Children’s Play Space and Safety Management

Abstract

The provision of stimulating and engaging play space for children and young people is increasingly recognized as an important societal goal, not the least because it provides the young with opportunities to develop and gain experience in experimenting with risk. Research in several disciplines now suggests that achievement of this goal has however been impeded in recent decades, and reasons commonly cited have included fear of injury and avoidance of litigation. International standards on play equipment have also been promulgated and justified in terms of securing young people's "safety," most usually narrowly defined as injury reduction. There appears to be a widespread presumption that measures aimed at injury prevention are necessarily beneficial overall for young people's welfare. In this article, we subject European standards for play equipment and surfacing to scrutiny. In particular, we examine underlying motives, consistency of purpose, use of evidence, philosophical leanings, scope, practicalities of application, systems of management, and legal ramifications. From this, we identify a number of fundamental issues that suggest that as a consequence of compartmentalized thinking and misunderstandings, these standards have invaded areas of decision making beyond their legitimate territory. The consequence of this is that play provision is skewed away from what are properly play provision objectives. In such circumstances, local decision makers are often disempowered, and their ability to provide optimal play spaces thereby circumscribed.

The Prevalence of Risky Play in Young Children’s Indoor and Outdoor Free Play

“…On the other hand, ECEC teachers and practitioners from other countries report being held accountable for children's injuries and the risk of litigation is an important factor for them being restrictive towards children's risk-taking in play (Bundy et al 2009;Little et al 2011). Another factor that influences children's opportunities for risky play between cultures is differences in rules and regulations for playground design (Herrington and Nicholls 2007;Ball 2004;Spiegal et al 2014).…”

Coping with Standards: Integrating Art and Safety into the Design of a Creative Playground

“…In principle, the standards are not legally binding rules but more like technical instructions about playground materials and structures. Yet, as Herrington and Nicholls (2007) critically discuss, safety standards are often treated as official policies and guidelines that strongly affect what kind of public playgrounds are built for children (see also Spiegal et al 2014). This is also the case in Finland, where the adoption of standards is promoted through legislative regulation.…”

“…While there are self-evident assets related to the usage of safety standards, treating them as principle guidelines for playground design can also be held debatable (cf. Ball et al 2019; Herrington and Nicholls 2007; Spiegal et al 2014). Even if a playground is built and maintained according to the standards, it does not mean that the playground is necessarily safe or risk-free in use.…”

Avoiding a dystopian future for children's play

“…Playground safety standards and the management systems which travel with them have also become a part of the problem (Spiegal, Gill, Harbottle, & Ball, 2014). Apart from the fact that the primary purpose of these standards is to provide a level playing field for equipment manufacturers as a means of promoting international trade (e.g., Canadian Standards Association, 2016), they inhabit a world predicated upon the idea that play is about goods in the form of engineered structures.…”