Blog
Fit for the Future guide
2009-12-18 00:00:00 UTC
The Fit for the Future guide aims to challenge current thinking, provoke discussion and provide advice. It will be particularly relevant to BSF PE & Sport Stakeholder Groups in their role supporting schools to translate their vision for PE & Sport into a design brief.
Extra support for communities to tackle ASB
2009-11-26 00:00:00 UTC
The drive to tackle ASB, which is being funded by a £10m package, will target 130 local councils.
Among the measures it will support are:
*letting local residents know the rights and how to report anti-social behaviour through targeted leaflets, regional events and information for local media
*extra training for frontline staff such as ASB co-ordinators, police and neighbourhood wardens
*training to help residents and community champions challenge police and councils and shape the approach to tackling anti-social behaviour;
*extra funding for local work to tackle anti-social behaviour such as environmental clean up campaigns, supporting community led projects to engage young people and creating more attractive public spaces.
Play England Tools for evaluating play provision
2009-11-11 00:00:00 UTC
Play England local play indicators have been developed to support both top tier and second tier local authorities in assessing and managing their own performance in providing play opportunities to local children.
The indicators focus on participation, access, quality and satisfaction of local spaces and facilities for play and informal recreation. Play England, with Ashley Godfrey Associates, INSPIRE, and Bristol City Council, have developed and piloted the local play indicators over the past four years.
Tools for evaluating local play provision: A technical guide to Play England local play indicators
This technical guidance was produced to provide local authorities with a clear understanding of local play indicators and the recommended methods of data collection and analysis. A summary version and list of frequently asked questions are also available below.
Healthy Child Programme extended to 5-19 year olds
2009-11-11 00:00:00 UTC
NCB was commissioned by the Department of Health to involve children and young people in the development of the extended 5-19 offer of the Healthy Child Programme, announced in the Government’s Child Health Strategy Healthy Lives, Brighter Futures.
The intention is to promote the programme to a wider audience in the near future.
The Healthy Child Programme: From 5 to 19 year olds sets out the recommended framework of universal and progressive services for children and young people to promote optimal health and wellbeing.
Play England has published Embedding the Play Strategy
2009-10-06 23:00:00 UTC
Play England have published Embedding the Play Strategy to assist local decision makers to put children’s play at the heart of their local communities; to sustain and build upon the improvements arising from the play pathfinder and playbuilder programmes.
The guidance shows how planning and investing in local play space – and considering children’s needs within the wider environment – can benefit children, families and whole communities.
The guidance sets out a recommended process for developing and implementing a local play strategy for this purpose.
The draft guidance is open for consultation for four weeks. Play England is encouraging all agencies and professionals with a role in delivering the Play Strategy to respond: directors of children’s services, children’s trust partners, those working in the voluntary and community play sector, as well as those with other roles, relevant to the aims of the Play Strategy, such as planning, transport, public health, housing, schools, police, leisure, parks and green spaces.
Getting the balance right with Playbuilder play area design
2009-10-05 23:00:00 UTC
In September Play England, Yorkshire Play and the Forestry Commission together provided a unique one day event entitled: If you go down to the woods today…
The event created an opportunity for all those involved in children’s play across the country to experience the benefits of nature play, which enables children to explore, learn, develop, be creative and discover.
The environmentally friendly event had a nature play theme and was fully flexible to give each delegate the opportunity to learn new skills, network with colleagues and gather useful information. This included a mixture of strategic workshops and practical activities.
The event also provided an opportunity for Proludic to talk to those involved in Playbuilder schemes and share experiences and ideas.
Proludic were on-hand to talk to delegates about the advantages of the MUSA both in terms of engaging teenage girls and success stories around helping to reduce anti-social behaviour.
In some cases and with many Playbuilder play areas, there is an imbalance between the encouragement to provide ‘natural play’ and the need to engage 8 – 13 year olds. These needs are very different!
8 – 13 year olds need physical challenge, exercise and stimulation – opportunities to engage and even compete with each other.
Proludic believe that ‘Natural play’ has a benefit to younger children, but provides little for the target group of 8 – 13 year olds.
Proludic’s approach is to design a landscape setting alongside well designed equipment that meets the needs of the prescribed users. This ‘best of both worlds’ approach has resulted in a string of successful wave one Playbuilder play areas and includes the integration of the MUSA.
View MUSA case studies and video – simply Google search on ‘MUSA concept’ Or search under the Playbuilder menu on this website.
“The Government is investing significantly in new and improved play spaces that can be used free of charge by all children, with a particular focus on 8-13 year olds.”
