Keith's Blog

Archive for the ‘Play’ Category

“What are disabled people?”

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

I spent a wonderful morning in Gnoll Park at the Local Aid Schools Challenge this week. The event runs the whole week long and has been going on for twenty years or more. We have enjoyed days and days of unbroken sunshine so I was a little surprised to see rain but it didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for the event. And what an event it is. 

For those of you who do not know Local Aid it is a local charity working to raise awareness of the needs and aspirations of young people with special needs. The organisation provides specialist equipment, arranges travel support, specialist services and activities for young people with severe learning disabilities and challenging behaviour in local communities in Neath, Port Talbot and Swansea. The organisation supports young people with learning difficulties and physical disabilities, and promotes the rights of individuals to be supported to reach their potential. They also actively support children and families in need as well as offering fun, choice and opportunity for the children and young people involved.

So what was going on in Gnoll Park? All kinds of activities with all kinds of challenges and all outdoors. The park was full of muddy, wet, happy young people having a fantastic time. They were doing assault courses, pulling rafts across the lake, going down zip wires and water slides and doing all kinds of activities. Each team of young people, and there were 400 or so young people involved that morning, (2,000 during the course of the week), earned points for taking part, completing things, answering questions and for getting the most soaked! Great stuff. All sorts of organisations are involved supporting the event. Police officers, firefighters, PCSOs, probation officers, volunteers, physiotherapists, nurses, teachers, youth workers, play workers, sports officers … the list goes on and on. All taking part in providing learning and fun activities.

I took a walk around the park to get a feel for the whole thing and to chat with the young people. In one stall – SNAP Cymru’s European Social Fund programme: ‘Diversity Challenge – a group of young people were standing in front of a table full of photos of famous people and celebrities. Each one of the people in the photographs had a disability. “So, which one of these people can’t see?” said the organiser. “Well, I think that must be Stevie Wonder” said someone at the front. “That’s right it’s Stevie Wonder but it hasn’t stopped him making some of the best music has it”. Everyone nodded. “Hold on a minute” said a lad to my left “what are disabled people anyway?” His mate turned round to him and said “That’s who we are!” “Oh, I see.” Laughter all round.

I spoke to lots of young people. All having a great time. I don’t know how many times I heard that doing things outdoors is “cool”, “brill”, “fun”, “exciting”, “mega”. But why is it so good? Well the best answer I heard was the one that went something like “Well, I have learned loads, I’m soaked to the skin, I’ve got mud in my tummy button and my wheelchair will need a bit of a clean … but who cares!”

I can’t speak highly enough about this event. It is brilliant to raise awareness about disability but also to see that barriers to involvement and participation can come crashing down. It is all about positive mental attitude and the positive energy this event generates speaks for itself.

Posted in Disabled Children and Young People, Participation, Play | Comments Off

Finger painting

Monday, May 17th, 2010

I find it impossible to sit at a nursery table with children where there is paint and paper being used without having a go. What’s more these children were painting with their fingers. Up to their armpits in black paint making pictures of rabbits. Fantastic.

My effort was recognisable as a rabbit in my eyes but I was not too sure that it convinced the children. And then into the kitchen next door where some parents were making cakes and had prepared bacon rolls and coffee for their guests. Tough job this but someone’s got to do it!

I was at the Clase Family Centre in Swansea with Kay at the invitation of Cherrie Taylor and Peter Williams from Faith in Families. In the Church in Wales the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon Board for Social Responsibility runs a number of Faith in Families Projects and I got to visit three of them in Swansea. First stop was Clase and then it was on to the Family Centres in Penplas and Bonymaen. What a morning.

Sometime ago I spoke at a Church in Wales conference and soon afterwards Cherrie wrote to me asking me to visit. She quoted some words I had said at the conference back to me. I had said “the longer I have been the Commissioner the more and more concerned I get about parenting and the responsibilities we have towards parents”. As she greeted me at the door in Clase it soon became clear that everything I was about to see was about providing services and support for children and their parents. Each one of the Family Centres had a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Each one had all sorts of things going on. There were children involved in finger painting, singing songs, planting potatoes and flowers and generally having a great time. I have never seen so much compost inside a children’s play area or seen what fun it could be. So whilst there were children in Clase with painted hands and forearms there were children in Penplas covered in compost. I always think that the scale of mess nearly always equates to the level of fun being had – and these children were all having fun and learning lots with smiles on their faces.

