Health and safety concerns over toddlers
For five years many parents have met up on Friday mornings with toddlers in a coffee and playgroup session. The adult volunteers would have coffee and cookies during the toddler’s playtime, but now some health and safety concerns have been raised. Even though no child has been hurt in the five years of the Friday playgroup meeting, parents and volunteers are now restricted to having healthy snacks such as fruit and bread sticks. They are also stuck with drinking cold beverages such as water out of a plastic cup.
The sessions with the children are 90 minutes in length and children of 18 months or younger are allowed to attend. Last week the Warwickshire County Council instituted a ban, ruling that hot drinks are hazardous to toddlers at the Friday playgroup. Parents are angry at the ruling stating there is no reason for it other than “health and safety madness.” It seems most parents feel this an excessive health and safety measure for risk prevention.
It does seem to be excessive considering the parents are with their children at home, in the car, even at work where they may have hot beverages. Parents are supposed to take reasonable precautions with hot beverages and not neglect anything dangerous around children, but for a complete ban these parents and volunteers feel it is too much. The hope is that their outrage will get the banned lifted and the council will work on other more important issues.
