Just Enjoy

Policy Statements

Play is fundamental to children’s health and well-being throughout their childhood and during their transition into adulthood.

Children and young people engage in play for its own sake, not for any external goal or reward. Play is a significant and very important part of a child’s life and culture and should be treated seriously and resourced appropriately.

Play is critically important to children’s physical, emotional and intellectual development and learning. Children and young people exhibit a behavioural imperative and instinctive desire to play. Through play children learn that which cannot be taught but that which can only be learnt through experience, such as self-confidence, self-reliance, creativity and resilience.

A child’s development, and their future capacity as an adult, will be affected by their access to a full range of creative, enjoyable and exciting play opportunities.

Play is a natural and universal activity. It is a process with no necessary outcome.

Play is freely chosen, entered into by the child because s/he wishes to do so, personally directed under the control of the child playing, and intrinsically motivated, undertaken because it is satisfying for the child playing.

Through play, children and young people find out about themselves, their abilities and interests. Play, therefore is one critical way children come to understand themselves and the world around them. Play helps children and young people to cope with difficult and stressful situations, and fosters social inclusion.

To support the child’s right to participate fully in leisure, recreation, physical activity, and play, children and young people’s views, needs, rights, and interests, including their full participation, must be sought, listened to and taken into account.

Appropriate risk-taking can be an essential feature of children’s and young people’s play. Children and young people often want and need to take risks, innovate, and explore in order to find new limits, venture into new experiences and develop new skills, knowledge, understanding and capacities.

Children and young people want to play, and are entitled to do so, in a variety of public spaces near to their homes. This includes both places designated for play and shared public space.

The impact of modern, urban society on children’s lives significantly restricts their opportunity to play freely, and has resulted in a poverty of play opportunities in the general environment.

Children, their families and society as a whole, benefit from an environment in which children and young people are able to play in public spaces free from unacceptable hazards and risks.

Specialised play equipment can make a positive contribution to the overall provision. However, play equipment alone is neither necessary nor sufficient to create play environments of quality.

Many adults, including play workers, childminders, nursery staff, classroom assistants, teachers, head teachers, governors, youth and professional workers, volunteers, parents, carers, relatives and friends have a significant role in supporting and enabling children’s play.

They can help ensure that children and young people have access to stimulating and challenging play environments.

They can help children to experience appropriate and acceptable levels of risk whilst ensuring that all children and young people are safeguarded and kept safe from accidents, harm or bullying from other children or adults and from serious injury or death.

Objectives

Some children, due to their personal or family circumstances, or their social, economic and physical environment, have more limited access to play opportunities than others. Therefore, the play needs of these children should be prioritised within the Council’s policies and strategies.

The six objectives below form part of the draft play policy and are designed to inform the debate and future implementation of the Dudley play strategy and action plan.

Objective 1

Promote the importance of play in relation to children and young people’s health, safety, physical, emotional and economic well-being and their personal, social, and intellectual development, to all those that have a responsibility and influence over their upbringing, education, safety and well-being.

Objective 2

To make appropriate public spaces as child friendly as possible, ensuring that parks, thoroughfares, nurseries, children’s centres, schools, youth settings, housing estates and other public spaces within the Borough, are as safe and conducive as possible to children’s play and outdoor activities.

Objective 3

Develop a strategic and interdependent approach to the management and allocation of available play resources and funding, striking a balance based on need between supervised and unsupervised provision.

Objective 4

Work towards ensuring that a wider range of play opportunities are available for disabled children and young people, and that all provision aims towards becoming fully inclusive and accessible.

Objective 5

Work to ensure that all play providers actively seek to address the views, needs, rights, and interests of children and young people, particularly from hard-to-reach communities and those at risk from social exclusion including those children and young people looked after by the local authority.