Beyond parks and playgrounds: fostering and celebrating a culture of play for children and teenagers / Public Map Platform

Many of us have fond memories of growing up in a time when it was accepted that children, once they were old enough and confident enough to negotiate the outside world independently or with friends and siblings, played outside and ranged within their neighbourhoods freely. Where did you learn to catch, run, balance, hide? How about finding friends, falling out with them, making friends again? The spaces near where we live and grow up have always been a place of connection-full of cracks, nooks and crannies where magic erupts when children have enough time and are allowed to play.

Playing is central to children’s physical, mental, social and emotional health and wellbeing. Studies show that playing helps children feel part of their neighbourhoods and wider communities. Playing also supports:

socialisation
resilience
health and wellbeing
learning and development
happiness.

Our childhood memories of playing, of having ‘everyday adventures’ near where we live, resonate beautifully with the theme for this year’s Playday. The theme focuses on the rich and lively culture of children’s play. Playing generates a culture of childhood. Play is at the core of children’s lives and is vital for their health, happiness, and creativity. Through play:

children develop a sense of, and value for culture
cultural exploration is encouraged, fostering an appreciation for diversity
children work together, negotiate, and build relationships
children feel connected to each other and their neighbourhoods
children create and pass on games, songs and stories.

‘I love to play out with my friends because it’s fun and nice to see them again’

Welcoming places and the company of others to play with every day is still of great importance to children and teenagers, as demonstrated in a Play Wales report where nearly 7,000 children and teenagers in Wales tell us what’s good about the opportunities to play in their local area and how satisfied they are about when, how and where they can play.

In the survey, children were asked how often they played or hung out with their friends. Nearly a half of children (42%) said that they go out and play or hang out with friends most days. A further third play out a few days a week. They value time, freedom and quality places to play. Yet access to space in their own neighbourhood has diminished over time.

This research with children identified trends and issues that commonly impact on children’s ability to access opportunities to play. These can include:

changes in neighbourhoods including increased car use, increased traffic (moving and parked), changing work patterns
parental restrictions due to perceptions of neighbourhood safety (traffic, bullying, racism, stranger danger)
increase in participation in structured activities and educational demands
children are ‘out of place’ in the public realm, increasing intolerance towards children and young people playing and meeting up.

Wales was the first country in the world to legislate for children’s play. As well as the research with children, there have been four small-scale research studies, commissioned by Play Wales, undertaken since the commencement of the Welsh Government’s Play Sufficiency Duty.

Across all four research studies, there is a recognition that the Play Sufficiency Duty and its policy instruments (the regulations, statutory guidance, toolkit and template) determine that:

“Play is not only an activity that takes place in discrete spaces and at prescribed times; it is not something that can simply be ‘provided’ by adults but is an act of co-creation that emerges opportunistically from an assemblage of interdependent and interrelated factors” [*1].

The Play Sufficiency Duty, as with all Welsh legislation and policy regarding children, is rights-based. In guidance about play to governments worldwide, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child makes the statement that “children play anywhere and everywhere” [*2]. This statement helps in understanding the connections between public planning and play.

The statement supports an understanding that play is more than an activity that takes place in designated spaces and at designated times. This is acknowledged in the play legislation which recognises the need for specific play provision and the ability for children to play out in their neighbourhood. As most of our play memories confirm, play is naturally spatial, and this presents an ideal opportunity to think about how spaces work for children - or not.

Play is at the core of children’s lives and is vital for their health, happiness, and creativity. Through play, children feel connected to each other and their neighbourhoods. Whilst playing comes instinctively to children, the support of parents, policymakers and the wider community is necessary to ensure children have freedom, spaces, and time to themselves to act on their natural instincts. Providing children with plenty of time, space and permission to play in communities that care for them will help children support their own sense of being well.

Public Map Platform can help by providing a deeper understanding of the range of spaces and places that children care about. It is an ideal way of helping children have their voices heard through the use of playful and play friendly engagement. Providing children with plenty of opportunities to tell us about what is important to them at a very neighbourhood level will help decision-makers get a more holistic understanding of children’s play. This in turn helps decision makers, across policy areas, to work together to apply an assets-based approach in providing for play.

A sense of place is important to help children and teenagers to feel part of their community and neighbourhood. As has been the case for generations of children.

[*1] Lester, S. and Russell, W. (2013) Leopard Skin Wellies, a Top Hat and a Vacuum Cleaner Hose: An analysis of Wales’ Play Sufficiency Assessment duty. Cardiff: University of Gloucestershire and Play Wales; page 6

[*2] United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child CRC (2013) General comment No. 17 (2013) on the right of the child to rest, leisure, play, recreational activities, cultural life and the arts (art. 31). Geneva: Committee on the Rights of the Child.