Helping the Community To Understand Playground Safety.

Playground safety in Australia has evolved from being an issue for parents, teachers, city engineers, and other generalists to an issue for specialists. This paper takes the position that the general community must become involved in playground planning, renovation, and maintenance. After presenting statistics on playground settings and playground accidents, the paper discusses playground safety assessment and approaches to preventing playground injuries for use by parents. These approaches include identifying the high points on equipment, identifying the fall zones, judging the softness of the surrounding surface, and taking measurements of the equipment to determine the proper size of bars and rails as well as potential strangulation hazards. Appended to the paper is "Every Parent's Guide to Assessing Playground Safety: Five Easy Steps for Spotting the Most Important Equipment-related Hazards." (BGC)