Play Pembrokeshire

What you can do

If your organisation is involved in providing play opportunities, you should adopt a risk- benefit approach. In recognition of this, the use of risk-benefit assessment in health and safety policies and procedures is one of the criteria set out in the Play Sufficiency Toolkit. 

If you are just starting out on the process, you may find it helpful to create the opportunity to explore issues of risk and children’s play. Ideally this would bring together as wide a selection of interested parties as possible, including professionals, managers, those involved in risk management, elected members/management committees/boards of governors, parents and perhaps children themselves. In local authorities and other larger organisations, dialogue between service managers, risk managers and lead officers is crucial. 

A comprehensive review of existing risk assessment policies and procedures will show where these need to be revisited and revised. It may be valuable to pilot new procedures, and/or run them alongside existing ones for a time, to help manage the process of change.