International perspectives of playground safety.

While the playground safety movement develops here in the United States, three areas of international activity are beginning to develop. These are 1) North America 2) Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) and 3) the Southeast Pacific Rim (including Australia and New Zealand, with some activity in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia). The evidence of the three nuclei of interest has been reflected in the participation of recent international conferences.

The first International Playground Safety Conference was held in October, 1995, at Penn State University. There were over 100 registered participants from 16 countries. Thirty juried papers were given by presenters from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the US. One theme common to several presentations was the importance of play value and child development as significant factors in safety. There were a number of technical papers related to such things as computer applications, inspector certification, surface testing procedures, playground maintenance, and the principles of risk management. While participants foresaw a single international playground safety standard in the future, consensus supported sensitivity to the needs of children, limitations on design restrictions, and a generic approach to physical criteria.

The conference initiated networking of many of the foremost playground safety specialists around the world. (Copies of Playground Safety--Proceedings of the 1995 International Conference are available from the NRPA for $35.00) The subsequent progress and dialogues have stimulated a call for a second international conference on playground safety, which is currently being planned for 1998. The Call for Papers will be issued this summer.

In August, 1996, another international conference on play was convened in Helsinki, Finland. The International Association for the Child's Right to Play (IPA) held its 12th World Congress there, with representation from more countries than the U.S. conference the previous year Over 150 participants from 26 countries were in attendance, but the bulk of the participants came from four countries: the United Kingdom, the United States, Finland (the host country), and neighboring Sweden. The focus of this conference was the phenomenon of play in many cultures. Also examined were the benefits and functions of play. Professor Monty Christiansen, representing Penn State University and the NRPA, presented a paper chronicling the evolution of the National Playground Safety Institute (NPSI) and its playground safety inspector certification training program in the United States. The compilation of presentation abstracts from this conference is currently being compiled. Several participants of these international conferences were involved in the Australian Playground Conference which was held in October, 1996.

The International Federation of Park Administrators may provide a platform for one or more papers on playground safety for its 1998 World Congress, which has the theme "Changing Societies -- The Challenge for parks and Recreation." The IFPRA XVII World Congress will be held in Melbourne, Autralia.

Some national standards on playgrounds, playground equipment, or playground surfacing continue to evolve. In North America, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) produced revisions to its initial standard on public playground equipment in 1995. Dr. Frances Wallach anticipates that ASTM will adopt the proposed North American harmonized playground safety standard in fall of 1997. The North American harmonization effort is the project or a joint committee of the Canadian Standards Association and the ASTM. ASTM is also working on changes to its standards on playground surfacing test methods and home playground equipment. Other ASTM committess are working on new standards for soft contained play equipment and play provisions for children under the age of two.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) called a national playground Safety Roundtable last October to obtain public reaction to proposed changes to the CPSC public playground safety guidelines. These changes will make the CPSC guidelines and ASTM Specification F1487 (on public playground equipment) essentially compatible and will complement the efforts of the North American Playground Standards Harmonization Committee. This bi-national effort has caught the attention of a Caribbean playground provider who requested and was granted permission to send representatives to the North American Harmonization Committee as official International Observers.

Meanwhile four Americans states (California, Texas, New Hampshire, and South Carolina) have mandated public or licensed childcare facility compliance with the federal guidelines. In the other 46 states, compliance is voluntary, but generally accepted as the professional standard of care.

A new trade association, incorporated in 1996, the International Playground Equipment manufacturers Association (IPEMA) has established third-party testing of equipment for ASTM F1487 compliance. This is expected to increase purchaser confidence and is being prominently displayed in product literature.

In the United Kingdom, British Standard 5696--Playground Equipment Intended for Permanent Installation Outdoors, is voluntary. Similarly, impact-absorbing surfaces are not legally required. According to Peter Heseltine of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, revisions to the British standard (which he believes most manufacturers view as design restrictive) has not been forthcoming in anticipation of the imminent European standard.

These new standards, officially prEN 1176--Playground Equipment and prEN 1177--Playground Surfacing, but commonly referred to as the european Committee for Standardization (CEN) playground standards, have been nine years in the making. Heseltine notes that it is really still a draft standard although about 90% has acquired the status of a standard and some suppliers are either constructing playground equipment based upon it, or are tooling up in anticipation of its final approval. At present Heseltine foresees the status of the CEN standard to be similar to the status of the voluntary British standard, although there may be some Health and Safety directives from the Europe Commission which would effectively make it mandatory. Implementation of the CEN standard in Europe, with its several fiercely autonomous nations, will be similar to the implementation of the CPSC/ASTM playground standards among the 50 states. Heseltine predicts Sweden Denmark, Finland, Holland, and the U.K. will follow CEN to the letter; Germany and France will adopt what suits them; almost everyone else will ignore it.

While the draft Australian standard for public use playgrounds and playground equipment is still not completely official much of it is recognized as the standard of care in Australia and has been adopted as the New Zealand standard.

Several other countries have adopted playground or play equipment standards, including Germany, Sweden, France, and Malaysia. These will undoubtedly be superseded by the emerging multi-national standards.

The present attempts to harmonize two or more national standards into a multinational standard -- the North American harmonized standard which merges the Canadian and ASTM standards, the CEN standard of the Commonwealth of European Nations, and the use of the Australian standard there and in New Zealand -- mirror the three international active playground safety areas noted in the beginning of this article. It is to be expected that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will be approached to amalgamate and harmonize these present various multi-national standards into a general global standard for the new millenium.