Abstract
Children’s play and exploration involves risk and a possibility for being injured. Early childhood and care institutions (ECECs) should provide children with physical challenges in a safe environment. Over the past years, the attention towards playground safety and injuries in ECECs has increased. Norwegian practitioners have a liberal approach to children’s risk taking in play, raising questions on injury prevalence in Norwegian ECECs. The aim for this study was to gain knowledge about the injury prevalence and characteristics of the injuries in Norwegian ECECs. Managers from 2105 institutions completed an electronic questionnaire retrospectively asking the managers to report injuries and accidents the past year. The results indicate that injuries are rare in Norwegian ECECs, and that most of the injuries are minor and do not require a follow-up from professional medical personnel. The moderate and severe injuries are very rare, and often mishaps. There are some indications that boys experience injuries more often than girls do. The main cause of moderate injuries is falling, both outdoors and indoors.
Highlights
In the Norwegian Kindergarten Act (NMER, 2005) and the Framework Plan for the Content and Tasks of Kindergartens (NMER, 2006/2011), there is an emphasis on children’s opportunities for play, exploration, meaningful experiences and activities in safe yet challenging environments
Prevalence of injuries in Norwegian ECECs The results of this study show that there are few injuries in Norwegian ECECs, considering how many children spend a long number of hours in these institutions
Seen in the light of the fact that 90.2 % of Norwegian children are in ECECs and that 93 % of these children spend 41 hours or more in ECECs each week (StatisticsNorway, 2014), injuries must be considered to be of low injury prevalence
Summary
In the Norwegian Kindergarten Act (NMER, 2005) and the Framework Plan for the Content and Tasks of Kindergartens (NMER, 2006/2011), there is an emphasis on children’s opportunities for play, exploration, meaningful experiences and activities in safe yet challenging environments. Because of the injuries occurring on children’s playgrounds and the wish to create a safe play environment for children, formal risk-managing strategies have emerged in several countries These primarily include regulation of the physical features of children’s play environments and playground equipment, such as maximum fall height, impact absorbing surfaces, sharp edges, unstable equipment and the likelihood of being trapped, pinched, crushed or struck (Ball, 2002, 2004; Chalmers, 2003; DSB, 1996; Little, 2006; Mowat, Wang, Pickett, & Brison, 1998). These laws have been made on the basis of accident research showing that the majority of playground injuries result from falls from swings, slides, climbing frames, and bicycles or other equipment and from being hit, pinched, or crushed in swing equipment (Ball, 2002; Bienefeld, Pickett, & Carr, 1996; Chalmers et al, 1996;; Mack, Hudson, & Thompson, 1997; Peterson, Gillies, Cook, Schick, & Little, 1994; Phelan, Khoury, Kalkwarf, & Lamphear, 2001; Sawyers, 1994)
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