Wyatt Underwood on "The Safe Child Campaign"

It’s clear that adult supervision is the best way to prevent mishaps on playgrounds, whether they be school yards, back yards, parks or wherever groups of children gather to play. But an important aspect of this, narrowing down a viable ratio of adult supervisors to children, remains elusive. The answer, of course, varies depending on the dimensions and specific characteristics of a playground, the age range and number of children present, as well as legal and administrative factors. So the key question remains, how many adult supervisors should be present? And while there’s far from a consensus or clearly defined mandate, playground supervision is definitely an active, ongoing topic of discussion in the realms of tort lawyers, government agencies, educators and the broader playground safety community. Columbia, South Carolina law firm Duff, White & Turner provides a detailed recommendation: “In the area of supervision, school districts should establish an appropriate adult to st...

We all know that time of year when summer is winding down and we are all getting ready to send our little ones back to school. Kids will be playing with other kids on school and community playgrounds not always with your supervision. So it’s vital to make our kids aware of some hidden dangers on the playground. Educating our children on some basics that can be easily taught and implemented and goes a long way in protecting them. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, over 200,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms across the United States. About 60% percent are from falls from playground equipment. Approximately 156,040 (75.8 percent) of the injuries occurred on equipment designed for public use, 46,930 (22.8 percent) occurred on equipment designed for home use, and 2,880 (1.4 percent) occurred on homemade equipment (primarily rope swings). It is important to take some simple precautions to increase the overall safety of a child and further the safe play env...

I know it is sometimes tough to locate a qualified safety surfacing provider. When selecting a full service playground environment provider, be sure that they meet “The Minimum Test”: Company Length of Service 15-20 years IPEMA Certified (Int. Playground Equipment Manufacturers Association) Factory Direct Installation ASTM 1292-04 (Impact Attenuation) ASTM F-1951 (Wheel Chair Accessibility) GSA Approved (General Services Administration) ASTM E-108 (Fire: Pass a Class A) Combined Staff Experience of 82 years Computerized Inventory & State of the Art Field Equipment Certified Playground Equipment / Surfacing Inspectors on Staff ( CPSI ) Leading Website: http://www.letsplayrecreation.com/ Broad Product Choices References: Min. 50 State Licensed for General & Specialty Product Flooring General Liability, Workers’ Comp & Auto Insurance of Min. $2,000,000 - $5,000,000 in Coverage Bonding of at Least $750,000 Extensive Literature & Specifications t...

I visited Cachuma Lake, California over the weekend camping with family and decided to take in some sights and walk off the camping food I had been eating all day. I came across a beautiful playground with a nicely designed shade structure that was incorporated in the unit. When I got a bit closer I noticed that the unit used two safety surfacing elements. One was the Poured-In-Place type to meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and the other was a Wood Mulch that apparently was to meet budget concerns. The play structure had synthetic Poured-In-Place surfacing around the unit to meet the need of Critical Fall Height (Head Injury Criteria) then sloped to blend into the Wood Mulch. The Wood Mulch continued the safety surface (Inexpensively) to create a surface that would meet the fall heights standards. In theory, this is a way to cut the budget and try to provide an adequate play surface for this very large play structure and maximize the play area. However, this is my view… I ...

I just arrived back from Spain a few weeks ago and already miss that wonderful place. What a beautiful and amazing country. I visited ten cities in just about two and a half weeks. When I arrived home, I felt as though I needed a vacation from what was supposed to be my relaxing summer trip. What clean and friendly cities all throughout southern Spain! The food was less exciting than I had hoped. No real variety or flavor. What a disappointment... And of course, I could not help myself and inspected a couple of playgrounds while I was there. Wow, what a horrific site! Safety, what safety? It was a disaster. Most of the play areas were in poor condition and not maintained as well as the city sidewalks. In Madrid the sidewalks get cleaned every night with power washers at roughly 12:30am (Madrid begins to get dark at about 10:00pm during the summer and dinner and everything is just later in Spain) but I digress, sorry… The equipment as I stated, was not maintained after it was installed ...

Providing “ Collective Safe Play Environments ” for our children through: Creativity in Design Age Appropriate (2-5, 6-12, 13-17) Superior Equipment Quality Special Needs Friendly Play Functionality Educational Features Open Space Shelter / Shading Superior Safety Surfacing Landscaping Site Furnishings Child Safety Child Security Community Involvement Green Maintenance Record Keeping I believe it is vital to have all of these elements present in order to have an interactive, safe environment. Our children should want to continue to utilize these environments for continued play and education. It is unfortunate that in most areas around the United States they do NOT subscribe to the " Collective Safe Play Environment ". I want to change this. What are your thoughts?