Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA)
This site is the main site for issues around Canadian Parks and Recreation. Under this site, you may access directly the Canadian Playground Safety Institute (CPSI), which was created under the CPRA and functions to provide a
two-day certification course on Playground Safety. This site should be one of the sites you visit.
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Canadian Standards Association
This site provides excellent guidelines and recognized Canadian Standards but there
is a charge for this information. When on this site, use the search vehicle and look under "Playground" for the standards. The specific standard you require in Canada is CAN/CSA-Z614-98 - Children's Playspaces and Equipment. The present price is $45 and you may obtain the standard as a hard copy, CD-ROM or download a PDF file directly for this price.
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Safe Kids Canada
This Canadian site provides some excellent material about playgrounds (plus numerous other accident prevention materials respecting child safety). The site was developed and maintained by the national injury prevention program of Toronto Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto. It provides some very good checklist and an explanation of the CSA standards for Playgrounds. Look under the section "Injury Prevention Professionals and Community Partners" for the material on Playground Safety. This is a very good site to visit.
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Consumer Products Safety Commission
This American site provides excellent material on a variety of subjects including playground safety for schools, maintenance staff, administrators, supervisors and parents. It provides checklist, technical documents and the "Handbook for Public Playground Safety", an excellent 46-page book that provides an easily understood guide to playground concerns - a must have. All documents are in either HTML or PDF format. Please note it illustrates the American Standards and some documentation is aimed at private (home use, retail establishment, etc.) rather than public (parks, schools, etc.) playgrounds.
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The National Program for Playground Safety
This excellent American site provides plenty of information on playground safety and is the primary site for the latest information on playground issues. Under "Safety Information", there is a link to the Consumer Products Safety Commission Handbook on Public Playgrounds. Many questions are also answered on this site respecting specific playground safety concerns.
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Safe Kids
This site is an American site that is dedicated to child safety. It has some material on Playground Safety and also provides links to some other good sites. Further to this, the site addresses current safety issues a good example being new children's scooters.
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American Medical Association
This site covers basic safe playground rules and provides an overview of hazards.
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World Playground Safety
This American site has some excellent resources and some very good links under Playground Safety. It also provides some very good articles and is a database of manufacturers of different types of equipment. One word of caution is that it is American-based
and some equipment might not meet Canadian standards.
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Kaboom
This site indicates that it is a national
non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of safe play environments for children. The mandate appears to be in assisting groups to work in a volunteer basis in creating and developing safe playgrounds for children. It appears to have plenty of information respecting fund-raising and the process of getting a playground started. Although American-based, it is well worth a visit.
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