The Play Strategy – DCSF
Landscape Architect - Adam White shares his insights into creating and maintaining good nature play
2009-09-28 23:00:00 UTC
“With many wave one Play Builder and Pathfinder projects having now been completed for several months, the teams responsible for maintenance are increasingly under pressure to ensure the schemes are kept looking as good as they did on opening day. However we should remind ourselves as to what has inspired the playful landscape movement in the UK, it was those schemes full of excitement, challenges, risk and adventure in mainland Europe and in particular Frieburg in Germany. Return to those photos and you will see these schemes also have areas of dead turf, water puddling and random graffiti, but despite this they still offer great play value, children only see the fun and excitement in a well designed play space.
It is really important to remember we are not creating RHS Show Gardens but children’s public play spaces. Just as in mainland Europe not all the turf will establish, graffiti tagging will take place, some planting my get nicked or even used as missiles when being thrown around the space! We need to step back and consider the balance between maintaining a space so it still looks maintained but also accepting the fact that it’s okay for it to look lived-in and used. That is not to say design quality and genuine public engagement are not important, they are the vital ingredients to creating any public open space.
Regular maintenance such as litter picking, bin emptying, sweeping and raking sand and pruning of shrubs are all standard activities and need to take place on weekly even on a daily basis. In addition to this here are a few tricks that can be considered at design and delivery stage to help the scheme establish.
- Lay the turf as early as possible in the construction process.
- Don’t have steep gradients where the turf won’t get water or even have the chance to put down it’s roots.
- Contain the site for 4 weeks prior to opening to allow the planting and turf to bed in.
- Use 10 litre shrubs and densely plant up each bed.
- Take the local children to choose the boulder and planting.
Encourage the establishment of a ‘friends’ of support group"
Adam White is an award winning chartered Landscape Architect and CABE Space Enabler. He is the pioneer of the RHS Gold and BBC peoples Choice Award Playscape design approach which promotes challenges, nature and risk in a playful landscape whilst being complimented by well designed play equipment.
He is co author of the latest publication to come from Play England, Nature Play: Maintenance Guide
3 is the Magic Number!
2009-09-27 23:00:00 UTC
Playbuilder Wave 1 research shows that when refurbishing existing sites, 3 large pieces of equipment is the most successful solution.
At Proludic we have used this research to offer equipment which provides innovative & dynamic play opportunities.
Please view the PDF file to find out more.
Nature play: Maintenance guide
2009-08-18 23:00:00 UTC
The guide aims to support local authorities in introducing nature play into their play spaces according to the design principles outlined in Design for Play: A guide to creating successful play spaces.
The guide will highlight the need for commissioners and designers to consider the management and maintenance implications at the start and throughout the development of a new play space. Also identify procedures to support the ongoing maintenance of these play areas and ensure that consideration is given to ongoing revenue funding for maintenance, repairs or replacement.
The guide is for all those involved in providing and managing play provision, especially unstaffed public play areas, in particular local authorities, housing associations, designers of play space and maintenance staff.
Mainstreaming Inclusion
2009-09-14 23:00:00 UTC
KIDS is working closely with Play England as part of Play England’s contract with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to support and challenge local authorities receiving funding under the National Play Strategy.
The work with Play England will have a particular emphasis on promoting inclusive play and accessible design within universal provision, as well as ensuring that inclusive practice is embedded within core knowledge and skills of the parts of local authorities responsible for developing play spaces.
The partnership will also explore the links between the Play Strategy for England and Aiming High for Disabled Children, the national strategy for disabled children.
For more information visit the KIDS website
First pathfinder adventure playground opens
2009-08-04 23:00:00 UTC
Councillor Timothy Coleridge, Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington &
Chelsea, opened the capital’s first play pathfinder adventure playground on 4 July. The adventure playground in Little Wormwood Scrubs park in north Kensington, was designed in consultation with children from the Dalgarno area. The new space gives children the chance to climb nine-metre pyramids, swing across bridges, hide in tree houses, make dens, splash around in water
and much more besides.
This is the first of many new adventure playgrounds which will be created in London and across the
country over the course of the pathfinder programme (2008-2011) funded by the Department for Children
Schools and Families. Paul Durr, Regional Programme Manager for Play England – London, said:
‘Congratulations to all involved. Adventure playgrounds with skilled playworkers, and environments rich
in possibilities are simply great places for children to play. They are a key element of the government’s
pathfinder programme,and it is wonderful to see children in London now beginning to benefit from this
investment.’
Britain’s Play Future
2009-08-04 23:00:00 UTC
The report states: ‘People remain strongly concerned about
the places where they live, work and play’. The strategy goes further by stating that one of its aims is to
‘improve living standards to ensure that all families are able to afford the necessities that others may take for granted, such as adequate housing or a space to play or study’.
Proludic work with KIDS - The disabled children’s charity
2009-07-05 23:00:00 UTC
Victoria Turner from KIDS has worked with Proludic to further enhance their play area design capabilities. The Proludic Design and Sales Team, have benefited from a one day intensive design workshop, aimed at creating better inclusive play areas.
