The Playwork Foundation

The right to play is for every child, regardless of where they live

‘She seems genuinely impressed when she hears about the freedom and control that children have here, and especially at the sense of community and social connection they exhibit: that this is their place, of which they are immensely proud. Before she moves on, The Princess Royal turns to me and says that these children, from the ‘deprived’ social housing estates in the looming shadow of Waterloo Station, seem to be enjoying the kind of childhood that many supposedly better-off children would relish’.

From Policy for Play, responding to children’s forgotten right
Adrian Voce (Policy Press, 2015)

Writing in the Guardian this week, Harriet Grant reports on what can only be described as a form of social apartheid, in the design of a small housing estate in London. The article relates how, in a new mixed development on the site of the old Lilian Baylis School in SE1, North Lambeth, children living in social housing are excluded from the supposedly ‘communal’ play areas, where access is exclusive to those from the privately-owned units.

The article has caused a media furore, with everyone from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to the Communities Secretary, James Brokenshire, decrying what architect Dinah Bornat, an expert on child-friendly housing, has called a shameful abuse of the planning process. Victoria Derbyshire’s daytime TV programme featured mums from each part of the estate, united in wanting all their children to be able to play together equally.

As of lunchtime today, the BBC was reporting that Henley Housing, the developer, has said it ‘has no objection to residents in the social housing estate accessing all the play areas’; it was ‘leading the way’ to find a ‘workable solution’. This was later confirmed by Grant in a follow-up to her Guardian story. The BBC reported that Warwick Estates, who manage the private part of the estate, however, are making no comment.

If they each think it’s wrong, who is responsible?

It is striking from Grant’s original piece how a variety of key players (no pun intended) – the designer, the developer, the council, the Mayor and the government – seem to agree (in the glare of media scrutiny anyway) that this segregation of children’s play space by home-ownership status is wrong. And yet there it is. If they each think it’s wrong, who is responsible? Dinah Bornat says she is still trying to get to the bottom of it. There has even been talk of a possible legal challenge by some housing law specialists and children’s rights advocacy groups.

My correspondence, going back to June last year, from one of the parents at Baylis Old School, reveals that the segregation of the play area is in fact only the latest instalment in a running battle at this site, between residents who understood from the marketing that they were moving into a genuinely child-friendly development, and the estate managers, for whom children’s play of any stripe seems to have been largely conceived as a nuisance to be policed.

Whether or not a ‘workable solution’ can be found for the Baylis Old School development (now it is in the media spotlight), the wider questions are: how common is this, and how can it be prevented? How can children’s right to play together in the common spaces of their immediate neighbourhoods – a feature of childhood as ancient as society itself, and believed by scientists to be a key to our evolution as a species – be better protected? Is this not a failure of public policy, wherein children’s right to play receives scant recognition, and no support, in defiance of various UN reports criticising the government for its dereliction?

I want to suggest four distinct policy measures that would make such an occurrence – and the wider disregard for children’s rights in public space –much less likely in the future.

1.Reform national planning policy

As the retreat of children from public space became a growing cause of concern through the 90s and 2000s, so the need for a greater role for planning policy to provide guidance on children’s play space became more and more accepted, with major planning documents such as the first London Plan and the government’s National Planning Policy Guidance 17 on Recreational Space, each highlighting the need for planners and developers to include children’s play within the overall concept and masterplan for any residential development.

At the time of the change of government in 2010, Play England had been commissioned to produce specific planning guidance that was to have been published by the Department for Communities and Local Government. It never saw the light of day and, as everyone now knows, the entire suite of national planning policy documents was soon torn up and replaced by one slim volume. It seems clear that The National Planning Policy Framework is only fit for purpose if that purpose is to allow the concept and design of the public realm to be led by developers. Brought in at a time of perceived crisis for the economy, it is now surely time for a review.

