I've summarised David Eager's latest article that explains the concept of benefit-risk and the historical development of the new benefit-risk assessment standard. His article will be a pivotal resource to help New Zealand get back on track, balancing safety with the benefits of risk in play. Let’s embrace this approach and bring vitality back to our communities!

We can’t talk about health & safety and play, specifically the topic of children having independent outdoor adventures, based on international data. We need New Zealand data. But where is it? Not in one simple place, so I had to go digging. I’ve had an adventure of my own – an indoor digital-based adventure to find and crunch the numbers so you don’t have to. That’s not a real adventure though, so now it’s time for me to go outside and play, but before you do the same, and before you tell your kids to go on their own outdoor adventure, you need to read this.

In 2015 I wrote an article talking about my thoughts on the looming health and safety reforms from a parkour perspective. Besides cringing at reading old writing (like listening to your own voice?), my opinions have only been reinforced by experiences in the world of parkour, play, and parenting. I was given the prompt to write this topic again after reading an article series on ‘overprotective parenting’ that pulls together themes relating to the myths and realities of childhood risks and health and safety.