Chris Guy of RADMAN Ltd, has 41 years’ experience working for and with play facilities.
He was Health and Safety Inspector for London Adventure Playground Association from 1980 to 1998, becoming PLAYLINK in 1989: he carried out site visits and inspections, produced reports, gave advice and information and assisted with work on Risk Assessments. This continued, along with providing training, until 2004 when the organisation closed.
Chris was directly involved, assisting the author, Dave Potter, in the preparation of the PLAYLINK publication ‘Risk and Safety in Play’; a Handbook and Code of Practice for Adventure Playgrounds.
Adventure playground safety inspection and training work continued and expanded since then, working through his own business, RADMAN Ltd. He carries out play-related assignments as an independent Inspector, consultant and contractor. This has included ‘hands-on’ involvement with design and build work, constructing and installing bespoke play equipment.
Many previous LAPA & PLAYLINK clients continued to use Chris’s services along with numerous new clients. These have included many of London’s Adventure Playgrounds, as well as sites in Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Leicester, Peterborough, Somerset, Wisbech and Wrexham.
Chris has worked as a qualified Annual Inspector and member of the Register of Play Inspectors International (RPII) (RPII Inspector No. 1013A) since 2001, concentrating particularly on issues related to the European Playground Safety Standards (EN 1176) in areas such as public parks and open spaces, plus schools and a variety of other types of provision. This work still continues and covers play areas in many parts of the country.
Contact details: 0774 8778 509 radmanplay@btconnect.com
Rob Wheway is Director and Principal Consultant of the Children’s Play Advisory Service.
Rob started his work in play in 1971 when he was the playworker at a Birmingham adventure playground. He then became a field officer for adventure playgrounds in Belfast.
He was then a Regional Play Advisor for NPFA and PlayBoard for 11 years.
Rob started his own play consultancy in 1990 where his “bread and butter” work was inspecting and assessing fixed equipment playgrounds and adventure playgrounds.
Through work with the consultancy he became the country’s leading practitioner of observational and interview research of children at play outdoors, both at designated play places and in their local environment.
He was the co-author with Dr Alison Millward of “Child’s Play: Facilitating Play on Housing Estates”. His publication “Most Play Strategies are Wrong” was based on research carried out in Cardiff and a paper he gave in 2011 to the International Play Association Conference in Cardiff. He was co-author with Ally John of the report “Can Play Will Play: Disabled children and access to outdoor playgrounds”.
He has regularly carried out consultations with children and parents at playgrounds which are being improved so that children are involved in the development of the playground.
His experience of inspecting adventure playgrounds identified the need for training for playworkers on how to inspect their own playgrounds. Rob has run a number of very successful training days.
Contact details: 07973 150019 whewayr@gmail.com
Simon Rix has been in Playwork for 40 years, since beginning as a volunteer on a local West London adventure playground.
Simon has been a face-to-face Playworker, a Senior Playworker, a Play Development Worker, a Structure Builder and a Playwork Trainer.
He managed an adventure playground in Hackney for 15 years, constructing London’s first solar building there as a community self-build.
Following, Simon developed Somerford Grove Adventure Playground in Tottenham. The participative design and process piloted there becoming the methodology of the Children’s Plan. The methodology was rolled out with Design and Build (Play), which completed over 30 build projects in adventure playgrounds, schools and parks.
Simon has devised and delivered training for playworkers in participative design with children, structure building and tool use, quality assurance and risk assessment.
Simon has sat on many management committees and was Chair of Hackney Play Association for 7 years.
Before joining APIA, Simon was Senior Playworker at Meriden Adventure Playground in Solihull, where he relaunched the service, trained new playworkers from the community alongside NVQ trainers so that the team were able to redesign and rebuild the site and take on it’s maintenance. After 5 years, Simon was made redundant in local authority cuts.
Contact details: simon@designandbuildplay.org.uk
Sarah Wilson has worked as a Playworker in London for 12 years on a variety of projects including school holiday play schemes, a play bus, estate play, supporting improved play opportunities in schools but predominantly on adventure playgrounds. As Senior Playworker, she became more interested in site maintenance, development and health & safety. This included physically maintaining and building play structures for and with children.
Having worked at a handful of London’s adventure playgrounds, she developed a thorough sense of children’s use of play spaces as well as the systems and regimes required behind the scenes, including in relation to health & safety. She continues her face-to-face work as a Playworker on adventure playgrounds.
Sarah gained her Post-Graduate Certificate in ‘Professional Studies in Children’s Play from the University of Gloucestershire in 2016 and had a chapter published in Hughes and Browns 2018 book ‘Aspects of Playwork’.
She has run training workshops at National Playwork Conference and in conjunction with Children’s Play Advisory Service on topics including reflective playwork practice and advice to secondary schools on how to support the play of older children.
Since 2019 Sarah was been working with Rob Wheway of Children’s Play Advisory Service, assisting him with adventure playground Annual Inspections and in delivering the ‘Inspecting Your Adventure Playground’ training across England. She has been building a portfolio to demonstrate her competence as an adventure playground inspector and currently has experience of carrying out over 20 adventure playground Annual Health & Safety Inspections (and counting).
Alongside health & safety, Sarah is particularly interested in supporting children’s participation in the development of play spaces and ideas around co-production and slow build.
Contact details: sarah@sarahwilsons.com
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