How Can You Help Parents in Your Community Celebrate National Playground Safety Week?

April 24-28 is National Playground Safety Week. The purpose of this event is to celebrate the safety of playgrounds throughout the nation. The past 11 years has geared this special week to public use playgrounds, those in childcare centers, schools and parks. This year we would like to extend the attention to home playgrounds, those in the back yards. Part of the reason for doing that is to celebrate the 25 years the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been involved in making playgrounds safe.

The CPSC has indicated that about 25% of injuries that occur on playgrounds happen on equipment at homes (Tinsworth & McDonald, 2001). The most frequent injuries on home playground equipment are involved with swings. What can parents in your jurisdiction do to prevent many of these injuries? NPPS, which sponsors National Playground Safety Week, has a model called S.A.F.E. that suggests 4 areas for parents to use. Those areas include Supervision, Age Appropriate Design, Fall surfacing and Equipment maintenance. You can help keep your community safer by incorporating the following home playground safety information from NPPS into your safety education outreach:

Supervision. Why is supervision so important? It is estimated that 40% of the injuries to children occur because of no or inappropriate supervision. The temptation for parents is to let the kids go outside and play with no supervision by the adults. That is a huge mistake. While adults do not have to play with children, they do need to watch them. There are many incidents of children’s severe injuries occurring because adults were inside rather than outside watching the children. So, parents need to be sure that children are playing on equipment that challenges children rather than on equipment that puts children at risk. They need to be sure that there is enough surfacing and that toys are not in the use zone (the area where surfacing should be). If it is possible, place equipment for children ages two to five (preschool) away from equipment for children ages 5-10 (school age). And then, watch the children play. Remember that the equipment will not supervise the children.

Age-Appropriate Design. What kind of equipment should you purchase? You should buy equipment that meets the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F1148 Standards. Those are the standards for Home Playground Equipment. Do not purchase any equipment that does not meet those standards. The equipment is built for children ages 2-10. Take notice that no equipment has been made for children under two for home playground settings. However, consider purchasing equipment for your younger pre-school children (two-five) separate from that for older school aged children 5-12. If you can only afford to purchase equipment once, it may be more appropriate to get equipment for younger children since they have fewer places to play. Older children are not challenged by equipment for younger children. On the other hand, younger children should not play on equipment designed for school-aged children. Tot swings are not fun for 10-year-olds to play on. For example, two-year-olds do not have the upper body strength to use horizontal ladders. Remember that a two-year-old cannot fit into a 10-year-old’s shoes. If you are contemplating the purchase of equipment for younger children, consider swings slides and sandboxes. For older children, consider climbing equipment and horizontal ladders.

Fall Surfacing. What kind of surfacing should you consider? The surfacing you should purchase should meet the ASTM F1292 Standard. It should be surfacing made for playgrounds. Acceptable kinds of surfacing include sand, pea gravel, wood products and rubber products. In contrast, you should never use asphalt, cement, dirt, or grass. None of those materials has the ability to protect your child from severe injury when falling to the surface. The appropriate surface should be purchased from a playground surfacing dealer. Rubber tiles are another option. They require very little maintenance, but are quite expensive. Since more than 70% of injuries occur because of falls to surfacing, this is an important consideration for the safety of your children. You also may not want to consider gravel for your preschoolers since it may become part of their diet. There is no best surfacing and your choice may depend on the geography of your state. Sand in the northern states becomes cement when it freezes whereas wood products attract tarantulas in southwestern states. Be sure that the surfacing surrounds the equipment with 6-foot use zones. A larger area is required for swings. See the instructions that come with the equipment.

Equipment Maintenance. How do you keep your equipment safe for your children? After the equipment is installed, be sure that you check to see that it is in good shape. Follow the manufacturer’s suggestions. Consider checking the nuts and bolts on a monthly basis. Be sure to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines on protecting and sealing wooden equipment. Be sure that wooden equipment is sanded and put a preservative on it once per year. Be sure that all attachments are tightly secured. Restrict the number of children playing on the equipment to the maximum recommended by the manufacturer. Be sure that you maintain the thickness of the surfacing needed to tolerate children’s falls. CPSC recommends nine inches of loose-fill surfacing for equipment up to heights of eight feet high. A minimum of six inches is recommended for equipment less than four feet high.

For detailed information, download the Outdoor Home Playground Safety Book developed by the CPSC in 2005.

Visit www.playgroundsafety.org or call 800-554-7529 to learn more about making home playgrounds safe for children.

Donna Thompson, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the National Program for Playground Safety (NPPS); Susan Hudson, Ph.D. is NPPS Education Director; Heather Olsen is NPPS Operations Director.

Reference: Tinsworth, D.K. & McDonald, J.E (April 2001). Special study: Injuries and deaths associated with children’s playground equipment. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.