Playground Safety
What is the most critical factor in playground safety?
What is the most common school playground accident?
Most playground accidents involve falls - children falling from equipment, although there are other hazards. We see asthma attacks, we see physical altercations between children, bullying, but falls are the most frequent type of incident on the playground to cause some type of injury - and on occasion, on a very rare occasion, even death. And again, this is why supervision is so important, because we've got to be watching the children and making sure our level of supervision is age appropriate.
What should be included in a school accident report?
The accident report should be thought of as something to provide documentation to help us at a much later time to figure out what really happened. For example if we get into litigation, or we have an insurance claim, or any type of situation like that, or we're just reviewing all of our accident reports to find patterns and trends that we can use to implement new safety measures. So, you want to think about documenting the time, the location, the facts of the case, any witnesses that were present, any physical injuries. You may, for example, need to take photographs. If the child has a bruise, or something like that, we may need to take a photograph. We may need to take a photograph of the equipment in case later there is a physical change and somebody tries to allege that the equipment was in a different state than it really was at the time of the incident. Medical treatment performed by staff, if we had a staff member treat a child, we want to document what was done and why. Basically you want to provide enough detail so that a year or two later, you could pretty accurately recreate for a third party what happened with credibility.
How should schools evaluate the safety of playground equipment?
Every school or child care facility that has playground equipment should have someone on staff or available to have staff who's certified to conduct and coordinate playground inspections, and then they should do this of course at least on an annual basis. Many schools do this several times a year. But basically you want someone who has documented preparation that will withstand court challenge to conduct an inspection using a properly trained regimen.
How often should playground equipment be replaced?
Playground equipment should be replaced anytime you become aware of the fact that it is dangerous. It may be worn, it may be broken, it may be the type of equipment that was initially thought to be safe. But you have received a bulletin or you have had someone who is trained in playground inspection or perhaps an insurance company representative or risk manager who tells you that this type of equipment has been found to be dangerous. Basically, some playground equipment will last many years. Others could be dangerous as soon as you buy it, but you are not aware of that until a couple of years later, perhaps. Incidents may prove there is an inherently bad design feature. Anytime you become aware that it is really dangerous, you need to remove it.
How can schools prevent playground injuries and accidents?
he best way to prevent playground injuries and accidents is to have clear guidelines for our students and our staff. Students should be given clear direction and guidelines on their behaviors, and what is acceptable during play and what is not. Then we back that up with good supervision of students, an intelligent supervision of students, for example, thinking about placement of our staff in relation to placement of children. We were doing some safety assessments in Montana at a school where they had more than five acres of playground equipment. The children were allowed to go anywhere in that five acres they wanted, which was too far distant from many of the personnel, and we suggested to them to pick each day a different area, and bring the children in a little bit more manageable space. They could still utilize the equipment over a period of time, but not all at one time. As we pointed out, there were children 200 yards from the nearest staff member. Too far in the event of an asthma attack or some type of injury, too far to tell if a child is bulling another child. So good rules and thoughtful application of good supervision.
How can schools protect children from predators and intruders on the playground?
From time to time we do see dangerous individuals come to a campus who pose a threat to staff and students. We have to look at the physical location of the playground in relation to the boundary of the campus, and need to look at the proximity to roadways. It's not just people. One of things that we've seen time and time again is a playground next to a major roadway, where the only thing stopping a car that's out of control is a chain link fence. We want to think in terms of either a distance to protect our kids from any of these types of threats, or possibly a physical barrier or appropriate fencing. The next thing we want to do is make sure that we're using intelligence structured supervision of children. If we're a staff member between children and the potential threat, or in other words, if you're a teacher, where should you be in relation to the children, in terms of someone trying to walk in. Sometimes I go to schools and an individual is walking down the sidewalk far closer to children than the staff are, because they're in the shade, up next to a building, or we have three teachers standing talking, when they should be spread out in a way they can protect the children. Thoughtful application of basic supervision techniques is one of the most important things.
