Year 1 review Guildford Play Strategy 2016-2021
Our plan to ensure that our playschemes and our play area facilities are of a high standard and are what is needed locally
Year 1 review Guildford Play Strategy- 2016-2021
Play Strategy year 1 review Welcome to the first annual review of our Play Strategy 2016 - 2021. This review covers achievements as part of the year 1 action plan, from April 2016 - March 2017. Alternative Formats If you would like to read this consultation document in a different format such as large print, please contact Leisure Services. n Telephone: 01483 444769
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n Email: playdevelopment@guildford.gov.uk
www.guildford.gov.uk
The aim of the strategy is to enhance and promote opportunities for play, provide support for community play opportunities and to ensure the importance of play is recognised and valued. The strategy is two separate, but aligned documents, forming one cohesive strategy. The main strategy provides a structure for the Council to advocate for children’s’ right to play and identifies priorities for play development. The aligned, outdoor fixed play equipment strategy lists existing play areas and their ‘play value’ for different ages and abilities, and identifies the gaps in provision with a development plan to address how these gaps might be filled over the next ten years.
Our Strategy
Our Strategy
Leading up to the launch of the strategy in April 2016, we undertook extensive consultation and engagement with children and young people, parents and residents, stakeholders and partners to ensure our priorities and annual action plan were shaped by local need.
Four main themes were created and agreed for the strategy: s
Widening accessibility and participation in play Increasing awareness of opportunities whilst ensuring that our own provision is accessible and inspiring to all children by removing the barriers that restrict children’s access to play.
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To advocate for play Promoting children’s right to play through increasing understanding of the importance of play and embedding children’s play needs into local communities.
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Improve children’s health and wellbeing through play Promoting and increasing confidence in participation of a wide range of safe and physically active play opportunities.
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Balancing risk in play Embedding a risk benefit approach to managing the design, delivery and development of a braoad range of challenging and inspiring opporunities for play.
The Play Strategy Action Plan seeks to deliver the overall strategy aims by reducing barriers to play. It endeavours to engage partners and stakeholders in supporting the delivery of its themes and services through advocacy work. The action plan created a coordinated programme of work to ensure that resources for play are used effectively, engaging partners where appropriate and that clear targets have been set to measure against the success of the strategy.
Read in full, our Play Strategy 2016-2021 www.guildford.gov.uk/playstrategy
www.guildford.gov.uk
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Year 1 review Guildford Play Strategy- 2016-2021
Review of year 1 Our progress is presented below, under the subheadings set out in our action plan. Increased awareness of opportunities for play Feedback from our consultation showed that the play services provided by the Council were well known about in our targeted wards but less so across the borough.
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Last year we worked alongside partners to facilitate play sessions at community events. This provided a platform for promoting our playschemes, widening access and participation.
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new flyers have been produced for Playrangers to improve the information on session times and locations.
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updated roller banners have been designed and produced for Playrangers to support promotion at events and activities.
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our holiday information web pages have been shared wider, with 11,406 views on our website.
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we delivered Love Outdoor Play Week to raise the profile of all the benefits associated with playing outdoors.
www.guildford.gov.uk
Accessibility and participation in play for our most vulnerable residents increased. l
We have reviewed our business plan for Playrangers and produced a new action plan to ensure the service continues to reduce barriers to play in relation to cost, transport, outcome focused provision, negative attitudes and parental anxiety.
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we secured additional funding to provide a total of 39 one to one keyworkers* at our FISH playscheme this year for children and young people who usually access specialist provision.
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Referrals from support agencies into FISH increased to 41 in total. The impact of this is that young people with a wider variety of needs participated in our playscheme. This will increase their confidence, self-esteem and ability for independence.
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93 children accessed free transport on FISH, overcoming any barriers to access our play scheme caused by transport
Progress and Action Plan
Design and deliver play opportunities for all children especially those who are disabled or vulnerable
* Keyworkers at FISH offer children and young people access to a mainstream setting where they are able to freely access play and leisure and make choices for themselves in a supported environment. Parents value this as a significant step forward for many children who usually access specialist provision. www.guildford.gov.uk
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Year 1 review Guildford Play Strategy- 2016-2021
Developing and maintaining inspiring places for play We continued to listen to the community and to act on our findings.
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We delivered an interactive evaluation activity on site at FISH across the summer scheme to engage participants in providing feedback about the service. By exploring and implementing their suggestions in the design of FISH, they will feel more inspired and more likely to return, from feeling valued and listened to.
