Are you looking for new ways to promote children’s mental, and emotional development in your local parks or school playgrounds? PlaySmart are top experts in the outdoor play industry. Therefore, we understand the critical role of outdoor play spaces in facilitating healthy development.
Because it is Mental Health Awareness Week, it’s time to appreciate the psychological benefits of outdoor play. This is important for planning play developments to create safe, enriching environments for healthy growth and development.
Because of our client-first approach, our surfaces provide a wide range of benefits to the mental wellbeing of children. Here are just some of the ways we look to promote and also support childhood development with our playground projects.
Psychological Benefits of Outdoor Play: Mental Health Awareness Week
Outdoor play is a crucial component of children’s mental well-being, capable of empowering and inspiring children. Fresh air and interaction with the natural world have stress-reducing impacts. It also helps to facilitate a space for social interaction and physical activity.
Parks and playgrounds should strive to promote the benefits of outdoor play on children’s mental health throughout their development. Therefore, we recommend the inclusion of safe surfacing, creative design, and existing alongside elements of nature.
Playground and landscape design can ultimately create a unique and interesting space to play. This is because engaging children enables them to safely explore their surroundings to develop key social skills and independence.
Surface design can guide children through a play space with pathways. We recommend colour-coded sections of the area for different age groups or forms of play and sports markings. This helps to encourage a range of play activities. For example, imaginative play with themed elements, active play, sports and fitness areas, and unstructured interaction for holistic mental development.
Children’s Outdoor Play Safety Surfacing- Protecting Fun
When creating outdoor play environments where children can explore, experiment and have fun, ensuring safety remains paramount. Freedom and risk-taking are important in healthy childhood development, supporting independence and confidence in unique ways. Therefore, playground design needs to accommodate this form of unstructured play. We recommend safe surfacing to reduce the likelihood of injuries without inhibiting free-play activities.
Active play equipment like climbing towers, trim trails, and more allow children to push their limits and explore their capabilities. When designing a playground for this form of adventure, our surfacing ensures protection for appropriate Critical Fall Heights. This means that protection from safety surfacing must be substantial for maximum protection.
We recommend our SmartPlay grass mat system to provide outdoor play safety for any active play equipment areas. The SmartPlay shock pad underlay and thick rubber EcoSmart grass mats provide up to 2.5m of Critical Fall Height protection. They are also suitable for installation on a range of existing surfaces. For more details on our grass mat system’s benefits, you can also get your Free Guide to Grass Mats.
Landscape Design for Exciting and Engaging Environments
The aesthetics of an outdoor play space are also significant to captivate children’s imaginations to encourage relaxation, fun, and enjoyment. This is because the visual appeal of bright colours and patterns excite and inspire children. However, this can also work to direct and structure play towards appropriate sites to improve safety.
Stimulating the Senses
Play areas for younger children also often incorporate bright colours and themed playground markings or shapes. This clearly designates certain sections of the playground as suitable for certain ages. Our vibrant rubber surfacing uses EPDM rubber mulch. Additionally, this provides shock-absorbance to protect from falls. Unlike SBR rubber playgrounds it also does not release carbon residue that can stain children’s clothes and skin.
A vibrant pathway or a race-track directs children into areas most suitable for them to engage safely. Additionally, utilising fun and design in this way can subtly control the flow of people. All while also providing the perfect engaging landscape for play.
Incorporating Elements of Nature
As well as incorporating colour into a play area’s smart design, nature is important to a holistic outdoor experience. Mental health experts find that interaction with nature, playing among vegetation or around trees is beneficial to long-term mental health. This behaviour releases endorphins and improves the mood.
Additionally, when designing outdoor play spaces, consider incorporating elements of nature to capture. This effectively utilises the natural benefits of outdoor play amongst the local ecosystem. Also, surfacing can enhance and protect natural beauty to promote play in proximity to nature. JungleMulch rubber mulch is porous and flexible, allowing for installation for tree surrounds. This provides an extra layer of protection both to the trees, by protecting roots and limiting weed growth. It also creates a flat, secure, and accessible area of ground for activity and play.
PlaySmart- Designing Playgrounds for the Wellbeing of the Next Generation
For Mental Health Awareness Week, we continue our dedication to excitement, relaxation and safety in our outdoor play projects. Every child deserves access to a space to play, explore and relax. Therefore, it is our job to ensure play areas are safe and secure, to remain consistent for years to come.
Contact our team to work with us to upgrade and enhance your playground in new ways for your local area.