Making Your Home Safe For Children

In order to become a successful childminder it is paramount that you take your responsibilities seriously at all times. You must know what constitutes danger, how to avoid it and how to reduce the risk of accidents. Obviously accidents can, and do, happen – even to the most diligent of childminders – and so you must also know how to deal with accidents when necessary. The children in your care must be safe at all times; whether they are in your home, garden or on an outing you are responsible for their safety.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) reports some rather alarming findings with regards to accidents in the home:

• The most serious accidents occur in the kitchen and on the stairs.

 

• Accidents occur most often in the living and dining room areas.

 

• Children up to the age of four are most at risk from an accident.

 

• Most accidents happen from late afternoon to early evening, mainly during school holidays and in the summer months.

 

• Boys are more likely to have an accident than girls.

 

• Each year nearly 68,000 children have an accident in the kitchen; 66 per cent of these accidents involve children under the age of four.

 

It is therefore easy to see that young children must be supervised at all times and that any potential dangers are assessed and removed wherever possible. It is not my intention to frighten potential childminders by giving these statistics, nor am I suggesting that you refuse to care for boys aged from birth to four years or that you ban all children in your care from entering the kitchen, living room or dining room! I am simply trying to point out that children are inquisitive, they love to explore -quite often in places they are not meant to be – and they have absolutely no understanding of danger.

Your Responsibility

As a childminder the responsibility for the safety of the children in your care lies entirely with you. You will have to prove to a visiting Ofsted inspector, prior to becoming a registered childminder, that your home is safe. It is not sufficient to recognise the dangers and address them when time or finances are available. Unlike budgeting for new toys, as and when money allows, you will be expected to pay for any safety equipment or necessary alterations before registration is granted and you will have to meet all the necessary safety requirements. It is then up to you to ensure that your premises stay safe.

In order to help you to assess your home and decide which safety measures you need to address, we are going to look at each room separately. First, it is a good idea to think about your own family and ask yourself a few simple questions.

Do the answers you have given tell you anything about the safety measures already in place in your home? Ask yourself honestly whether your home is safe for young children.

Assessing The Risks

Another very good way of assessing risks to young children is to see potential dangers through their eyes. So get down on your knees, crawl around your living room and look at the space from a child’s level. Did you realise that the sharp edges on your coffee table are at exactly the same height as a toddler’s eyes, ready to cause a serious accident should they trip and fall? Is the flex of your table lamp in just the right place to cause the toddler to trip and fall onto the coffee table?

It is, of course, impossible to remove every aspect of danger from your home, otherwise you would be caring for children in a completely empty room with padded walls and floors. The odd bump and bruise is part of growing up; it is the serious accidents that we are trying to avoid at all costs.