PLACES for PLAY: Photo Exhibition

Policy

Playwork Practice

Designing for Play

Play at School

Risk and Safety

Play Publications

Designs on Play

PLAYLINK/Portsmouth City Council

Play Conference 2002, 1 October

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Speakers' Biographies

Ken Worpole chaired the conference. He is one of Britain's most influential writers on urban and social policy, and was recently a member of the Government's Urban Green Spaces Taskforce. One of his particular interests is the quality of contemporary urban life and the planning and design of urban landscapes which support more convivial forms of democracy and the pleasures of life in the open air. He lectures widely here and abroad. He has a background in adventure playgrounds and now chairs the Clissold Park User Group in Hackney, London. Further information is available about Ken Worpole at http://www.worpole.dircon.co.uk.

Keynote speakers

Liz Kessler has a strong personal interest in children's play. She has worked in housing and community arts as well as for Friends of the Earth. As a concerned parent, she mounted a campaign for better play facilities in Shrewsbury in the late 1980s. She recently completed an MA in urban design, looking at the needs of neighbourhoods, where play was a major issue. She has just been appointed as Living Environment Lead Officer for Thornhill New Deal for Communities in Southampton.

Helle Nebelong is a Danish landscape architect. Since 1994, she has worked for the city of Copenhagen covering project development, policy making and public consultation in relation to roads and parks, urban design and planning. Since 1990, she has run a private practice which specialises in the design of green spaces for young disabled people. She will focus on two of her design projects - the renovation of a school playground and the redesign of the largest park in Copenhagen. Further information about her work is available at Naturlegepladsen i Valbyparken (Nature playground in Valbyparken) and Murergarden pa Norrebro i Kobenhavn.

Robin Sutcliffe is Managing Director of Sutcliffe Play. He chairs the Play Safety Forum and has been instrumental in the consultation and writing of the Forum's new position statement on managing risk in play provision. He has a longstanding commitment to the principle that play is the fundamental right of every child and that children need to encounter and learn about risk through their play. His election as vice-President of the newly formed Federation of European Play Industries will enable him to apply these principles in developing the Federation's work across Europe.

Kim Wilkie, landscape architect, urban designer and environmental planner. He took a masters degree in landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley and in 1989 set up his practice in order to promote projects that explore the relationship between land and culture and between community and place. The land we live on has been formed by the interaction between natural factors and human settlement. He sees the task as continuing this process, allowing the balance and imagination of what has gone before to inspire fresh design. For further information see Kim Wilkie Associates

Case study presenters

Perry Else has played regularly since 1959 and lives with two children under twelve who regularly challenge his skills as a playworker. He has been involved in local authority and voluntary sector play provision in a variety of settings since 1984. He currently works as the Community Recreation and Play Manager for Sheffield City Council. In 2000 he formed the Ludemos Consultancy to promote and develop play theory and practice.

Chris Dobbs is Principal Landscape Architect at Worcester City Council, and has worked previously for a county authority and new town. Along the way his work has included housing estates, leisure facilities, pedestrianisation schemes, as well as biodiversity policy planning, and play area design and consultation. The case study he is presenting asks 'How can children and adults share space for play?'.

Kit Johnson chairs the local management committee of the Weymouth Skate Park which is a charitable organisation. She was heavily involved in the initial community campaign prompted by the complete lack of facilities for her son, an 'in line' skater, and other local children whose interest in wheels was generally regarded as an antisocial nuisance. The campaign took 4 years to change the thinking of the local authority and the new skatepark opened on 14 July 2001. By profession, she is a lecturer in graphic design.

Jackie Martin is a senior lecturer at Northumbria University and course leader of the Playwork Dip HE. She has been actively involved in playwork for 28 years as a playworker, playwork manager, campaigner, consultant, and trainer. She ran the Newcastle Play Council for 9 years, following which she set up the NE National Centre for Playwork Education in 1991. She is an executive committee member of the Joint National Committee on Training for Playwork and the Children's Play Council. She was editor of the Training Playwork Trainers pack and has recently written a chapter on networking in playwork for the Open University.

Sara Milburn is Play Development Officer with Leeds City Council with a main responsibility to develop a play strategy that recognises the full extent of play and play services. Past work includes children's participation and consultation, support for out of school clubs, training and face-to-face work in a number of settings. Having worked in the US and Nepal, she has had opportunities to observe very different designs and delivery of play services.

Andrew Norris is currently Head Ranger of the New Forest Ranger Service having worked for the Forestry Commission for 11 years. His duties mainly revolve around day-to-day management and this includes Moors Valley Country Park. His work is mostly concentrated on land use issues, conservation and community engagement. He has a particular interest in birds, reptiles and fungi.

Cathy O'Leary having played out as a child in the street and on the village common surrounded by fields and half built housing she says that playing on a building site is hard to rival. She trained as a teacher and worked at a Bristol children's community project before joining the London Adventure Playground Association training scheme. Subsequent work experience in both local authorities and the voluntary sector included play projects and holiday schemes, a nursery, after school playcentre and adventure playground. She is now Senior Playworker at Crumbles Castle, an independent inner city adventure playground in London.

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