Playground Program
The State of Playground Safety in the Chicago Park District
Introduction
The State of Playground Safety in the Chicago Park District: Phase II Report is a project of Friends of the Parks and the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Chicago of Children’s Memorial Hospital.
Playground safety is an extremely important subject for parents and governmental agencies. It goes without saying that all children’s playgrounds need to be maintained and repaired on a regular basis in order to ensure that they are safe for children. Each year in the United States, emergency room departments treat more than 200,000 children aged 14 and under for playground related injuries. Between 1990 and 2000, 147 children aged 14 and younger died from playground related injuries. Twenty percent of those fatalities were caused by falls to the playground surface. The same is true in Canada, of the 28,500 children treated each year for playground related injuries, two-thirds of those were caused by falls to the playground surface.
Friends of the Parks’ mission is to improve the parks, playgrounds and public spaces in Chicago. The Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Chicago and Children’s Memorial Hospital seek to reduce the number of injuries treated at children’s hospitals from playgrounds.
In 2006 and again in 2008, Friends of the Parks (FOTP) and the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Chicago (IFCKC), partnered to complete a survey inspection of all 517 playgrounds under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Park District. Staff trained by certified playground inspectors spent the entire summer inspecting each of the 517 playgrounds and completed a written survey of their conditions. The survey form had been pre-approved by the Chicago Park District. Based on the survey results, Friends of the Parks, in fall 2006, completed a report entitled: The State of Playground Safety in the Chicago Park District.
The report was provided to the Chicago Park District who implemented a program to improve the maintenance and repair of the children’s playgrounds. With the data on the condition of playgrounds, the Chicago Park District began to put in place a comprehensive maintenance plan for Chicago’s playgrounds that was funded and staffed beginning in 2007. The maintenance plan included a landscape team to add fibar (the soft-surface woodchip material) to all playgrounds. The replenishment of the fibar improved the safety of the playgrounds by adding the appropriate depth necessary to cushion falls and reduce injury. In addition, a second team was established by the Park District to repair the old equipment and eliminate safety hazards.
The Park District, recognizing the aging infrastructure of the playgrounds, increased the number of new playgrounds to be constructed from 4 in 2006 to 21 in 2007 and 20 in 2008.
Purpose
Friends of the Parks began collaborating with Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Chicago in 2001 with a goal of reducing the number of injuries to children in playgrounds. In 2002 we partnered to build new playgrounds in communities with the greatest need. At the same time we had a number of citizens calling us with concerns over potential hazards at the playgrounds in their neighborhoods.
To date, FOTP and IFCKC have completed four years of surveys of playgrounds in Chicago. Our initial phase of this project began in 2005 with random inspections of 211 playgrounds in each of the four regions in Chicago. We found that nearly 70% did not meet safety standards.
In the summer of 2006 and again in 2008, the Playground Safety Study included complete inspections on all 500+ playgrounds in the Chicago Park District. Both the 2006 and the 2008 studies entitled, The State of Playground Safety in the Chicago Park District, found that 70% of the playgrounds in Chicago’s parks did not meet safety standards. Since the majority of the playgrounds were constructed between 1988 and 1993, it was not surprising to find that more than two-thirds had significant safety issues. National standards establish a 15-year life expectancy for a playground.
Background
Playground safety is a subject that has been evolving nationally since the 1980’s. Many national organizations have become involved in the topic, including the National Playground Safety Institute and the National Program for Playground Safety, a group specializing in research, training and development for safe playgrounds. There is now a week identified as National Playground Safety Week in late April of every year, a time when many cities, non-profits, and other national and local organizations promote playground safety awareness. In the City of Chicago, site improvements to playgrounds are outlined in the Chicago Park Districts’ 2007-2012 Capital Improvement Plan and are the concerns of many park advisory councils around the city.
Findings
Each playground was inspected using a Playground Report Card survey, which was adapted from the National Program for Playground Safety report card and approved by the Chicago Park District. The survey identified 22 safety categories and only those items which met the safety criteria received points. The results of the survey yielded a playground inspection score and are defined as follows: a score of 70% and above means that the playground met the safety standards; a score of 69% or below indicated that the playground did not meet safety standards. The higher the percent figure the better the conditions of the playground. The lowest percent scores indicate a playground that had many safety issues.
The following are the results of the scored playgrounds arranged alphabetically by playground name. A score of 70 or higher means the playground met safety standards. A score of 69 or lower indicated the playground did not meet safety standards.
Download the playground safety study results here [pdf file].
