This post shares a most helpful paper on playground surfacing from David Ball, Professor of Risk Management and a long-term collaborator of mine. It is taken from the website of our mutual collaborator Bernard Spiegal.
As Bernard says, the value of David’s paper is that it places the playground surfacing debate in the wider context of social values and policy. What is more, it does this in a clear, concise, balanced and thoughtful way. It also offers some helpful historical insights. It should be of interest to anyone who wants to get a wider perspective on this complex topic.
I reprint in full an important and helpful paper by David Ball, Professor of Risk Management at the Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management. The paper, ‘Observations on Impact Attenuation Criteria for Playground Surfaces, discusses some of the questions and tensions that inevitably arise whenever risk management decisions need to be made.
The paper – prompted by the American Society for Testing and Materials’ (ASTM) proposal to revise downwards the Head Impact Criterion for playground impact absorbing surfacing – is of wide relevance in that it sets out a way of thinking about risk in the context of wider social policy goals. I urge anyone involved in making decisions about children and teenagers’ play and learning to read the succinct and clear paper that follows.
The paper has been sent to ASTM.
Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management
OBSERVATIONS ON IMPACT ATTENUATION CRITERIA FOR PLAYGROUND SURFACING
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Rethinking Childhood 
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I have posted comments to this paper by Prof. Ball on the website of Bernard Spiegal in that this website would not allow a posting of comments..
The same comments will be posted on a number of the linkedin sites that have references Prof. Ball’s paper.