The wobbly bridge revisited, or the problem with playground standards

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 14 comments

3 boys in playground, one falling off a beamIn my last post, I used the example of a wobbly bridge to highlight why it is hard to manage risk in play spaces. I promised to say more about the role of equipment standards in managing risk, and why they need to be rethought. This post delivers on that promise.

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Posted in Outdoor play, Play spaces, playground, Public policy, Risk

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The wobbly bridge, or why it is harder to manage risk in playgrounds than factories

Posted on April 22, 2013 | 8 comments

Rope bridge in play area“How can we make our playground safe?” It seems a simple enough question. Yet the answer is anything but (and even the question is not as simple as it looks). In fact, managing risk in a playground is much more complex than in a factory or a workplace. The reason for this is down to a fundamental difference in the nature of the task. One way to grasp this difference is to think about a wobbly bridge.

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Posted in Outdoor play, Play spaces, playground, Risk

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News Consumption Disorder: symptoms, diagnosis and cure

Posted on April 17, 2013 | 11 comments

Front cover of Daily Mirror with Madeleine storyWhat role does news coverage play in shaping the way we think about the risks children face? Is a diet of bad news really bad for us, and if so, what can we do about it? These questions were on my mind after Monday night’s engaging debate on modern childhood organised by my old employers the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) to launch its 50th anniversary celebrations.

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Posted in Risk

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A century of rethinking childhood

Posted on April 8, 2013 | 7 comments

I’m devoting my 100th blog post to a look back over the previous 99, and over the 20 months or so since my first post. It is a chance for me to think about the process of blogging – and an invitation to you to check out some material that you may have missed.

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Posted in Technology

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Are child-friendly city approaches being used to push out poor families?

Posted on March 25, 2013 | 17 comments

[May 2019: postscript added – see the end of this post.]
Rotterdam child-friendly city report cover
Rotterdam is one the few big cities that has taken seriously the goal of becoming more child-friendly. Its ambitious planning policies have been debated in the National Assembly for Wales. Its public space improvement projects have been lauded at international conferences (indeed in 2008 it hosted Child in the City, a leading global cross-disciplinary event).

What is more, unlike some other Child-Friendly City initiatives, it focuses on hard outcomes that make a real difference in children’s lives – better parks, improved walking and cycling networks, wider pavements – and not just on participation processes that, however well-intentioned, may end up being idle wheels.

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Posted in Public policy, Public space, Urban planning, Urbanism

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A broken limb, the Health and Safety Executive, and a good outcome

Posted on March 11, 2013 | 15 comments

broken arm in plasterThe Health and Safety Executive – the nation’s safety regulator – is so often the fall guy for everything that is wrong about the way risk is managed. But last week I heard an anecdote that brought home to me – in an unexpected way – the positive role HSE is playing in building support for a balanced, thoughtful approach to risk in children’s play. I was running a workshop on risk-benefit assessment at a playwork conference, and one of the participants – a manager of an after-school club – shared a revealing story. It begins last September, with a boy breaking a limb.

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Posted in Outdoor play, Parenting, play, Public policy, Risk

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