It’s a fairly dry old name for a site about children’s play isn’t it? What has play got to do with policy anyway? What business do policy makers have interfering with something as natural as children playing? Aren’t they bound to just make something beautiful and simple, complicated and boring?
Well, yes, if we let them anywhere near children’s playgrounds or other play spaces they probably would (unless they forgot their jobs for a while and joined in – then they might just remember how much fun it is to just play).
The point is that children’s play space is under threat. Increases in traffic volume, real and perceived levels of crime, badly designed housing, fear of bullying and violence and cuts in park and play service staff, have all conspired to make public space, in many areas, a no-go area for children, which means more and more of them are living unhealthy, sedentary lifestyles – stuck at home in front of the TV or computer screen – when they badly want and need to be out playing with their friends.
Policy for Play is a site for anyone interested in changing this. We aim to debate, argue, present the evidence, make the case and generally make a noise for children’s right to play to be properly addressed by public policy. Because if children aren’t playing in public – where are they playing?
It is the responsibilty of all governments, under an international treaty – the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 – to ensure children’s right to play is respected and promoted. It is our responsibility – as professionals or simply as adult citizens and voters – to hold our governments to account for this: to insist on it, because children are generally not in a position to insist on it for themselves.
If you want to hold your government – or governments – to account for children’s right to play, please sign up and we will let you know whenever their is anything new on here to read or link to.
There will be a media release, later this afternoon, summarising the main points of a talk that I am giving after Play England’s annual members meeting and I will follow this up with a full blog of the talk itself.
Thanks for visiting and, as they say …
watch this space!
Adrian
good luck Adrian I look forward to following your posts!
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Thanks Rach x
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I’ll be following from South Wales too, Adrian.
Don’t stop kicking the incumbent (recumbent?) politicos and civil servants.
Don’t please let anyone make the economy the excuse to kill the benefits of any and all recent improvements and (hollow) promises of attitude change across the UK.
Next step might be ‘Occupy…for Play’ ?
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Thanks Mark. As Stuart Lester said to me last night, we do need to “agitate”. Occupation? Now there’s a thought!
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Occupy… for Play is exactly where we started: children and local people creating adventure playgrounds out of old bomb sites, unused land, waste ground and it’s still happening visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3ovziBWqFg and for more videos and resources to support community engagement go to http://www.playengland.org.uk/our-work/engaging-communities-in-play/engaging-communities-in-play-resources.aspx
Good luck to Adrian in his new venture.
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Thanks Steve.
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Hi Adrian
You said, “watch this space,” so I did and here I am! Well done. If you want a bit of local info to quote as an example/model, watch The Secret Millionaire on 20 November.
YKW
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Hey Donne! Good to hear from you.
Thank you, I will. Coincidentally I am off to Somerford Grove Adventure Playground this pm. They were beneficiaries of the programme a couple of years ago.
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Hi Adrian
Really sorry I missed you the other day at the Play England meeting – I had to dash off. And I haven’t even spoken to you since you left, so I’d love to catch up sometime.
Anyway, good to see a new discussion site and good luck with it. I shall be contributing as appropriate!
Cathy told me you visited Somerford Grove AP. I’m sure she can come up with something to keep you busy!
Nick Jackson
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No worries Nick, we’ll catch up soon I hope! Good to hear from you.
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And, yes it was great to see Somerford Grove thriving (and Jamie being so gainfully employed). I’ll drop Cathy a line. Hope to see more of you both now I’m down from my Ivory Tower!!
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