OPEN Project: Children's rights and conditions - Dudley Design 2gether and Play Service
OPEN Project: Children's rights and conditions - Dudley Design 2gether and Play Service
Name
Dudley D2: Design 2gether and Play Service
Organisation
Dudley is a play pathfinder authority which is developing a range of children's play spaces and a play service to deliver free, inclusive play activities. D2: Design 2gether is a children and young people play pathfinder decision making panel which helps shape play spaces in Dudley.
Summary
The three year programme is intended to build or refurbish at least 28 children's play areas in public parks and open spaces and to build a new outdoor and indoor children's adventure playground situated in the Castle and Priory ward where the centre is ideally placed to provide a centre of excellence for children's play, particularly for those children with disabilities.
Initially developed in 2007 using the Big Lottery Fund Children's Play Initiative, 'Just Enjoy', the project established a new Dudley play service within children's services, based at the new adventure playground. The service involves a team of full-time, part-time and voluntary play rangers who work within the children's extended services team.
In April 2008, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council was awarded Play Pathfinder status with £2.6 million from the Department of Children, Schools and Families. This has been used as joint funding for the play service as Big Lottery funding will end in 2010.
The challenges
When asked what they want in a play space, children and young people initially only think of traditional playground activities like slides, roundabouts and swings. There is a need to open their eyes to the possibilities, especially natural play.
Children and young people do not think about budget limits so you have to get them to understand what is possible for each play area.
Other peoples' agendas may need to be shared with children and young people. For example, a maintenance company requested that certain materials not be used in certain places e.g. if arson is common in an area, metal is preferred to wood.
Setting up the panel initially and working out an appropriate size for the group and staff/member ratio.
The solutions
In June 2009 the panel "Design 2Gether" attended the Play Fair event at Stoneleigh Park in Coventry, in order to inspire the Children's and Young People's Play Pathfinder Decision Making Panel around a wider range of play equipment. The panel tested play equipment and made recommendations for the purchase of equipment for the Play Pathfinder wave 2 play sites. They rated the equipment - for more information on their experiences see their press release (available to download on the right hand side of this page).
The children were also shown images from play spaces across the UK from the Design to Play guide by Play England to help them to expand their knowledge of play equipment.
Workshops were held by the play service staff each month for the panel. These were carefully planned to train them to understand adults' agendas such as budgeting so that they could account for these in their designs.
To initially recruit the panel of children and young people, staff visited various decision making panels including: Dudley Decision Making Kids (DDMK), me2 young people's panel, (disabled children and young people), KIDS Orchard, (disabled children and young people) and Chat Back Productions, (looked after children). Children who live close to the site for the new adventure playground facility were approached in play areas to see if they were interested in being involved.
Promotional material in child-friendly language, mini-sessions, presentations and taster sessions promoting the benefits of being on the panel were used to find the children and young people who would want to take part.
There are 12 members of the panel aged 8 to 14. As several of them require support due to disability and care requirements it was important to have enough staff and to keep the group to a manageable size. The location of meetings was key.
The results
D2: Design 2gether has brought fresh ideas, enthusiasm and innovation to the programme. They have made sure that play development in Dudley is children and young people-led and as such, tailored for its intended audience.
Some of the decisions that D2: Design 2gether have been involved in include:
- The selection of sites for development under the play pathfinder scheme.
- Supporting the landscape teams and architects in their designs.
- Selecting play equipment to be installed in play spaces across the borough.
- Naming the new adventure playground; "Sycamore Adventure".
- Helping with the interior design of the adventure playground.
- Purchasing toys, equipment and resources for the play service.
- Supporting Dudley Play Service to develop activities, play days and events.
- Developing of a new 'Just Enjoy' DVD which will promote play opportunities in Dudley.
- Promoting the play service at conferences, meetings and events.
- Supporting the council to monitor and evaluate play in Dudley.
The group were recently recognised for their achievements and for the time which they give voluntarily to improve play in Dudley. As such, they won the Young Volunteers of the year award at the Dudley Volunteers awards 2009. The award recognises and celebrates all of D2: Design 2gether's work focusing on the new play areas and the new Adventure Playground at Sycamore Green. The group will continue to develop play spaces and play services in Dudley.
Learning points
- Listen to children and find out how they want to be involved.
- Let the children decide how long the meetings should last, where they should be and the structure of them which in this case includes group games, eating a meal together halfway through and having occasional days out which are not to do with the project as a reward.
- Show the children the possible range of play activities through images and letting them try the equipment.
- Teach the children in interesting child-friendly ways about other considerations such as maintenance and budgeting.
- To recruit the panel, go to the groups that they may already be part of, or to play areas and tell them the benefits of the scheme in an interesting way.
- Ensure that there is enough staff to manage the group.
SWM comment
We really like how Dudley has involved these enthusiastic children and young people from the community. This is a great example to other councils looking to ensure child rights are granted such as:
- Health and welfare rights, including rights for disabled children
- The right to education, leisure, culture and the arts
- The right to have their views respected, and to have their best interests considered at all times
The learning points are a useful reminder of good engagement practice.
Contact
For more information please email Keith.Rogers@dudley.gov.uk or phone Keith Rogers on 01384813755. Alternatively you can look at D2: Design 2gether's press release (on the rigt hand side of this page).
OPEN is a two year trans-national programme, funded through the Progress funding stream from Europe. It is being led in the West Midlands by the Regional Assembly.
The OPEN project's key aims are:
- To raise and encourage debate at a local, national and European level on how to best tackle issues around social exclusion.
- To encourage Regional and European policy makers to take action and develop the agenda around social exclusion.
One way is which this is being delivered is through highlighting and promoting best practice in the Region and amongst EU partners.
To find out more about the OPEN Project please visit the West Midlands Leaders Board website or contact Dally Panesar, West Midlands Regional Assembly on 0121 245 0153 or e-mail d.panesar@wmra.gov.uk.