Quote Originally Posted by Simona View Post
At the risk of being told....Sorry to ask about this but the post has truly confused me

We have to RA in order to minimise risks....we cannot prevent 'accidents' altogether.

Children do slip on grass and do fall ....but to replace the grass with something else is not required.
If there is a post in the garden the children are likely to bump into ...we encourage children to risk assess

That is what I have learnt from many training courses and reading Tim Gill too...and which Elizabeth Jarman herself endorses

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1a_oUjIQAE8uPE.jpg:large

If I have misunderstood the OP then I apologise

I don't think that was what Sarah was saying to be fair, she gave a few examples of what a minder 'might' think about doing:
• Children are slipping and falling on your grass -> cover the grass, re-seed, cordon the area off or take other steps to keep them safe.
The key word being OR

Reading further, my understanding is it's more about trying to identify 'why' an accident occurred and if there was something we could do to prevent it happening in future.
Having worked in a particularly accident prone environment, predominately because the guys always thought 'they knew best' or that the safety measures put in place 'didn't apply to them' some things just have to be taken out of the others hands to prevent a bigger incident.

I'll give you an example.
I worked in a training centre, training took place in a big warehouse with a skip outside for the rubbish. In the summer, we could leave the huge concertina warehouse sliding door open, in the winter though, that wasn't really an option, however, the guys (and girls rarely) that were being trained, needed easy access to the skip.
We (the staff) on the first day of induction stressed that if anyone wanted the warehouse door opening, they MUST ask a member of staff to open it, and explained it was to prevent slicing off fingers, or bits of fingers.
This statement always provided some hilarity, and lots of humoured comments, which helped in part to keep it fresh in their heads.
At the end of the induction, we did a quick Q&A, to ensure everyone had remembered about the warehouse door, amongst others, and every morning, did a recap briefing.
We're talking about adults here, not little children - although I did sometimes wonder how on earth some of them managed to get to the centre in one piece

One month, we had 3 sliced fingers because 3 different people thought the rules didn't apply to them/thought it was quicker to do it themselves
We reviewed what we could do, even going so far as to contact HSE ourselves for guidance - we couldn't lock it as it was an escape route should there be a fire.

The solutions we arrived at were:
to move the skip inside, or
to leave the door open enough for the lads to get through, all winter

We opted to leave the door open and froze every year, all because some stupid blokes that should have known better, that were only with us for a few weeks anyway, couldn't be bothered to follow the rules in place for their safety.
We did wonder how long it would take before it was a whole finger, or a hand, but wasn't prepared to find out

I view childminding as very similar to my previous workplace - some risks are acceptable to children, and to their parents, but as the person in charge/looking after a little person that has little or no common sense, that has to be taught to follow the rules, removing a potential risk or adapting it to make a lesser impact should an accident occur, makes much more sense to me

My decking becomes very slippy in the winter - do I continue to let the children play out as it is and risk one of them potentially breaking a bone when they slip (and they will slip, repeatedly reminding 3 under 3's not to run isn't an option as they don't 'see' danger in advance like we do) or do I take action by
a. putting fake grass down
b. change the boards to the anti slip version
c. get rid of the decking
d. don't allow access in the winter
e. any other ideas welcomed

I opted for the fake grass - it was the cheapest option where money was concerned, and not allowing access meant having to make time we don't always have due to nap times/feeding times/arrivals and departures to go to one of our local parks everyday.
the children don't slip as often, and are getting more 'self aware' when they do, but not at the higher risk of getting a broken bone

Isn't that what RA's all about?