An Allergy To Modern Life - Risk Assessment

Artist: Sarah Everett

This piece aims to highlight the restrictions that are placed on children today due to health and safety regulations and risk assessment requirements.

The board game covers examples of some of the extremes that risk assessment has reached in schools and shows how ridiculous it has become. Aimed at adults, players are encouraged to question the lengths health and safety regulations go to through forfeits such as being sent to the headteacher's office (the start) for playing kiss-chase, and participating in activities like playing conkers whilst wearing safety goggles.

By bringing together numerous examples of over-protective and restrictive health and safety regulations, this interactive game highlights a society in which we are potentially limiting the development of children. The game further emphasises this idea by containing rules and forfeits that make it frustratingly difficult to progress towards the finish. And if a player does manage to reach the finish, the issue of how even a generally positive aspect of modern life - inclusion ˆ is also heading towards extreme lengths is tackled when the first person to reach the finish is told that, despite all their efforts, they have not won because "it's not the winning but the taking part that counts"!