2. Reinstate children’s play as a matter of government policy

Would Lambeth council have allowed the developer at the Baylis Old School site to alter the plans and create a segregated play area if children’s play had been higher on their political radar? Perhaps, but, it would have been less likely. When there was a Secretary of State for Children, with a serious national play policy, including a 10-year strategy and a £390m funding programme (including £155m of lottery money), local authorities were required to have a current local play strategy and play partnership, based squarely on principles and understandings about children’s right to play. Children’s play in England since 2010 has all but disappeared from the policy agenda other than as a tool for early learning and will continue to be neglected by cash-strapped local authorities until there is again some national leadership on the issue.

3. Adopt the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK Law

It has been both heartening and a bit depressing to see the parents from both sides of this unwanted divide citing children’s right to play equally, as per the UNCRC, in their campaign to end this terrible practice. Heartening, because we are often told there is not much appetite for children’s rights among the British public; the outpouring of sympathy for these children, and the stance of their parents suggests otherwise. Depressing because because the UK, (or, more particularly, the UK government, and therefore England) is one of the more reluctant signatories to the convention. The UK is one of the very few developed-world governments not to have adopted the convention into national legislation, ranked a lowly 187^th by the Kids Rights Index which monitors the degree of integration of children’s rights into national policy and legislation. This is why finding a viable legal challenge to this shameful decision may be harder than it ought to be.

4. Designate London and other conurbations Child Friendly Cities

The UN’s Habitat conferences of the 90s highlighted the particular threats to the wellbeing of children and young people by increasing urbanisation, population growth and poor long-term planning by municipal government. UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities Initiative is designed to ensure that local authorities, regardless of national government policy, fully adopt and implement the UNCRC within all relevant policies and processes. Very few British councils have signed up for the UNICEF initiative – many citing austerity and the cost of the programme – but some, like Bristol, have nevertheless declared their commitment to being a child friendly city and are developing plans and strategies accordingly. A child-friendly city is not just a city where child-friendly design principles are more widely adopted, but one where, as a cornerstone of the children’s rights ethos, these principles are applied equally to all children. 15 years after City Hall hosted the second international child-friendly city conference, Sadiq Khan should formally commit the capital to becoming a recognised Child Friendly City. His current London Plan revision is the perfect opportunity.

As a playworker in the 1980s, I had the privilege of working at an adventure playground in the same part of London as the Baylis Old School development. Like all such places (now sadly diminishing in number), it had its own unique character and culture, reflecting that of the local children who used it. One abiding memory is of how proud they were, not just of the playground (which they helped to build), but of their ‘manor’: the social housing estates in the shadow of Waterloo Station. Applying for grants for our project from the various funding programmes for deprived inner-city areas was frequently met with their scorn. “We’re not deprived; this ain’t a deprived area. Flaming cheek!’ would be one of the more printable reactions. As my story of the visit by our patron Princess Anne relates, there was support for this view from some unlikely sources.

Whatever else was going on in their lives, in one very important regard these children were indeed far from deprived. The adventure playground, and the wider public spaces surrounding it, were theirs to explore from an early age. With no gardens of their own, children from as young as 4-5 would be outside on a daily basis, in groups of siblings and friends – playing, making friends, getting up to mischief, growing up. The adventure playground was their place, but in those (pre-childcare registration) days of open-access, ‘drop-in-drop-out’ attendance, the wider public space of their estates was also their domain.

These kids, like so many who grew up before the outdoor world had become a no-go area for them, had the richest of play lives: meaning they grew up learning the physical and social competence, self-confidence and resourcefulness that only comes from having time and space to play, away from adult direction, structures and rules; immersing themselves, daily, in their own culture and society; making decisions and taking risks for themselves. In so doing they also developed the ‘place attachment’ so important to identity and citizenship.

Like the parents at Baylis Old School today, the adults in the lives of those children in the North Lambeth of the 1980s – indeed society as a whole, even if by a kind of benign neglect – understood the importance of their right to play, and that this right was for every child, regardless of where they live.

Adrian Voce
Image: Marc Rusines

Adrian Voce is the current President of the European Network for Child Friendly Cities. He is a trustee of the Playwork Foundation and an associate board member of Playing Out. His book, Policy for Play was published in 2015.

Playwork apprenticeship group hopes for third time lucky in trailblazer bid

The government panel did not think there were sufficient differences between playwork and early years education.

