Safe Play

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How to Use Safe Play

There are many ways to promote safe play or motivate farm owners, parents and communities to adopt safe play areas on farms. These recommendations address seven key groups with suggestions on how they can use safe play.

• Include safe play information in customer mailings via envelope stuffers or in company newsletters and bulletins
• Encourage safe play areas among your customers who work in agriculture
• Print safe play information on items such as calendars, notepads, and folders
• Display information regarding safe play areas on farms on counters, in lobbies or on bulletin boards for customers to see (US Farm Safety and Health Week is mid-September; Canadian Agricultural Safety Week is mid-March)
• Ask salespeople or vendors to present Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklets to farming customers and clients during company visits
• Support the reproduction and distribution of Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklets to families, farm organizations, safety day programs, vocational education programs, rural libraries, and other organizations
• Place Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklets in waiting areas or on magazine tables for customers to read
• Include safe play area information in your display at area farm shows, county fairs, and trade shows
• Sponsor a model safe play area as a community service project
• Add information about or a link to Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms on your website
• Where applicable offer discounts on materials (e.g. fencing materials, lumber) used to construct safe play areas on farms

• Teach members about hazards associated with the agricultural workplace and the importance of separating children from those hazards
• Encourage safe play areas on farms for young children among friends and neighbors
• Advise members on how to look for play equipment hazards and protective ground surfacing
• Offer presentations, discussions, or displays based on Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklet at regional and national meetings
• Provide Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklets to your organization members at the local level; encourage them to take on the topic as a project or activity theme
• Distribute safe play information on organization promotional materials (posters, greeting cards, place mats, calendars)
• Develop safe play on farms poster displays or informational booths for farm shows, county fairs, or other exhibits
• Hold discussion groups on the topic of safe play areas on farms during meetings
• Review the reference section of Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms to access additional resources
• Promote examples of members’ safe play areas on farms to the media or in the organization newsletter

• Place Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklets in waiting rooms, offices, exam rooms, meeting rooms, or on magazine tables
• Encourage safe play areas on farms for young children among clients and patients
• Help parents learn about safe play areas for children by discussion and distribution of Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms
• Provide advise on prevention of illness of common environmental health hazards in agricultural worksites
• Share Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms with colleagues
• Create unique messages about safe play for specific audiences (e.g. grandmothers, parish nurses, parenting groups, farmers market organizations, farm course instructors)
• Learn why agricultural work settings are unsafe play settings for young children
• Learn about the vulnerability of young children to agricultural work hazards
• Advise parents on how to look for play equipment hazards and protective ground surfacing
• Help parents learn about safe play areas on farms for children by offering presentations, discussions, or displays based on Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklet
• Review the reference section of Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms to access additional resources

• Highlight stories on families using safe play areas on their farms
• Emphasize child development when reporting on children’s play issues
• Report about common hazards to young children playing in agricultural settings
• Report how a childhood agricultural injury or death may have been avoided; Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms could be cited
• Use Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms as a topic for an article or radio program
• Broadcast safe play areas on farms public service announcements
• Use Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms as a reference when choosing responsible dialog, images, or video clips in reference to youth playing away from work hazards in agriculture
• Review the reference section of Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms to access additional resources for a news article or for broadcast

• Help organization members learn about safe and unsafe play areas on farms for children by offering presentations, discussions, or displays based on Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklet
• Disseminate information about the vulnerability of young children to agricultural work hazards in organization newsletters, websites, meetings, etc.
• Encourage members to provide Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms and information to growers, producers and farm owners
• Encourage growers and farm owners to evaluate where children play on their farms and it’s relation to agricultural work hazards
• Introduce Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms booklets to migrant Head Start programs
• Determine and/or develop appropriate means of communicating safe play on farms information to parents (other than written word)
• Encourage agricultural employers to erect safe play areas with fencing on their farms to protect employees’ children
• Offer assistance/referrals to growers and farmers who construct safe play areas
• Assist local safety day program committees to include this information and offer to parents of immigrant/migrant children
• Review the reference section of Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms to access additional resources

• Recognize how agricultural worksites can be unsafe play settings for young children
• Learn of safety and health hazards to young children in the agricultural workplace
• Reconsider the decision to allow young children to play in farm work areas or to accompany working adults in agricultural work settings
• Learn about how child development relates to children’s play at various ages
• Think about where children in your agricultural operation play and the relation to agricultural hazards
• Be aware of common environmental health hazards in agricultural worksites that can have immediate or long term affects on children
• Explore all options for keeping young children away from agricultural worksites; childcare options may include supervised safe play areas on farms, childcare off the farm or having a trusted adult watch the children while work is performed
• Learn what type of barrier is age appropriate to the children at play
• Learn what type of physical barrier will safely and securely contain children during play

• Encourage FFA, 4-H and other youth groups to consider developing a safe play area on a farm as a project
• Encourage FFA, 4-H and other youth group members’ parents to construct a safe play area for their children
• Develop safe play on farms poster displays or informational booths for parents to view at programs for children
• Advise parents on how to look for farm hazards, play equipment hazards and protective ground surfacing based on Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms
• Plan and present a workshop on how to develop a safe play area on a farm for parents and children
• Train presenters and volunteers of farm safety day programs to teach about safe play areas on farms to parents
• Conduct a session on developing safe play areas for parents during a health fair or farm safety program
• Distribute Creating Safe Play Areas on Farms to parents of children who attend safety day programs