Playground Safety
Improving playground safety is a core mission of IPEMA – in fact, we think it’s so important that for years, we have provided third-party product certification-validation services for U.S. and Canadian public play equipment and U.S. public play surfacing materials. Our members are playground equipment and surfacing manufacturers who consider playground safety integral to their jobs. And thanks to their efforts, along with many other dedicated activists, playground safety has improved immensely in the last 25 years. Since the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued its first safety standards for playgrounds in 1981, we have seen an overhaul in the types of equipment and surfacing many of us remember from our childhoods. Concrete, asphalt and grass surfaces have virtually disappeared and been replaced with engineered wood-fiber and soft rubber surfaces to cushion kids’ falls. Old school “jungle gyms” and “monkey bars” have been removed and replaced with exciting new composite play systems, elaborate net and rock climbers and educationally based explorative play environments. We are proud to play a role in this continuing process, because many of us are parents ourselves, and also want to know our kids are safe on the playground. We know how important play is in children’s development – so much so that keeping playgrounds safe is like keeping our own workplaces safe. We have developed this 10 point checklist for use in assessing the safety of a playground. Click here to find out if your playground equipment and surfacing is IPEMA-certified. test