feedback from families who are appreciative of having such a space available at a holiday park.
However, the sensory room is not the end of Big4 West Beach’s commitment to accessibility- with other projects in the pipeline.
“We just opened another sensory room at The Retreat (sister property of our BIG4 Holiday Park) and are currently building a new play space at the Holiday Park that has a variety of inclusive pieces of equipment to ensure there is something for everyone,” Ms Howard said.
Sarah is a freelance journalist with experience across print, digital and audio. After working for Multimedia Publishing as a contributing writer, she has recently joined the team in a part-time capacity for School News AU and AccomNews.