Ali Wood reports on the current situation of potential government funding for playwork training in England*

The playwork apprenticeship group in England has been advised that its second expression of interest to qualify for the government’s Trailblazer Apprenticeship programme, the key to funding from the Apprenticeship Levy has been declined. The group is preparing a third bid.

Since my previous overview, in February 2017, the government has been pressing ahead with its trailblazer apprenticeships and introduced more funding through the Apprenticeship Levy (available in England only).

In the current climate, this scheme represents the best hope for central funding and recognition for playwork training in England and a group of playwork employers drawn from across England, mostly from adventure playgrounds and after-school clubs, have been working hard to compile an expression of interest bid for a trailblazer playwork apprenticeship.

Whilst this sounds relatively quick and simple, it has not been – the first application was knocked back as the panel (which does not comprise anyone from a playwork background) did not think there were sufficient differences between playwork and early years education or even between playwork and youth work.

The group has liaised with both of these sectors in compiling a new bid that does set out the differences in approach but using language that will make sense to the reviewing panel. This has taken an extraordinary amount of voluntary time (well done Playwork Trailblazer group!) and culminated in the bid finally being resubmitted in February this year for a level 2 playwork apprenticeship. The group has also worked on putting together learning outcomes and assessment strategies at both levels 2 and 3 as the plan is to submit a bid for level 3 once the level 2 has been accepted.

This is a different kind of apprenticeship to that which has gone before and the group has worked hard to address those issues and failings highlighted above and to ensure content is up to date and relevant to practice. If it is accepted, it would come on stream either later this year or early next year when previous qualifications are likely to be expiring.

We will bring you news as soon as we have it. Watch this space!

Wales and Northern Ireland

*Wales and Northern Ireland are of course still regulated and therefore playworkers in each of these nations are still required to have playwork qualifications. Wales has developed a number of excellent qualifications, currently available only in Wales, although Play Wales has been pushing for these to be made available elsewhere. Northern Ireland still offers playwork at levels 2, 3 and 5 via City and Guilds who have just agreed to re-extend registration on the current playwork diplomas beyond September 2019, although a potential expiry date is still to be agreed. CACHE is currently saying that they will review in September 2019 whether they will continue to offer playwork qualifications in England and Wales, as current take-up may not warrant a successful business case to continue.

Ali Wood

Photo: Meriden Adventure Playground

Let’s make this thing our metaphorical campfire

Penny Wilson offers a personal view of the struggles of playwork in a world that undervalues play, and of how the Playwork Foundation represents an opportunity for developing our common cause, building mutual support and working together for the growing recognition we deserve.

Sometimes, being a playworker feels isolated. We struggle – with local authorities, housing associations, funders, government, the media and the public – to communicate what we are doing and why. The play illiterate look down on us; often either patronising or simply dismissing us and our work.

We have a strong body of knowledge, dating back some 70 years showing the urgent need for free play to be accessible to children, showing how best to support that play and design and provide for it. We have developed play theory, and there is a mountain of research showing how play –unstructured, child-led play – is of overwhelming benefit to children.

We have a language to explain the mechanics of the craft of playwork. Yet still we find resistance in almost every sphere of influence to our work. We can prove and prove and prove the efficacy of playwork in the lives of children over and over and over again. We state and restate our case and our perspectives. We write and rewrite the simple things we need to be understood.

The world seems to be play-blind.

Yet, we are continually thwarted in our work. People cannot see or hear play. They show endless resentment towards play and those who advocate for it. We all have hundreds of examples of the insults and semi-truths that have been conjured up to discredit and infantilise play and playworkers. It is frustrating and belittling. The world seems to be play-blind. We feel as powerless as the child trying to play. The odds are against us. We have no voice.

In our teams, we can band together, talk and use humour to counteract the frustrations. We can think laterally, advocating for play in creative, imaginative and positive ways. We can start social media discussion groups to broaden our thinking and engender mutual support. We can do this locally and internationally.

We can sometimes afford to go to conferences and, whenever that is possible, it is great for us. But our wages are low and our projects mostly insufficiently funded; we cannot often find the funds to attend, and they cannot always cover our absence when we do.