Proludic are committed to creating successful and inclusive play areas and have worked for many years to establish a best practice approach to ‘accessible’ play area design. In 2007 Proludic produced a thematic guide on disability, which detailed examples of good design and how this could benefit the full range of users. Since then, Proludic have worked hard to remain informed and educated on issues around inclusion.
“Our latest efforts will enable our design team to understand the current agenda on inclusivity and maintain the highest standards of designs that meet the needs of all children”
Dave Bailey – Proludic Marketing Manager
Tim Gill comments on the recent Proludic seminars
2009-05-27 23:00:00 UTC
Tim Gill – Author of the Managing Risk in Play Provision guide, comments on the recent Proludic seminars:
“Proludic’s seminars have provided a great opportunity for local authorities and others to hear the latest thinking on creating great play spaces. Participants have debated such knotty issues as maintenance, community engagement, catering for girls and the policy context. They have also given me the chance to spread the word on how risk-benefit assessment can help in taking a more balanced approach to playground safety.”
Proludic May Seminars
2009-04-17 17:02:00 UTC
Proludic educational seminars start this week on the 13th May at Leeds United Football Ground, Elland Road and 14th May in Nottingham at the Trent Bridge cricket ground.
Key Note speakers will once again join Proludic to share, discuss and debate the current issues and trends in the play industry.
Following a successful partnership in 2008, Aileen Shackell (lead author of the ‘Design for Play Guide’) will again be working with Proludic to deliver the key message in relation to the best practice ‘10 Design Principles to creating a successful play space’. Tim Gill will also be presenting on the ‘Managing Risk in Play Provision; Implementation Guide’.
Dave Taylor – Assistant Director, Regional Operations for Play England, will also be joining Proludic to talk about the position of Play England on the delivery of the Playbuilder and PlayPathfinder programme.
The specialist seminars are aimed at addressing the key areas of change that will influence play provision for the future. They will include a workshop and discussion with our expert panel and with those involved in PlayBuilder and PlayPathfinder projects.
Practical Guide for Ensuring Best Delivery
2009-05-31 23:00:00 UTC
The Federation of Sports and Play Associations has commissioned a paper which brings together the experience of the API as one of the key ‘on the ground’ delivers of the Play Strategy, and to offer practical guidance on how those Local Authorities, now embarking on Phase Two of the Strategy, can maximise their success in delivering these new play facilities to improve the happiness of our children and young people.
Download the guide
Charter for Children’s Play
2009-07-26 23:00:00 UTC
The Charter for Children’s Play sets out a vision for play, outlining the basic principles of what play means for children and what we should all do to promote their right to enjoy it.
It is a catalyst for individuals and organisations to examine and improve their provision for children and young people’s play and informal recreation. Organisations whose services impact on children can formally adopt the charter in order to raise awareness of the importance of play.
A range of support materials is available to promote the charter, including a children’s version, a poster illustrating the charter and an implementation guide.
learn more
HSE position on the creation of natural play spaces
2009-07-27 23:00:00 UTC
The API and the RPII have approached the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) on behalf of its members with regard to the HSE’s position on health and safety law as it relates to children’s play and the creation of natural play spaces; they have responded as follows;
“The law is clear. Those involved in the creation of natural play spaces will have duties under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that those affected by their undertaking are not exposed to risks to their health and safety. This clearly includes children at play in these areas.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to carry our a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks ,to their employees and others, arising from their work activities.
The operator/creator of the play space has a duty to assess the risks to children and implement appropriate risk control measures. This risk assessment should identify the hazard ie; the potential to cause harm, assess the likelihood of that harm occurring , the potential severity and numbers affected. HSE recognises that benefits of play should inform the risk assessment process however children should be able to experience challenging play without an unacceptable risk of serious injury or death. This can be achieved by implementing sensible risk control measures including proper design, installation and maintenance. Where recognised standards exist these should be used. If there are no recognised standards then a risk assessment should be approached from first principles although in some circumstances the principles enshrined in the standards will be applicable. The fact that there are no recognised standards for a particular configuration of play space or equipment does not mean that risk associated with its use should be ignored. Indeed where there are no recognised standards the risk assessment should be carried out even more vigorously to ensure effective risk control measures are implemented.
The principles of risk control apply to natural play spaces and equipment in the same way that they do to conventional playgrounds. Consequently these spaces will require to be inspected and maintained at appropriate intervals to ensure that they continue to be fit for purpose. This will require creators/operators of the space and the play equipment manufacturers to specify inspection and maintenance requirements. This information should be made available to inspectors to assist in their inspection of the space."
Statement received from the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) 27th July 2009
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