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We have worked with parish councils across the borough to explain our standards for play provision and our play value assessment tool, raising the knowledge and aspirations of those involved in improving parish play areas and increasing the play value (quality of play experience).
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The community consultation and engagement in refurbishing Onslow Recreation Ground play area in 2016 has greatly improved play experiences, opportunities and access, which will have increased the play value score of the site. External moderation of the play value scores will be undertaken in 2021. A case study of this development is on our website: www.guildford.gov.uk/playstrategy
www.guildford.gov.uk
We continued to listen to the community and to act on our findings. l
we continued to increase opportunities for children to engage in a wider range of stimulating and physically challenging play at our playschemes
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we produced a community resource pack for the Council website to support local communities interested in developing ‘Streetplay’ initiatives locally
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we increased the number of Playranger contacts to 5,466, which means more children in the borough are spending more time playing in outdoor spaces, benefitting their physical and mental health and wellbeing, increasing their social skills, improving their communities and building their resilience as outlined in the strategy
Progress and Action Plan
Better health outcomes through play
Increased playworker knowledge and skills To maintain the continuous professional development of our playwork team. l
we reviewed and updated the induction programme and handbook for Playrangers
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delivered a new ‘autism awareness’ training course, specifically tailored to the needs of our playwork team alongside our safeguarding and playwork training programme
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senior play service staff attended a twoday ‘Youth Mental Health First Aid’ course so they are better able to support a young person who might be experiencing mental and emotional distress www.guildford.gov.uk
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Year 1 review Guildford Play Strategy- 2016-2021
Increased parental understanding We have been encouraging and educating parents to recognise the value of good play provision by:
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updating the Playranger and FISH parent pack; which reinforces the advocacy work of the playwork staff
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increased Playranger contacts suggests parental confidence in allowing children and young people to play outside in their communities has also increased
www.guildford.gov.uk
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We have adopted the new ‘Safer Surrey’ approach to working with families. Understanding and embedding this approach in our services will better support us to work effectively with children, young people, their families and other agencies to achieve better outcomes.
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Training undertaken on ‘professional challenge’ and ‘managing allegations against staff’ ensures that we are better able to identify situations where challenging other professionals’ decisions, behaviour or actions will lead to better outcomes for children and young people attending our services.
www.guildford.gov.uk
Progress and Action Plan
Safeguarding children at play
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Year 1 review Guildford Play Strategy- 2016-2021
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www.guildford.gov.uk
There were a number of challenges we faced which delayed completion on some of the tasks. We reallocated staff to fill Playranger vacancies in the autumn to ensure the day-to-day delivery of the service could continue. This had a direct impact on the amount of resource available to complete targets during this time. Developing the business plan for FISH is a key target within the year one action plan and is behind schedule. We have a number of areas of the scheme to evaluate which are essential to the delivery of the overall review. The changing landscape in Surrey for safeguarding, including the introduction of the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and the new role of the Early Help Hub, and the desire to include adult safeguarding in our policies has added additional work to our corporate Safeguarding Policy requirements. This has delayed internal progress updating the existing Council policy to ensure we have a fully effective structure for reporting all safeguarding concerns.
Challenges / Opportunities
Challenges
The development of a new play area in West Nye Gardens is behind schedule as lengthy research around the history of the site and its land transfer to the Council is required prior to development.
Opportunities The Council secured a new online booking system for customers in 2016. We had the opportunity to be the first service to deliver this system for our FISH customers. There has been a significant impact on resources to develop a functional system that fits the structure of our scheme and improves our customer booking experience. We submitted a bid for an Armed Forces Community Covenant grant in autumn 2016. Our project ‘Freedom to Play’ will benefit local, serving military families and civilian families through access to free of charge play opportunities provided by our Playrangers, FISH playscheme and at two community fun days. Guildford has signed the armed forces covenant; the application supports the Council’s commitment to this. Our bid was successful we will deliver the project between May 2017 and March 2018. Our year 2 action plan and case study on the development of Onslow Village playground are on our website.
Our plan to ensure that our playschemes and our play area facilities are of a high standard and are what is needed locally www.guildford.gov.uk
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Contact Details Play and Youth Development Officer playdevelopment@guildford.gov.uk 01483 444764 Parks Team parks@guildford.gov.uk 01483 444718
www.guildford.gov.uk