Some of us decide that higher education in play is the route to becoming more respected and better informed; to be heard. This is also great, but it is only a partial solution. We are asked for our base-level qualifications to gain employment, but even that level of qualification, enfeebled as it often is, is now almost impossible to gain.

the craft and knowledge and voice of the playworkers, advocating for the right of (every) child to play, is undermined

The play equipment industry has a loud voice. It has products to sell, an easy solution to a tick box requirement of landlords and landholders to provide some play space. Buy it and … Snap! The problem is solved. Quick and simple. The relationship between society and children’s play is resolved with one easy gift; give the kid a sweetie to stop it crying. Once again, the craft and knowledge and voice of the playworkers, advocating for the right of (every) child to play, is undermined by a passive-aggressive sop to short term gratification.

Even the organisations established to promote play are frequently unsupportive and undermining of playworkers, choosing to promote their own structural interests by renaming our work so that they can appear to have invented something new themselves or look to volunteers to replace us. Our unions are happy to accept our dues, but there is seldom a reasonable return for those dues. We are unrepresented. No one hears us. No one speaks up for us We are beset with difficulties. We always have been. We feel sorry for ourselves and undervalued.

A place to take pride in ourselves …

It is unsurprising therefore that we turn on each other, choosing to try to scramble to the top of the heap and squash our peers down to raise ourselves up. We are frequently vicious in our infighting. We prefer to squabble with each other than to seek common ground in the acceptance and respect of our differences.

We need a shared identity. We need to feel proud of ourselves and of each other. We need to be able to stand tall and advocate for play with pride. Playworkers need to have a metaphorical bonfire to sit around, a place to understand what we share and why we are so prepared to remain so dedicated to our work in the face of such overwhelming adversity. A place to find ourselves reflected in the faces or our peers. A place to take pride in ourselves.

The Playwork Foundation is an attempt to provide recognition, support and a voice for those of us who practise the craft of playwork. It can be the mirror we need to show us who we are so that we can look with pride on our image.

With no staff and negligible funding, the Foundation is nevertheless struggling on all our behalf with some of the thorny problems associated with the current turmoil around accredited training; and working with others to advocate for the policy changes the sector needs. But it can be a great deal more. It can share writing from those of us who like to write. It can hold images and papers and anything else we decide we need: memes on social media; information; ideas; resources.

The Foundation can be whatever we need it to be. Let’s make it our shared campfire. To do this it needs us to support it, to chip in, to use our voice and our enterprise. It is true that there is a cost element, which is a challenge to those of us living hand-to-mouth on playworker wages, but here is an opportunity, a chance to strengthen our voice and to find common ground; to turn away from the frustrations and infighting that shames and holds back our profession; to stand tall and move on.

Penny Wilson

Photo: Meriden Adventure Playground

Being and becoming

For her Sociology Masters, Lucy Benson used ideas about children’s being and becoming as a foundation for generating research with children. In this abstract, she suggests that though these ideas are not new, they are worth revisiting as a useful foundation for the playwork approach, and for all those with an interest in childhood, and in how children are constructed and presented.

There are some physiological differences between children and adults which cannot and should not be disregarded. Prout and James describe this phenomenon: ‘The immaturity of children is a biological fact but the way in which that immaturity is understood and made meaningful is a fact of culture’ (Prout, 2005). Until fairly recently, understandings of children were almost entirely focused on what children’s existence meant to their future adulthood; children were seen as dependent and incomplete humans who were to be invested in because they represented the future, rather than because their lives had meaning in the present. They were considered as human becomings rather than human beings. This is still the dominant standard used to understand UK childhood(s).

In the 1990s childhood sociologists made a strong case for children as complete beings, actors with a capacity to influence their own lives and the lives of others. This understanding of children as complete beings has helped to stengthen the children’s rights movement.

Nevertheless, this concept was shaken up by Nick Lee in his book Childhood and Society, where he questioned the validity of dichotomies such as biology versus sociology, and being versus becoming. Instead, he argued that in an ever-changing world, whose pace of change propels forward with gathering speed, there is nothing stable; humans do not become something and then remain in that same state throughout their lives. Human beings are in a perpetual state of change and, in this light, we can accept the constant becoming and re-becoming of both children and adults. This becoming does not negate the being of either child or adult, we are all beings in a state of becoming. Furthermore, the manner that we come into being does not need to be defined as either biological or cultural, as these parts of human selves are so utterly intertwined that it would be impossible to separate them.

