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PLAYLINK / Free Play Network

Play Policy and Strategy Discussion Forum

We have now reached the conclusion of the first joint PLAYLINK/Free Play Network discussion forum on play strategies.

Contributions that were posted on the discussion forum are still available to view, but the forum is now closed to new additions. If you have further queries, PLAYLINK can still be contacted on this and other matters. (Contact PLAYLINK on 0207 720 2452 or by email to info@playlink.org.uk.)

In its two weeks of operation the play strategy discussion forum attracted around 120 comments and questions, and there were over 5000 hits on the forum. In quantitative (measurable) terms, we are pleased with the interest the discussion forum stimulated. We would welcome your comments (they will not be posted) on how useful - or otherwise - you found the forum, and any suggestions you might care to make. Comments and suggestions can be sent by email to info@playlink.org.uk.

The Free Play Network and PLAYLINK are indebted to:

  • Alyson Christy, National Development Manager PIP, Kids - National Development Division
  • Mark Gladwin, Play Services Officer, Bradford Early Years and Childcare Service
  • Sean Holehouse, Play Services Manager, Southampton City Council

for sharing their knowledge and experience freely. For reasons that could not be anticipated, two of the five facilitators were not able to participate. We hope to be able to involve them on a future occasion.

We are proposing to run a number of other on-line discussion forums, starting in September. Our initial list of topics include:

  • Risk and Play
  • Places for play
  • Child protection
  • Consultation/participation.

I will not attempt to summarise the points made in the discussion forum. The forum pages will remain accessible at www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/playlink/playstrategydiscussion/index2.php, but as noted above, will be closed for further comment. But it is impossible to resist the temptation to make some brief points from PLAYLINK's perspective:

1. Do not be dazzled by the Big Lottery play fund, but use the opportunity to raise the profile of play to best advantage. A play strategy should always be wider than your lottery funding aspirations.

2. Consultants' brief: don't devise them yourself in the first instance, ask the consultant(s) how they would approach the task and their rationale for approaching the task in the way they propose. This is more likely to give an insight into their thinking and experience.

3. Audit and consultation: as remarked in the forum comments, two knotty areas. Our view is that these should not form part of the initial brief, but provision can be made by the client for future expenditure under these headings. The reasons are, briefly:

  • consultation is to be understood as a problem to be discussed, not a 'given' that merely requires the application of a method. In addition, authorities and organisations hold significant amount of consultation information - the task is often to organise, collate and consider gaps, rather than spending time and money on elaborate consultation exercises. There is in any case something odd about the notion of consulting youngsters on the strategy as a whole - is it proposed that those youngsters not living in a priority area should be invited to confirm the judgment? This underscores the point that consultation needs first to be discussed in terms of scope, approach and purpose. There is an ethical dimension here that cannot be avoided.
  • Audit: similar reasoning applies here. What is to be included in an audit is not, or should not be, a 'given', but a problem to be solved. How audit information is collected requires discussion the outcome of which cannot be prejudged.

4. Our experience has been that developing policy through to strategy with objectives and action plan takes no more than ten days of external consultants' time. Questions about 'consultation' and 'audit' emerge quite quickly in the course of discussions and inform how these areas are to be approached. In practice, there will be local variation.

5. Guidance: our general view is that 'guidance' is, or should be, simply that: a guide not a route map. In other words, taking account of guidance should not be confused with following a rule. It is, in our view, vital that local knowledge and judgment are not marginalized, that councils' and voluntary sector organisations do not disempower themselves by forgetting what they already know, including how to read and respond to local circumstance.

Bernard Spiegal
PLAYLINK
3 July 2006

Facilitators

To receive notification of future PLAYLINK and Free Play Network events:

Free Play Network, 66 York Road, New Barnet, Hertfordshire, EN5 1LJ. Tel 020 8440 9276.