How to Become a Certified Playground Safety Inspector

The National Recreation and Parks Association has led the way toward safer playgrounds for the last two decades. In 1993, the association established the National Playground Safety Institute and soon thereafter began offering certification programs for parks and recreation professionals.

The "CPSI Candidate Handbook" establishes a code of professional conduct for inspectors and lists the course's main objectives:

• Identify hazards on public playground equipment and the playground.

• Rank the hazards according to injury potential.

• Apply the knowledge to remove the hazards and establish a system of inspections.

The organization has "a long-term goal of training and certifying at least one person from every community in the United States to be a CPSI," according to the NRPA website. "These inspectors will share their knowledge on the public-use playground standard of care with other people involved in playground operations within their agencies and throughout their community."

Training involves an optional two-day prep-course on information covered in the certification exam, which takes place on the third day and final day of the course schedule. Computer-based exams are also available.

Training centers are located in every region of the United States and offer sessions periodically throughout the year. There are no prerequisites to attending the course and taking the exam, and the examination fee is $200. Certification must be renewed every three years.

Test questions come from the following sources:

• The Consumer Product Safety Commission Handbook for Public Playground Safety

• The Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public Use (ASTM F1487-07)

• Standard Guide for ASTM Standards on Playground Surfacing (ASTM 2333-04)

• Playground Safety Is No Accident, 4th Edition

The first step toward CPSI status is to visit the NRPA's website and fill out the application.

International Efforts to Build Safe Playgrounds in War Zones

It would be hard to find a rational person who would disagree with the idea that children all over the world should have safe places to play. Organizations such as UNICEF and The Playground Builders Foundation have worked to provide children in war-torn nations with safe, accessible playgrounds. Playground Builders, a Canadian nonprofit charity, has established a business "model [that] involves the use of a generic playground design and local construction, based on a competitive value bid system," according to the organization's website. "This simplified process ensures many playgrounds throughout conflict areas can be built effectively and efficiently. These special places provide safe spaces for laughter, hope and interaction for war-entrapped children in unstable and poverty-stricken areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian Territories." UNICEF's common practice is to build or rebuild schools and playgrounds in places ravaged by warfare....

Thinking "Green"

Environmentally friendly playgrounds are becoming increasingly popular and prominent. As the "green" label has become a standard line in marketing throughout all kinds of business sectors, the same is evident among playground equipment manufacturers. A few examples of more sustainable playground elements include recycled tires in safety surfacing, recycled plastic benches and playground equipment recycling programs. Another common practice in recent years has been replacing asphalt surfaces with grass and natural surroundings. "There are plenty of new opportunities to transform decaying asphalt playgrounds or vacant lots into natural play areas," Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” wrote in a 2007 New York Times opinion article. "Researchers at the University of Illinois, exploring people’s relationship to nature, have discovered that green outdoor spaces relieve the symptoms of attention defic...

Playground Crime Common, Mostly Untracked

It's amazingly unfortunate how far some people will go to do damage to a playground. Police blotters in communities all over the world, affluent and underprivileged alike, tell the tale. Countless horror stories fill the record with news blurbs that frame playgrounds as crime scenes, such as this Aug. 2 report by WOKV television in Jacksonville, Fla. in which a 20-year-old man was found with a "life-threatening" gunshot wound and "the playground was closed off with crime scene tape as investigators searched for clues." In line with the absence of solid, enforceable playground design and equipment standards, crime statistics on schoolyards and public recreation facilities simply aren't kept by any level of government. So the research is scattered and purely anecdotal, except for a recent "experimental" attempt by the U.K. The children's British Crime Survey published in June recorded more than 2 million incidents of theft and violence agai...

Wyatt Underwood on "The Safe Child Campaign"

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