If this rejection of dichotomies is accepted, then we can focus on the human as doing. It is our acts that are important, both to the being and becoming of our selves, and in the creation of conditions which we believe will improve our shared world.

Life is a prolific and open-ended narrative which is always more than the sum of it’s political and social constructs. It is with this spirit that I approach my work with children, considering us all as beings in a state of emergent becoming through our interactions. This, I believe, is a useful consideration for the foundations of playwork.

Children are not our future, they live alongside us in the present. We all make the future together.

Lucy Benson

Photo:James Schaap

References

Gallacher, L – A., & Gallagher, M. (2008). Methodological Immaturity in Childhood Research? Thinking through ‘particapatory methods’. Childhood 15(4), 499 -516.

Good, P. (2017, January 20). Routines. The Cunningham Ammendment, p. 4.

James, A. (2011). Agency. In J. Qvortrup, W. A. Corsaro, M.-S. Honig, (Eds.), The Palgrave Hanbook of Childhood Studies (pp. 34-45). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lee, N. (2001). Childhood and Society. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press.

Nieuwenhuys, O. (2013). Theorizing childhood(s): Why we need postcolonial perspectives. Childhood, Vol.20(1), 3-8.

Prout, A. (2005). The Future of Childhood. Oxen: Routledge.

Ward, C. (1977). The Child in the City. London: The Architectural Press Ltd.

Wells, K. (2009). Childhood in a Global Perspective. Cambridge: Polity.

Lucy Benson is head of adventure play at Islington Play Association in London, where she works with and for children in six adventure playgrounds. She recently co-authored a paper with Dr Rachel Rosen which was published in Children and Society, From Silence to Solidarity: Locating the Absent ‘Child Voice’ in the Struggle Against Benefit Sanctions. Lucy holds an MA in Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights from University College London. This article is derived from her dissertation, City Limits: Children’s Perspectives of an Unequal Borough in a Neo-liberal City.

Politics, playwork and neo-liberalism

NO. 1 IN AN ORIGINAL SERIES OF PAMPHLETS BY GORDON STURROCK

In this first of an original series of pamphlets, the UK playwork scholar Gordon Sturrock argues that avoiding the political implications of playwork practice will lead to its continuing, inevitable demise. Nor should we water our politics down to accommodate more dominant discourses. Instead, he argues, the field must vigorously embrace its true ethos, and so offer a vital alternative to the neo-liberal colonisation of education – and the wider public realm – to the rapacious capitalist project.

READ THE FULL PAMPHLET HERE

Gordon Sturrock is a playwork theorist and writer. He is co-author, with the late Perry Else, of The Play Cycle: An Introduction to Psycholudics (The Colorado Paper), and The Therapeutic Playwork Reader.

Photo: Meriden Adventure Playground

Flying the flag for playwork

Report of the chair of The Playwork Foundation, Karen Benjamin, to the charity’s first annual general meeting, held on 8th March 2019.

The Playwork Foundation was officially launched on 8^th November 2017 at Goldsmiths College, University of London with presentations from Professor Fraser Brown, Penny Wilson, Adrian Voce and Meynell, who also streamed the event live for those who could not attend on the day.

In January 2018 The Playwork Foundation achieved charitable status and in March 2018 members of the Board held a consultation session at the National Playwork Conference to discuss what the sector wanted from The Foundation creating a wealth of material from which we are continuing to work on as part of our business development plan.

These ‘asks’ also helped focus some of the questions for the Roadshows.

In 2018 we collaborated with Play England to co-deliver on 4 Roadshows around the country. These were held in Bristol, at Shiremoor Adventure Playground, in Dudley at Sycamore Adventure and in London – as part of a Policy ask for the sector. There is much work to do on the information collated from these events and there have been further talks with Play England about how to take this forward into policy.

