Playground safety is very important to everyone, especially parents of the children that play on their equipment. There are many ways to measure the safety and effectiveness of a playground, but i used the “America’s Playgrounds Safety Check’ to evaluate my neighborhood playground and it did fairly well. Here are the links to the Blank Playground survey for your own use, a copy of my completed survey and the pictures i took at the playground to backup my findings listed below. Please review my findings and do a safety survey of your favorite park soon!
I completed an “America’s Playgrounds Safety Check’ at Hidden Palms Park, at 8855 Hidden Palms Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV 89123. It is a neighborhood park designed for all ages and maintained by the Clark County Parks Department. My children and I walk to this park at least twice a week and enjoy the children’s jungle gym equipment, open play areas (FIGURE 4) and the families we meet there, so I did the safety check and took pictures while my children played. The rules of the park were clearly state on a large sign as you first walk in to the park, FIGURE 1, and the age appropriate equipment were separated but not labeled.
I completed my check from the top of the list down, for each of the playscapes and the open air areas, and noticed some hazards that make it of the utmost importance that every child is under direct supervision the entire time, as the rules stated as you first walked in. |
(Figure 1)
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SUPERVISION
As my child played on all of the equipment and crawled into all of the crevices possible in the park, I never once lost sight of her or didn’t know where she was. Even in the crawl spaces when she was low to the ground I could see her feet on the ground. The rule board clearly told parents that it was their responsibility to watch their kids and emphasized the importance of using the equipment as it was intended and to maintain care for all County property. Interesting to me was that they also put emphasis on the desire to have all participants and visitor maintain courtesy and underscore their desired behavior.
AGE-APPROPRIATE DESIGN
The park is divided into two play areas, one for children 2-5 years of age (FIGURE 2) and one for children 5 years and older (FIGURE 3). There isn’t a separate area for children younger than 2 years old, but there is plenty of open, well-padded area for infants and toddlers to enjoy the fresh air, as pictured in one of the included pictures (FIGURE 4). Both playground apparatuses had proper guard rails to protect against slip and fall hazards, but the all of the elevated playscape areas on the younger children’s equipment had guardrails to stop children from falling (FIGURE 6) and is no higher than 8 feet in any place (FIGURE 2). The smaller equipment was designed for children 3 years old and up, and it appears that they had the developmental age guidelines in mind. At that the age they are curious about their surroundings and have increased coordination and test physical abilities (Robertson, 2016, Pg. 53) but this park allows them to do so with minimal physical risk and danger..
The equipment’s supporting structure didn’t appear to be designed in a way to prevent climbing on it, but the County covered all their bases by stating in the rules that all equipment is to be used as intended, and the it is obvious that no one should climb on the outside of the structure
EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE/FALL SURFACING
The fall surfacing around and underneath the equipment was great, but shows wear and tear from lack of maintenance over the, as seen in FIGURE 5. Almost all of the appropriate surfaces had the proper depth of loose fill, concrete footings covered and free from foreign objects, other than seasonal debris blow from trees and streets. Aside from the squishy, Styrofoam surface below the equipment being worn out in parts, the equipment was well maintained.
The Parks and Recreation department has all their contact info on the sign as you walk in; the emergency (911) and non-emergency (311) police phone numbers, the general park info number (702-455-8200), the County Maintenance phone number (702-455-4974) and a maintenance email address (ParkMaintenanceInbox@ClarkCountyNV.org). The County provides a phone number to report any safety hazards and is pretty good about keeping up the equipment up to safety code. By simply placing a call and bringing attention to an issue to the County about repairs or elimination of hazards should get the attention needed for change. If not, have a few people call with the same problem and they would be forced to pay the matter the attention it needed.
ADDITIONAL HAZARDS
In addition to the deterioration of areas of the safety flooring around the equipment I found a lone sprinkler pipe sticking up not far from the older children’s play equipment (FIGURE 7). It’s in a bit of a crater, and off to the side, but still could be a tripping/running hazard to children as they play in the area.
As a professional, I would post more signs around the park to bring attention to any hazards that may exist and how to deal with them in a manner that eliminates the risk. They stress the importance of constant supervision of children playing on the equipment, so to give a parent guidelines to safe use and offer suggestive insight into what may become a hazard would be a great way to protect against future hazards. I would also make sure that simple fixes like the condition of the safety playscape flooring in all areas around the equipment were free from defects or weathering.
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(Figure 2)
(Figure 3)
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REFERENCE
Robertson, C. (2016). Safety, Nutrition and Health in Early Education. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
The National Program for Playground Safety (NPFPS) . (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.playgroundsafety.org/
[Untitled picture of a “Sparky”,]. [IMAGE] Retrieved October 5, 2019 from https://eoss.asu.edu/getinvolved/traditions
© SAM LOPAZE - SUN DEVIL SAM - STUDENT AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
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