PLAYLINK / Free Play Network

Helping Play Providers Provide Play

I believe that there is a spectrum of risk with regard to play and development (both physical and mental) on which every adult and child can position themselves - from risk adverse to risk embracing.
I think society is becoming increasingly more litigious.
Everybody has the right to accept or reject risk according to their mindset. In my opinion those people who are more risk adverse have unfortunately tended in the past to be the more vocal section of society. This I am glad to say appears to be changing.
It is very easy to hide behind accepted and relevant safety standards in bulldozing an opinion through any committee based forum responsible for play provision, especially when the view is linked to the possible threat of litigation.
How can a play provider cater for such a wide spectrum of risk (without addressing further complications where a parent is risk adverse and their child is risk embracing) and satisfy everybody? Is this a budgetary issue or a more complicated social issue?
How can “society” help play providers to become “stronger” and stand up to the threat of litigation? What tools does “society” need to “provide” play providers to help them do this? But perhaps more importantly does “society” want to do embrace an increasing level of risk for children?

Posted by: Neil Phillips, Director, Rubicon Play, 23 June 2007, 14:26

I have made some previous comments about professional risk and how to take it in my reply to Tony Hill.

We had three children and I have to say that we were most irresponsible with the third, who more or less brought himself up. I don't think that that was to do with him being a boy (the first two were girls) I just think that we relax more the more children we have. This is most definitely not helped by families getting smaller.

One of the things that absoutely fascinates me is that we now have a hugely increased population on this planet that has a doubled life expectancy and yet we are probably more risk averse now than we were 100 years ago. This makes me think that perhaps our lives are less fullfilled now than they were then, maybe there is only so much fullillment to go round?
Posted by: Robin Sutcliffe, 23 June 2007, 14:26

I think a goal of defining what is an “acceptable risk” is very much to be encouraged, however, the point of the risk spectrum and everybody’s right to position themselves on that spectrum as a model, is that it appears to me to encourage play providers to reject opportunities for perceived higher levels of risk in play schemes based on pressure from more risk adverse bodies that use the ever present and increasing threat of litigation should anything go wrong against any innovative and slightly different play feature. David’s point that policies and documentation are available that encourage and support an informed approach to risk is great and will encourage the boundaries of risk acceptability to be challenged and pushed back. This forum will help with the spread of such knowledge and these documents will be / are useful tools in the play provider’s toolbox when they respond to initial negativity associated with more risk encompassing play features.
However, Nicolas point regarding children becoming more ‘precious’ is also spot on, though I would describe it more as a parents increasing neurosis rather than any tangible change in levels of love care and/or attention. Whether the increasing keenness to embrace litigation has fuelled this change in attitude or it is due to an increased awareness of the range of incidents unfortunately experienced by children through a more efficient media network, the simple fact remains, parents now seem to be keener to pursue providers of play for injuries in playgrounds than not.
I agree entirely with Bernards final paragraph, my question as to whether society wants to embrace an increasing level of risk was framed in part to encourage such a debate. Parents need to accept that with an increased level of risk within a play environment there is likely to be an increased incident rate. By accepting play features that engage more with users and therefore provides a more complete experience, parents must accept the increased level of risk to their child in using such features. In accepting these risks there has to be an acknowledgement of increased responsibility for the child by the parent when using the feature - which I think is more an issue of social responsibility than anything else. Is such an acceptance tacit is allowing a child to use a skate park?
I would be interested in learning how such a change in social responsibility can be achieved such that innovative play features can be provided sooner rather than later.

Posted by: Neil Phillips, Rubicon Play, 11 June 2007, 18:32

In response to Neil, David makes the important point that there are policies, formal doumentation, and recognition in law of the need to take an informed approach to risk, and this has potential benefits for play. In other words, the formal framework within which we work is not inherently risk-averse - though one might reasonably comment, 'shame so few people have noticed'.

But there is a problem with all this talk about 'society': society this and society that - as though 'society' were over there somewhere, and you and me are here, sort of outside the loop.

Of course, we're firmly within the societal loop, and often horribly, if perhaps inadvertently, implicated in perpetuating the very attitudes and practices we claim to deprecate.

It is a consistent feature of PLAYLINK's experience when working with authorities and cross-sectoral 'partnerships' to create play policies - I do mean policies not strategies - or when conducting seminars on risk and play, that within any local authority and/or partnership body, there are different meanings and interpretations concurrently running about the meaning of 'risk', what we mean by 'acceptable risk', how we come to judge those matters.

Until those different meanings are subject to discussion - I mean discussion, not finger ponting - and their different consequences mapped out, little real progres is likely to be made in providing 'real' play opportunities as distinct from ones that merely proclaim their intent on the label.
Posted by: Benard Spiegal, Principal, PLAYLINK, 11 June 2007, 08:44

In response to part of Neil's question, I think society is gradually becoming aware of the need to give children greater freedom, but it's a slow process. In terms of what can be provided by society to help play providers, I think there is already a lot of useful material out there. For example, the HSE's statement on paddling pools and the need to accept risk in exchange for benefits; the HSE's principles of sensible risk management; the growing concern, backed by research, about childhood sedentariness and the ill-health to which it leads; the recognition by the law that risks may be tolerated in exchange for benefits and that duty holders should provide 'reasonable, not 'total,' care. All these things, and many others, are very realistic and rational and waiting to be deployed. When I am acting as expert witness for the defence in some of these cases, I make sure the Court is aware of these invaluable documents.
Posted by: David Ball, 09 June 2007, 18:44

I'm not aware of any research, but my own observations are that many parents that I know are more confident to let younger children play out when they have older siblings, who have already established a higher degree of independence.

The second and third children are often allowed to do things at an earlier age than the first perhaps because the parents are more relaxed and have more experience (or perhaps because they are so frazzled by the time that by the time subsequent children come along they are more inclined to enjoy a little bit of benign neglect!)

I'm not sure that houses are getting bigger. Round here in Barnet I see more and more families cramming into flats because they cannot afford a family house or garden at London prices.

But family sizes are getting smaller, so there are more and more only children and probably also more so-called 'precious' children than previously and this may also mean that more parents are reluctant to allow more adventurous play.
Posted by: Nicola Butler, Director, Free Play Network, 07 June 2007, 16:44

Is there any research which looks at family size and children's play?

Are parents happier for children to play "alone" away from home when they are in fact playing with siblings?

Do we have bigger homes which mean that smaller families are not getting under each other's feet as much as the bigger families used to?

Who are the children who play out? and why? Maybe these are questions we need to answer before we can understand why other children don't play out.




Posted by: David Williams, Programme Manager, Hillingdon Children's Fund, 07 June 2007, 13:40