https://www.starlight.org.uk/play-in-hospital-week-webinars/
Anyone with an interest in Play and Playwork in hospitals might be interested in this series of 4 webinars:
13th Oct 12.30 to 1.30: Working for change in hospitals
18th Oct 2 to 3: Prioritising play after lockdown
26th Oct 12 to 1: Playing with virtual reality
2nd Nov: Play for mental health and resilience
The webinars are being organised by Starlight in partnership with the National Association of Health Play Specialists to celebrate
View this email in your browser You are invited! Following on from our last Open Meeting of The Playwork Foundation, back in June, we thought that it would be a good opportunity for us to come together after the summer period. Therefore, we’ve organised the next Open Meeting online for: Friday 14th October, 10am – 1pm We’re inviting playworkers from all backgrounds and settings to use the meeting as an opportunity to showcase and share with us their memories, photos, videos and reflections from the summer months. Afterwards, we will add contributions to an online repository on The Playwork Foundation’s website.  Details on how to register for the event will be sent out soon. If you’ve got items or proposals you’re ready to share, you can complete this online form or email sion@playworkfoundation.org.uk. You can also discuss your ideas with Penny Wilson at Playwork in Progress, this coming Monday 26th September from 4pm: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89234759575?pwd=VlRzVHF5UzN3NzViNExNM2xWUkkyQT09 Meeting ID: 892 3475 9575 Passcode: 208616 Cofion gynnes / Kind regards,  Siôn Edwards Cadeirydd | Chair Y Sefydliad Chwarae | The Playwork Foundation @cymrosion Rhagenwau | Pronouns: fe, ef, ei | he, him, his 🏳️🌈 Copyright © 2022 Siôn Edwards, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. |
We hope you have had a playful summer, Opportunity for a Chief Executive: It’s all about a child’s right to play Play England’s vision is to for England to be a country where everybody can fully enjoy their right to play throughout their childhood and teenage years as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 31 and our Charter for Children’s Play. We have a unique opportunity for someone to be front and centre of Play England in achieving that vision. It will be the first time we have been structured in this way with a CEO as the only paid position working alongside a group of enthusiastic voluntary Trustees. The expected time commitment will equate to 1 day per week and will attract remuneration of £10,400 pa. Accountable to the Chair and Trustees, most of the CEO’s time will be managing fundraising and acting as an external figurehead and spokesperson for Play England as well as making sure all our operations are running successfully. The right candidate will be experienced as a CEO or Chair of a national organisation with a good understanding of the play sector in the UK and will likely hold a play qualification. They will have proven experience of fundraising for a national or large charity. Comfortable acting as an external spokesperson, including with national media they will feel right at home influencing large organisations including government. As you would expect they will demonstrate flawless tact and diplomacy as well as superb communication skills. For a detailed job description see here. Applications should be made by sending a cv and covering letter to info@playengland.org.uk by 17.00 on 7 October 2022. Interviews will be held remotely on 18/19 October 2022. Play England AGM, Monday 21st November 2022 at 2pm All Play England members are cordially invited to the Play England Annual General Meeting via teams. Register for the event here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/play-england-agm-2022-tickets-425597963967 This is an opportunity for members to gather and to reflect on our work towards England being a country where everybody can fully enjoy their right to play throughout their childhood and teenage years. We are excited to be joined by Helen Dodd is a Professor of Child Psychology at the University of Exeter. She is an expert in child mental health with a particular interest in the development of childhood anxiety disorders. Helen currently holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, which funds a program of work examining the relationship between children’s adventurous play and mental health. Helen regularly writes about children’s play and contributes to public discussions about the role of play in supporting children’s mental health. The AGM will take the form of a webinar and there will be some brief presentations followed by the opportunity for questions. We expect to record the webinar for those who cannot be present on the day. If you would like a proxy vote, please email info@playengland.org.uk Agenda for the AGM: Welcome from Chair of Trustees, Anita Grant Apologies for absence Notification of proxy votes Approval of Minutes of 2021 AGM Matters arising from the Minutes Adoption of Annual Report Adoption of Accounts Appointment of Independent Financial Examiner Election of Trustees Any Other AGM Business Presentation from Helen Dodd Minutes from the 2021 AGM can be downloaded here If you are not already a member of Play England you can join via our website. Kind regards Play England team |
This article was originally published July 2016 and has been updated to better reflect the UK context.
