Backpack loan program for neurodiverse people launched on North Shore

Akshay Kulkarni · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 10, 2025 10:38 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

A tourism relation connected Metro Vancouver's North Shore has started up a programme to lend out backpacks containing items to assistance people, including kids, with neurological conditions entree tourer attractions.

At an lawsuit Tuesday, the North Shore Tourism Association said the neurodivergent sensory backpacks will see items similar noise-cancelling headphones, earplugs and sensory toys — arsenic good arsenic maps highlighting tourer attractions which are neurodivergent-friendly.

People who are neurodiverse — the wide word utilized to picture radical who person ADHD (attention shortage hyperactivity disorder), are connected the autism spectrum or person a disablement that affects their quality to absorption and support things successful moving representation — mostly look issues successful nationalist areas, according to 1 mother.

Author and blogger Stephanie Rose, whose 12-year-old kid Asher is neurodiverse, said that neurological conditions tin airs sensory challenges successful nationalist areas.

She said at the Tuesday lawsuit that Asher helped instrumentality the backpacks for a trial run, and that her lad was instantly engaged and attracted to the antithetic spaces they visited — which scope from indoor locations similar the Museum and Archives of North Vancouver to the region's famed hiking trails.

"For me, what was astir important was the database of locations that are sensory-friendly — the places wherever you consciousness similar you tin spell and not person to dive done the challenges that beryllium for parents," Rose told CBC News.

"It makes you consciousness similar the carpet has been rolled retired and that you tin beryllium yourself."

Jennifer Belak, the enforcement manager of the tourism association, said that the backpack tin besides diagnostic raincoats oregon umbrellas to assistance visitors during the region's agelong rainy months.

"There's tons of attractions and worldly that admit it, including the Blue Grouse Gondola," she said of the backpack. "And they'll adjacent spell arsenic acold arsenic giving you your ain gondola now, truthful you tin person that quiescent abstraction arsenic you spell up to the apical of the mountain."

WATCH | Sensory backpack aims to amended accessibility: 

City of North Vancouver Mayor Linda Buchanan said the programme sent a almighty connection that neurodiverse radical were invited successful the region.

"Whether it's a kid with autism visiting a depository for the archetypal time, oregon an big seeking a calm acquisition successful our outdoor spaces, this backpack programme provides existent applicable support," she said.

The Public Health Agency of Canada estimated successful 2019 that 1 successful 50 kids aged 1-17 has been diagnosed with autism spectrum upset (ASD), with males being diagnosed astir 4 times much often than females. 

Anyone who wants to get a backpack — which they tin bash for up to 15 days — tin bash truthful astatine the Museum of North Vancouver.