Managing risks to kids
I READ Anthony Kitchin's letter with interest and sympathy. When I chaired the first play safety committee of the National Children's Play and Recreation Unit in 1990, my views about the exposure of children to risk when playing would have very much echoed yours.
However, over the years and particularly since chairing the Play Safety Forum from 2000, my views have changed and developed.
But please let me begin by separating places intended for children's play from the wider public realm of roads, parking lots, building sites etc to which you make reference in your letter.
Experience in one prepares children for the reality of the other.
It is also very important to remember that children's playgrounds are extremely safe, the incidence of serious injuries (ones that are irreversible) and deaths is incredibly low.
It is estimated that the number of deaths in playgrounds is between one a year and one in every four years and this level has not changed over the past 20 years.
They are so rare that it is impossible to identify any common causes that could possibly reduce them.
Against this background we know that children need and want places to play that are exciting and have risk built into them.
Our job is to try and ensure that these risks are foreseeable by the children and thus manageable. Indeed, this is one of the principle ways in which children learn to manage risk.
If we do not give them these opportunities within the places we create for them to play, they will go and find them in places over which we have no control, which will expose them to far greater dangers.
It is for these reasons that I strongly support the need of children to experience risk in playgrounds, so that they can learn to manage and enjoy them in the real world.
Finally I would suggest anyone interested in this subject can Google the following documents, Managing risk in play provision: a position statement, by Play England and Managing risk in play: implementation guide, published by the DCSF.
Finally I would welcome the opportunity to meet Mr Kitchin at our factory in Upton to discuss these issues. It is vital that everyone understands and supports the need for children to be exposed to risk and, through this, how to manage it.
Robin Sutcliffe,
Sutcliffe Play Limited,
Waggon Lane,
Upton
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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