There are different areas and actions for each organisation to take forward, as well as collaboration in meetings with key people and specific campaigns for the playwork sector.

Over the past year we have written letters in support of the playwork sector to Bristol City Council and also given written support to the continuation of playwork qualifications, and members of the Board have also been instrumental in supporting the development of a playwork apprenticeship.

We are working on the development of our policies, currently having a Code of Conduct agreement, and a safeguarding and GDPR policy, but there is more work to do and we are grateful to all those organisations who have shared their policies with us for us to adapt or mirror accordingly.

There are challenges ahead for playwork which include the retention of qualifications, endorsement for training courses and funding for playwork services.

The challenge for The Playwork Foundation is to ensure that we are sustainable, that we can generate enough support from members and that we can secure funding to enable us to deliver on a work programme that will meet our overall aim to represent playwork and playworkers.

I would like to thank the Board of Trustees for their commitment and their contributions, in particular Adrian for his work on the website and to Ali for her work with The Trailblazer group.

Moving forward we need to keep the momentum going and we need a strong and dedicated board of trustees who are prepared to work together to develop a business plan, to secure some project funding, to deliver a regular newsletter to our members and overall keep playwork and playworkers at the forefront of local, regional and national thinking.

Karen Benjamin
Chair of the Board of Trustees
March 8^th 2019

Photo: Karen Benjamin and Ali Wood at the launch of the charity in November 2017.

Are adventure playgrounds really under threat from a risk-averse insurance industry?

Simon Bazley, after taking the temperature of this week’s media flurry about insurance companies and adventure playgrounds, decided to do a little bit of his own investigative journalism. He discovered that the picture is not exactly as described by some illustrious newspapers, and suggests that the more serious threats lie elsewhere.

A couple of weeks ago, around 14th January, I learned through social media that Felix Road Adventure Playground in Bristol had been advised, in the words of its manager, Eddie Nutall, that “adventure playgrounds were not economically viable to them anymore … good luck, and sorry.”

Upon hearing this, I was naturally concerned about the implications for other adventure playgrounds across the UK and I decided to do some digging, getting in touch with some of my own contacts within the insurance industry. In short, they said “what are you worrying about? It’s only one insurer and there are many others; just speak to a broker”.

These contacts, quite senior people in the industry, went on to suggest that it is quite normal for an insurance provider to change their emphasis within various portfolios but that, as one company leaves the market, it provides opportunities for others to compete for the business.

The Times and the Sun

Fast forward two weeks, and I, like many of us in our field, was a little shocked to read the Times’ and Suns’ versions of events.

“Adventure playgrounds in danger of mass closure after insurer Zurich pulls out”? (The Times)

PARK STRIFE : ‘Claims culture’ could force mass closure of playparks as insurer Zurich ‘threatens to end cover’
(The Sun)

These headlines, which appeared on Monday this week, made me sit up and take more notice than I usually do of certain mainstream media. But are they factually correct? If so, then our sector has a serious problem, a sentiment manifest in the waves anxiety sweeping across social media all week. ‘Is this the final nail in our coffin?’ was one typical comment.

Panic

The trigger for this panic has surely been the Times’ assertion that Zurich, until now, was ‘the only insurer willing to back (adventure playgrounds)’. But my initial enquiries suggested this was not true, and so let’s take a closer look.

Speaking to a friend and colleague yesterday, I learned that the oldest adventure playground in Wales, Wrexham’s The Venture, was insured by Royal Sun Alliance (RSA), not Zurich. RSA also insures my own work as a self-employed playworker and play consultant.

Further investigation, via my insurance broker, Keegan and Pennykid in Edinburgh, provided more evidence that the problem has been exaggerated, to say the least. They advised me that they have a number of adventure playgrounds as clients and have successfully negotiated policies for them via RSA and Aviva, two of the largest insurance providers in the UK. According to Keegan and Pennykid, other companies are also amenable.

Bigger picture

From just a little research, it is clear that The Times story is inaccurate. Of course, we need to try and ascertain the bigger picture, and I would encourage all adventure playgrounds to respond to a survey that has been issued by London Play (see below). I am currently trying to find out who insures the other three adventure playgrounds still remaining in Wales and will feed this into the gathering evidence base.

