Playground safety is a multifaceted issue. There’s safety in terms of reliable equipment, and then there’s safety that involves nearby streets and even strangers with ill intentions. The expression “it takes a village” has lived in public discourse for a long time for a reason. Playground designers, park planners, and the entire community all have a role in keeping parks and their play areas truly safe at every level.
Here are some of the most important factors that make these spaces safe:
Reliable Equipment
When choosing commercial playground equipment, it’s important to consider many elements of design and construction. One of the biggest risks with cutting costs on playgrounds is that inferior quality can lead to the quick breakdown of the materials. Plastic slides can buckle and crack, which can cause scrapes and bruises on kids as they slide down. Broken swings can lead to children falling mid-swing. And battered bolts can even cause entire platforms to collapse.
While you may think all it takes is a little bit of maintenance to keep even the most inferior materials in place, the reality is that breakdown can happen at any time. And a child can get injured before you even realize there’s a problem. Genuine safety comes from choosing high-quality, certified, durable equipment to create structures that won’t wear down quickly. You also want material that, when it does need to be repaired or replaced, is easy and cost-effective to fix.
Visibility
Virtually any parent who spends any time on playgrounds with their kids will tell you one of the most nerve-wracking issues in parks is visibility. Some playgrounds are designed with huge blind spots, so caregivers can’t see their children at all times. The only option then is to trust that the kids will be fine or to spend the entire time chasing their children around. That’s not restful or relaxing for parents who desperately need a break on a local bench.
Lack of visibility can have parents avoiding a playground entirely, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Playground designers and park planners can create open spaces, so parents can watch their kids play from afar. Even when you create quiet spaces or sections of different play spaces, the barrier walls can be low, so parents can still observe kids from a distance. This visibility allows parents to catch dangerous behaviors before they go too far or stop children from running off into the street or other hazardous areas.
Barriers
Speaking of hazardous areas, many of the loveliest parks are bordered by city streets, babbling brooks, and deep creek beds. These might be lovely in terms of accessibility and even splash play during certain times of the year. But at other points in time, cars racing by and rushing rivers can pose a real danger to small children. Kids can quickly fall into dangerous water or chase a ball into the street before their caregiver has a chance to respond.
One of the most powerful ways to keep kids safe on the playground is to place barriers around the edges of the park. These can come in the form of natural walls made from shrubbery and trees. Or you could install chain link fencing around a park in a particularly busy city as an extra safety measure. Openings at regular intervals allow for accessibility, and low shrubs or chain links allow for visibility. So you kill three birds with one stone.
Regular Maintenance
Of course, no park can remain safe forever without regular maintenance. Unattended parks can pose the greatest hazards to children because small issues can become worse over time. Cracks in slides can become chasms that cause serious injury. Broken swings get misused over time. And dirty, unrepaired surfaces can make a simple fall a major crash and burn. These parks in disrepair also happen to be the ones no one even wants to visit anymore.
For a playground to be truly safe, maintenance workers should visit the area regularly for upkeep, landscaping, and a review of the playground equipment. This would both keep the slides, swings, and platforms in working order and keep the park clean and thriving with plant life. Also, having regular maintenance people on site in parks performing routine upkeep can be a deterrent for people with ill intentions.
An Engaged Community
Finally, the primary safety measure you can take in any location, and especially a community park, is to keep the community engaged. Far too many people now feel as though they have to mind their own business, and worry that looking out for other people’s kids might be considered nosy. Of course, you don’t want to have a ton of people worrying over nothing. But people locked into their phone screens to the exclusion of what’s happening around them can create a dangerous environment.
You can encourage more community participation by placing benches and other seating around the park. Strategically placed canopies and covers can also help people relax on both the hottest and rainiest days. You could also post signs about community involvement that remind people just how much they contribute to neighborhood security merely by being present and paying attention. The more helpful eyes you can get on kids at play, the better.
In the end, parks and playgrounds can be some of the safest places for kids in the community to spend time. They can grow, develop, and mature under the watchful eyes of their neighbors. And parents can trust that kids won’t be harmed by equipment that is of the highest quality and well-maintained. It really does take a village to raise kids, and every person involved in local parks, from planners to visitors, is part of that village.