Meanwhile what were the parents up to? Well, they were making cakes, involved in a jewellery workshop, chatting together and meeting the Children’s Commissioner. In discussion with them I heard how much the Family Centres meant to them. One told me that she had been coming for a number of years. She said “Our children have really grown here and so have we”. I heard about the university and college places that some of them had secured, about the activities and training courses they have done, about the debates they have had, how they support each other, about their hopes for the future and how the Centre has been the hub of so much that has been positive for them and their children. Another told me that “My children are safe here and because they are happy that gives me time to get involved in things and to plan for the future. It has made me a better mum. And because I’m more confident my children are benefiting as well”.

The Family Centres also offer contact centres and I was able to look at the facilities on offer. I heard about the partnership arrangements and how much effort goes into securing funding and planning new and refurbished buildings. In talking with the staff you get a sense that here are people with vision and purpose. People who recognise the value of preventative work with families, the benefits of partnership and the payback to be gained for children by investing time and providing opportunities for parents. With increasing numbers of children coming into our care system we need to recognise the value of preventative work more then we do. This work is real. It is clearly making a difference and we need to value it and protect it more than we do.

Driving away from Bonymaen Kay and I reflected on what we had seen and the discussions we had had. Kay said “It’s great isn’t it to spend time with real people who are doing things that can make such a positive difference”. Well said Kay, you took the words right out of my mouth.

With thanks to all the children, mums, dads and staff at the Faith in Families Projects – inspirational people doing what’s right for their children and themselves.

Posted in Parenting, Play | Comments Off

The right to roam

Friday, March 5th, 2010

At the Play Wales conference last week I gave a speech where I concluded by saying that children had the right to roam. To play in our streets and public spaces safe in the knowledge that adults would respect their right to be there. To make a noise. To play. To be children.

It’s sad isn’t it that children feel that they are no longer able to play outdoors in the way that I certainly did and I suspect many adults did when they were children. When I sat in the audience listening to other speakers we were invited to recall our own memories of playing as a child. I remembered playing outdoors. Building dens in the woods. Climbing across a pipe over the river, playing football in the streets and hanging about with my mates outside the local shop – our main meeting place.

Great times with many happy memories. And yet today a child doing the same things might be guilty of being a nuisance, maybe even anti social. Almost certainly they would be asked to move on from the shop and as for the pipe across the river, well that could result in a prosecution for trespass. What’s happened to us as a society? What’s happened to childhood? Can we find a way to restore our belief in children and the role that play has in their lives?

By playing outdoors children learn to evaluate risk, to take responsibility for themselves, to negotiate and yes they learn how to have fun, to enjoy themselves. A critical part of childhood and it is about time we as a society learned to accept that. What’s more it is our duty as adults to ensure that children can play in our streets and in our public spaces. Time to ask why cars are the dominant forces on our residential streets. Time indeed to see us limit our speed on the roads, to remove no ball games signs and replace with the assumption that children will be playing here and what’s more they are welcome to play here.

This week I attended the four UK Nations Symposium on Children’s play in London. An opportunity to hear how each country is moving forward on Children’s play. And all are making progress. None more so than here in Wales. I was able to speak about the Children and Family (Wales) Measure that will place a duty on local authorities to secure sufficient play opportunities as well as a duty on local authorities to ensure Children’s participation in decisions that might affect them. We are the first country in the world to legislate in this way in relation to Children’s play. And many colleagues across the UK are looking at us with envy in their eyes.

The symposium was great. Baroness Delyth Morgan spoke about England’s progress, Marguerite Hunter Blair from Play Scotland gave her analysis of progress there and Patricia Lewsley gave us her perspective as Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People. It was really good as well to hear Maggie Atkinson, the new Children’s Commissioner for England, as she used this opportunity to speak publicly for the first time in her new role. A symposium report based on the discussions held will be available shortly for those who are interested.

But has the symposium helped to move all this forward? I can only answer that from a personal perspective. It has certainly helped me to sharpen my thinking and I have come away with a fresh resolve to work towards establishing a Wales which is open to children and comfortable with the idea that they can play in our streets and public spaces.

Those of you who know Mike Greenaway well from Play Wales will know that he is passionate about Children’s play. He is prone to real insight from time to time and at the symposium he was in good form.  “We are in serious danger of doing something wonderfully radical for children in Wales. Children can and should have the right to roam – you know, we could really make this happen in Wales.”

Mike is right but we have so got to have the confidence and the will to see this through. Our children won’t forgive us if we fail to take full advantage of the potential encapsulated within the Measure.

Children’s right to roam? Yes, without doubt. To be honest it’s what I enjoyed as a child. And do you know what? It didn’t do me any harm!

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