Playwork is an essential component of adventure playgrounds, a form of staffed provision renowned the world over as offering children the best opportunities to play within a dedicated, managed setting. Most adventure playgrounds are situated in areas of high density, limited open space, multiple deprivation, or a combination of all three. They offer children who are often otherwise seriously disadvantaged, enriched play opportunities within a safe, stimulating environment and an empowering, supportive community.
On-going austerity, cuts to public services and the generally unprotected nature of play provision is nevertheless leading to the closure of many of Britain’s existing adventure playgrounds. This article sets out some of the reasons why such action is bad policy, bad economics and bad for children and families; why retaining adventure playgrounds is a good use of public resources.
Continue reading “10 reasons to continue providing adventure playgrounds – UPDATED”Dear Playworker,
The Playwork Foundation would love to hear from you all about your summers.
You could share a photo or series of photos, a video piece, a poem, story or diary, artwork, a musical, street art, five minute presentations….it doesn’t really matter, but something from you that tells us what you want to share about your work in the holidays.
We will gather these and share them on our brand shiny new website and in another open meeting in September. We have seen loads of great examples of the documentation of play, from Meriden Adventure Playground for example, and from Gwealan Tops.
Part of the work of the Playwork Foundation is to celebrate the genuine passion and inspiration we have for our work. As far as we know there has never been a collection of our responses to the summer holidays, the busiest time of the year for our sector. So this shared collage, gallery, exhibition, showcasing of our work would not only be a way of building up a reference base, feeding real life examples into a shared pool of wisdom, but it would be a simple cost free way of the Playwork Foundation honouring our work.
So while you spend time this summer, being alongside children playing, if words or an image or artwork or interpretive dance spring into you mind to help you capture the moment perfectly, we will be utterly delighted to celebrate those moments with you.
Submit your pieces here.
The UK Playwork NOS Consortium is inviting tender applications for the 2022 Playwork National Occupational Standards (NOS) Scoping Project.
The aim of the scoping project is to identify:
The consortium wants to undertake a scoping exercise to ensure that the respective needs of the four nations are reflected in future plans. The intention is to undertake preparatory work during 2022 to meet the requirements of the UK Standards and Frameworks programme and for the UK Playwork NOS Consortium to be added to the NOS Supplier Framework.
The UK Playwork NOS Consortium has been established by Play Wales, Play England, Play Scotland, PlayBoard Northern Ireland and The Playwork Foundation to bid for, or identify, funding for a future review of the Playwork NOS.
The budget for the scoping project is £2,500 (including VAT).
Closing date for submitting expressions of interest: 12:00pm 9 September 2022
Playday is the national day for play, celebrated each year across the UK on the first Wednesday in August. Playday 2022 will be celebrated on Wednesday 3 August. The theme for this year’s Playday is …
All to play for – building play opportunities for all children.
For the latest updates on this year’s campaign follow Playday on Facebook and our new Twitter account and share your plans using the hashtags #Playday2022 and #AllToPlayFor.
Playday is coordinated by Play England, Play Wales, Play Scotland and PlayBoard Northern Ireland.
Over 60 people booked for our 2022 Playwork Foundation Open meeting. Many thanks to our speakers:
Also a big thank you to Sion Edwards – The Playwork Foundation’s new chair – for facilitating the meeting.
If you missed out or want to listen again an audio recording of the meeting is available here.
If you want to find out about future meetings, consider become a member of The Playwork Foundation and you’ll be added to our mailing list. Head over to our membership page for more information.
The PARS Community has developed a wide range of CPD activities for PARS practitioners and academics and practitioners from any discipline interested in the practice of playwork.
Check out commonthreads.org.uk to find out what’s on offer.
The Playwork Foundation 