Jennifer Pittorino
Star Weekly is looking back at the best stories of last year and this is one of them.
The Altona Sports Centre is the first grassroots stadium in Australia to achieve Sensory Inclusive Accreditation.
Sensory inclusivity caters to everyone with sensory needs, including military veterans with PTSD, adults with dementia, Parkinson’s disease, stroke patients and more.
Marketing coordinator Anita Pantalleresco said the team at Altonal Sports Centre is proud to be the first stadium in the country to achieve this qualification.
“We were really excited when we found out that we are the first,“ she said.
“We always like to be be innovative and try to be visionaries, so we are are really happy that we were able to do that.
“Especially because this accreditation is always found in the bigger stadiums around Australia, so to touch community and grassroots is special.“
Ms Pantalleresco said the stadium’s sensory inclusion was inspired by a sponsor, Donna Abu-Elias and her son who is on the spectrum.
“We were having discussions on doing an inclusion round because of how loud basketball stadiums can be,” she said.
“They can be quite overwhelming with the whistles and the large crowds.“
The centre received its accreditation through KultureCity, by having sensory bags in the canteen on a permanent basis which people can use for free.
“We also have signage around the stadium for headphone zones, which are loud areas around the stadium, so people are aware that you’re entering a very loud area,” she said.
“As well as a sensory room, which is essentially a quiet room where kids have the opportunity to come up and visit people who are playing, when they might not have been able to in the past because it is so loud.”
Ms Abu-Elias is also on the board of KultureCity, a not for profit organisation which trains staff at venues and then certifies venues which have sensory inclusive modifications.
The stadium celebrated its accreditation with a Sensory Inclusion Day, which Ms Pantalleresco hoped would become a recurring event.
’We would like to do it annually at a minimum, but hope we can do it more often.“