Hopefully, a concerted and collaborative bit of data gathering will tell us whether or not adventure playgrounds across the UK can, in general, get reasonable insurance, with fair terms and conditions at a reasonable price. If not, then, as a playwork sector, we may indeed have a problem.

If, on the other hand, the answer is yes, albeit that some playgrounds may be now looking for new cover, then perhaps we can use this current attention on our work to highlight our value, collaborate on good practice and workable solutions; and maybe even strike some better deals with the insurance industry.

There is more than one meaning to the term ‘a good risk’!

Simon Bazley

Simon Bazley is the CEO of Playful Futures and a trustee of the Playwork Foundation.

London Play has asked for help in collecting some information about insurance and adventure playgrounds. If you run, work for or volunteer at an adventure playground anywhere in the country please complete the survey at the link below soon as possible. Thank you!

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/H9X3M2D

How youth workers can go the extra mile for play

When Ali Wood enrolled for an event, ‘In Defence of Youth Work’, in Birmingham, she saw that the agenda featured discussions on youth work in different settings and situations. Never being shy about speaking out for play, Ali asked if youth work in adventure playgrounds could be added to the programme. This is a synopsis of her resulting workshop, and Ali’s rationale for it.

I qualified as a youth and community worker in 1985 and worked in a whole range of centres and clubs in Birmingham for a number of years. Things were changing though –both in the local authority and across the country and it wasn’t hard to see the writing on the wall. Funding for community work was dwindling fast and youth work as it had been was changing and becoming more issue-based, but somehow in that process we ended up losing numbers of young people – partly due to focussing more on discussion work than recreational activities and young people’s choices. I ‘defected’ to playwork, which had begun with the introduction of adventure playgrounds in London in the 70’s and over the ensuing decades built up its own theory base, research evidence for play and qualifications for playworkers. I have been there ever since.

Adventure playgrounds

So for those of you who don’t know and have never been to one – what’s an adventure playground? There aren’t that many left around since all the recent local authority cuts, so you’d be forgiven if you hadn’t come across one.¹ Basically an adventure playground is a community-rooted self-built site for both children and young people, where kids can come and be themselves and do their thing – which often includes the stuff that they can’t do elsewhere like lighting fires, using tools and building, making food, digging, climbing, swinging, jumping off high platforms, managing risk for themselves, playing with water and mud. It’s also a space where they know they’ll feel heard and valued and where spontaneous conversations will likely yield support or information they need.

they know they’ll feel heard and valued and spontaneous conversations will likely yield support or information they need.

So what’s the difference between playwork and youthwork – or doing youth work on such a site? In some ways – when you get youth workers who have a real sense of vocation – not a lot necessarily in practice. But there are givens here that may not be automatically understood or recognised.

First principles

Firstly there is the understanding of the fundamental importance of play in children and young people’s lives. And by play, we mean that as it is expressed in the first two Playwork Principles² – which provide a professional and ethical framework for playwork.

All children and young people need to play. The impulse to play is innate. Play is a biological, psychological and social necessity, and is fundamental to the healthy development and wellbeing of individuals and communities.
Play is a process that is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated. That is, children and young people determine and control the content and intent of their play, by following their own instincts, ideas and interests, in their own way for their own reasons.

If you recall some of your own memories of playing (and do this now before you read on!), I can pretty much guarantee that these will consist of being outside, taking risks and being away from adults – and the older you are, the more that will be the case. Am I right? And why do those three things feature so widely in people’s memories? Because children naturally long for freedom and independence as they grow; and if adults are around, those adults are likely to try and control, supervise, guide, direct, organise, stop or take over whatever kids are doing. Start watching yourself, and how much you do this when you’re with kids!

gathering on platform 2

So, children seek out time and space away from adult eyes in order to play. However, over the last few decades, kids have had less and less free time away from adults when they can make their own mistakes, be daft, work stuff out and try things out for themselves, be responsible for themselves and each other. Yet it is play as described above that is the natural medium for these things to happen, but opportunities for play have been squeezed, banned, or diluted – often with the supposed best of adult intentions – because we have forgotten how vital free play is and we are bewitched by the spirit of the age of over-protection and structured education of our children and young people. In playwork we call this play deprivation³ and it is a concept that other professions are also recognising as really damaging.

