Exert Advice - The Play Environment Challenge

Since the early 19th century, when life became segmented as a result of the industrial revolution, play in childhood has become an area of intense research and interest. It is commonly accepted among professional educators and practitioners that play is essential in allowing children to develop their physical, emotional, social, and intellectual skills and abilities. These developmental attributes are necessary to become healthy and productive adults. Along with this emphasis of the importance of play in childhood are 21st century concerns that the areas and environments where play takes place be conducive for promoting creative and safe play experiences.

Prior to the industrial revolution, there was little need to be concerned with children's play areas. The absence of roads and cars, urban congestion, and other health and safety issues that are now present in most American cities meant that the local neighborhood environments usually offered enough places for a child to seek stimulating and challenging play areas on a daily basis. However, as open spaces diminished, and cities became overpopulated with tenements, safe play areas for children disappeared.

The dilemma that faces today's designers and manufacturers is to develop S.A.F.E. play areas that somehow capture the essence of the creative and stimulating environments of bygone years, yet provide for the safety and security of children in the 21st century.

How can this happen?

Risk and Challenge

First, there needs to be an understanding between what constitutes a risk and what constitutes a challenge in the play environment. According to most definitions, risk means the probability of a loss or injury. Thus, to have children at risk in the play environment means that there is chance that a child will experience an injury. The more risk present, the higher the probability of injury. On the other hand, challenge is defined as a contest or a test of skill and ability. Undertaking a task and then applying developmental skills and abilities to complete the task create challenge. The more complex the task, the more an individual's abilities are tested. Thus, in the creation of S.A.F.E. play environments, it is important to design play areas that challenge children's physical, emotional, social, and intellectual abilities. A two-year old does not have the same skills and abilities as a 5 year-old. That five-year old does not have the same abilities as a 10 year old. The result should be an area designed for a two-year old should have different play elements than that of the five or ten year old.

It should be apparent that risk and challenge are related, but are not the same things. If challenge comes from task completion, where does risk come from?

The National Program for Playground Safety has developed the S.A.F.E.ModelT that depicts four basic elements that comprise the foundation for the creation of S.A.F.E. play areas. These elements are:

S = Supervision of children
A = Appropriate Developmental Design
F = Fall Surfacing Materials
E = Equipment and surfacing maintenance.

Rather than being hierarchical in nature, these four elements interact with one another to create a safe play environment for children. In other words, just dealing with one element, such as surfacing, will not prevent all injuries, unless appropriate developmental design, maintenance and supervision, are also considered.

For example, if a three-year old child fell from a horizontal ladder (on a system that supposedly was built for ages 2-12) onto a grass surface under the equipment and broke an arm, one must examine the cause of the injury to the child. The hard grass surface under the equipment (inappropriate surface) will be cited as the cause of the injury, but was it really? Was it not also the lack of supervision, since a three-year-old should be on a long horizontal ladder from a developmental perspective? Was the three-year-old developmentally able to grasp the bars of the ladder? Perhaps the injury was the result of a lack of maintenance, since the surfacing was inappropriate under and around the Playground Equipment. It is evident that all four elements cited above contributed to the injury.

Returning to the discussion about risk and challenge, one can see that the S.A.F.E. elements can also be called risk factors. For instance, if one goes to the doctor and the doctor informs you that you are "at risk" for a heart attack, the doctor probably is basing the assessment on the fact that you have certain risk factors such as high blood pressure, being overweight, high cholesterol, etc. The more risk factors present, the higher the probability that you will have a heart attack. The same thing can be said about the four elements of the S.A.F.E. modelT. The absence of good supervision practices, developmentally designed equipment, adequate surfacing, and proper maintenance raise the probability of injury.

How to Develop Meaningful Play Environments

From the short discussion about risk and challenge, it should be evident that there are things that both the consumer and the manufacturer can do to help create play environments that challenge children but minimize risk.

First designers and manufacturers of playground areas need to understand and supporting research endeavors concerning aspects of child development and attributes of play. For, instance, does one size really fit all? Or should play areas be specifically developed for age groupings smaller than 2-5 and 5-12?

Second, the consumer needs to think about play value not play elements when purchasing equipment. A composite play structure that has five slides and no other elements present may look nice, but provides little in variety and creativity (i.e. play value) for the child.

Third, both consumers and designers need to think about a holistic approach to the development of a play environment. In essence this means understanding that safety and security comes not just from better manufactured equipment but from providing proper supervision, appropriately developmentally designed areas, fall surfacing that is suitable to absorb the impact of children falling and equipment and surfacing maintenance that provides for the safety of the child ( S.A.F.E. ModelT).

Last, but not least, it is important that all companies, playground and professional organizations, and others associated with providing play environments for children continue to support education, research, and application of knowledge of child development and the importance of play to the development of S.A.F.E. play areas for children.



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