So, youth work really needs to understand what play is, why kids crave it and how to support it and respect it without getting in the way (and that honestly isn’t easy and takes a lot of reflective practice!) instead of planning a load of other stuff that we think is more important and riding rough-shod over young people in the process. More than ever – because of being more play deprived in their own childhoods – young people need to play⁴.

Understanding risk

Secondly, in playwork there is a different understanding about risk, it’s necessity in young lives and how we can manage it. We use an approach that has been recognised and is promoted by the Health and Safety Executive⁵ for anyone working with children and young people and yet somehow youth work has not taken this on. It is the process of constant risk:benefit assessment⁶, whereby instead of automatically intervening to ‘make something safe’, playworkers observe children and young people in whatever they are doing and dynamically assess the risks of this, but also the benefits –i.e. what kids will gain from doing whatever it is, and also to think through ways of minimising the risks if this is necessary, without taking over and ‘doing it for them’.

Young people don’t have a death wish, they have an inbuilt sense of self-protection and survival that too often we have crushed by not allowing them to use it.

It takes courage and practice, but it works. Young people don’t have a death wish, they have an inbuilt sense of self-protection and survival that too often we have crushed by not allowing them to use it. When they know they are responsible for themselves, they really take that on and their skills and confidence flourish. On the adventure playground where I work and where we have unaccompanied children from 7-18 years on site, we’ve had about half a dozen accidents that have entailed a visit to A & E in ten years, and yet our kids regularly use axes and mallets, hammers and saws, throw themselves off platforms and cook on the open fire. Youth work really needs to better understand risk-benefit assessment in practice.

Differences

So, the main differences when doing youth work on an adventure playground (and we have youth only sessions at our playground as well as open sessions for all ages), entail youth workers:-

developing a deep understanding of play in all its forms and how to support it;
a profound respect for children and young people that recognises their capabilities and competencies first;
a richer kind of reflective practice⁷ that puts us adults – with all our feelings and motives – under the microscope to examine how our interventions are too often colonial and patronising; and
a commitment to risk:benefit assessment observation and recording.

This takes passion and courage, lots of supportive teamwork and the willingness to regularly go the extra mile. But in many ways, although I have called myself a playworker for the last twenty years, it is much more akin to the youth work I first felt so drawn to in the 80s.

Ali Wood

Ali Wood is a playwork writer, researcher and trainer. She is chair of Meriden Adventure Playground in the West Midlands, and a founding board member of the Playwork Foundation.

Photos: Meriden Adventure Playground

References

Children’s Access to Play in Schools

Children’s Access to Play in Schools ( CAPS ), a University of Gloucestershire project under the EU’s Erasmus programme, is introducing its Play-friendly Schools Quality Criteria to the UK at an event in Gloucester on 5 December.

Download details here.

Unite calls for Labour to reinstate recognition of playwork qualifications

Katie the skateboarder

In its response to the Labour Party’s consulation on a statutory youth service, Unite the Union, which incorporates the former Community, Youth and Playworkers Union, has called for a return to the recognition of playwork qualifications.

Unite’s response says:

“Unite believes that playworkers would also gain from an increased recognition of their professional skills especially since September 2014, when the Government removed the statutory requirement for out of school clubs and holiday play schemes registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register to employ staff with ‘full and relevant’ childcare or playwork qualifications’ “

The deadline for submissions has been extended until the 30 November.

Information about the consultation and how to contribute can be found here

Unite’s full response can be read here

Photo: James Schaap

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Ali Wood reports on the current situation of potential government funding for playwork training in England*

Wales and Northern Ireland

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Penny Wilson offers a personal view of the struggles of playwork in a world that undervalues play, and of how the Playwork Foundation represents an opportunity for developing our common cause, building mutual support and working together for the growing recognition we deserve.

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NO. 1 IN AN ORIGINAL SERIES OF PAMPHLETS BY GORDON STURROCK

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