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Following the successful Play and Health seminar hosted by Play England on 20th March, Cath Prisk, Director of Play England, tweeted “We need national research on Nature Deficit Disorder and how it’s affecting kids across the country”. I replied with a plea not to adopt the term ‘nature deficit disorder’. Cath’s response was to challenge me to come up with another call to action which could be as compelling, and I do so in this guest blog. The metaphor I wish to promote is not new or original, but I will argue it is a healthier metaphor.
It is the concept of free range childhood.
This piece starts from the premise that playing out is an important aspect of childhood that brings a number of benefits both to children’s lives today and for the future. It also accepts that overall, children play out less than in the first half of last century, although there are big variations across social stratifications such as class, age, gender, ethnicity, ability and geography, and in many places children do still play out (see the evidence for this in Play for a Change). As an aside, the street has long been a site of concern about its suitability as a place to play, both in terms of health & safety and moral panics, but this is not my focus here.
What this piece contests is how we as adults should be framing the issue, and this is reflected in the choice of metaphor used as shorthand to communicate problems and solutions. In our soundbite, 140-character world, the connotations attached to such metaphors take hold and give rise to a discourse that influences our relationships with children. Given structural inequalities across social divisions, this matters.
What is wrong with ‘nature deficit disorder’ as a call to action?
Credit: Shiremoor Adventure Playground
The term was coined by Richard Louv in his book Last Child in the Woods. In it he states clearly that the term is not a recognised medical condition but a metaphor. However, a quick internet search for the term yields 926,000 results (but just two on the first page of Google scholar results, one of which was Louv’s book).
This shows just how much and how quickly it has taken hold as a metaphor in everyday language but less so in academic research. Most recently, it has been adopted by the National Trust’s two-month inquiry into ‘natural childhood’ and the publication of their report.
Here’s why I think it is a bad idea:
1) It medicalises children
Portraying the reduction in playing out as a childhood disorder places it as a problem within the child that then needs some form of professional (or at least adult) intervention to cure or normalise.The parallel here is with the medical and social models of disability; bringing a social model to the lack of 
children playing out would place the problem in the way society is organised rather than in the child.
2) It is a deficit model
As an extension of the medicalisation argument, the metaphor creates the notion of a ‘need’ to be met. Rather than acknowledging that children can and do make everyday decisions about how to live their own lives, it renders them passive sponges soaking up whatever socialisation adults deliver to them. This way of seeing things is only a small hop and a jump towards the idea that childhood needs ‘saving’ in some way.
Indeed, the subtitle of Richard Louv’s book is ‘Saving our children from nature deficit disorder’ and, it could be argued, the same redemptive discourse has been used by the National Trust.
Understanding children as needy has an effect on adults’ relationships with them. Research from the US suggests that maybe this (predominantly middle class) over-protective child-centred construct of need creates dependent children. Adults don’t need to ‘provide’ play (how can a subjective experience be provided?), but we do need to provide the conditions that support it.
3) It creates a need for separate experience and therefore dependency on adults
Credit: Playing Out/Kamina Walton
There is insufficient space here to debate what is meant by ‘nature’ in this metaphor. How much nature makes a space natural? What is the difference between playing out and contact with nature?
Tim Gill confronts this question in his literature review for the Sowing the Seeds report. Elsewhere, for example in the National Trust report, the benefits of physical play, outdoor play and contact with nature are conflated.
There is potentially a class bias to this, leading Alice Ferguson, co-founder of the Bristol-based Playing Out project, to tweet, “What we don’t want is Middle England to react by taking kids to NT properties in 4x4s! Parents schlepping kids to ‘nature’ by car could add to problem for those stuck in the city!”
4) It oversimplifies relationships between nature and technology
The National Trust opens its discussion on nature deficit disorder in its report Natural Childhood with statements about children’s use of screen-based technology. Although the discussion itself is measured, the shorthand metaphor sets technology up as the evil that has distanced children from nature, as evidenced in the statistic (picked up enthusiastically by media reports) that nine out of ten children could recognise a Dalek but only one in three could identify a magpie.
Credit: Nick Jackson
In our tiny and over-populated island there is precious little space left that has not been affected by technology, whether that be urbanisation, industrialisation, farming or environmental management. Children do not make such a distinction, as this anecdote from a recent discussion between our postgrad students on our Play and Playwork course at the University of Gloucestershire illustrates:
“I think that a lot of the divide that we see is not shared by children. As an example I’m attaching a picture of my son and his friend taken a few years ago. They’d climbed up this huge tree after an afternoon of den making and playing in the woods, and had been posting a stream of Facebook messages and pictures of their activities – to them it was natural!”
5) It is future-focussed and assumes linear causality
Much of the argument about the benefits of contact with nature and therefore the problems of its lack centres around children’s development. Playing outside, and particularly playing with nature is assumed to reap specific benefits in a direct causal manner. And the development most prized is academic achievement.
This is most starkly seen in Louv’s blog post entitled ‘Want your kids to get into Harvard? Tell ‘em to go outside!’ Apart from the improbability of such a direct causal link, with fees for 2012-2013 at $38,480 a year, it’s not hard to guess the target parent he is aiming to reach.
Why I prefer ‘free range childhood’
I suggest that this metaphor would serve a wider group of children better. With 85,300 results from an internet search, it is up there with ‘nature deficit disorder’ as a concept to capture the imagination. It is still firmly entrenched in the romantic construct of childhood, but perhaps this is no bad thing for a ‘call to action’.
However, rather than a deficit model, this metaphor acknowledges children’s own ability to take time and space for play if the conditions are right. It constructs the problem as being with the way things are set up, not with children themselves. It addresses directly the problem of adult attitudes towards children, particularly in terms of over-protection and being seen as ‘out of place’ in the public realm (see Lenore Skenazy’s book and blog for examples).
It can happily encompass the benefits of urban outdoor play as well as rural or nature idylls. It 
acknowledges the value of going out to play in children’s immediate neighbourhood, rather than being chaperoned to separate spots of nature under adult supervision. It allows for some interesting comparisons with the ways in which the law requires humane treatment of animals.
In addition, it requires us to address the way we as adults organise things. Specifically, it allows us to address the imbalance between the priority given to cars and to children, perhaps the most important barrier to a free range childhood.
Tim Gill shows how the car has led to the shrinking of children’s independent mobility, through traffic danger, car dependence and car-centred town planning.
This is the line that Sustrans have taken in their campaign ‘Free Range Kids‘. It’s also the line Play England is taking, emphasising ‘freedom to play’.
I’d suggest ‘Free Range Childhood’ is where we should all be focusing our attention. What do you think?
Like this:
You may have been following the truly inspired campaign by Chris Gregory over at Play Isle of Man, which has included hopping, skipping, hobby horse, pogo sticks, stilts…
Muscle injuries, lack of pavements, busy road and strange looks, nothing stopped this dedicated play activist shouting about why it’s so important to LOVE OUTDOOR PLAY!!
Enjoy – and please do think about how you too could get more people to commit to making the world a more playful place.
Congratulations Chris! And well done to the team behind you too! Its clear the children of the Isle of man support you all the way – and so do we.
That’s a brilliant way to Love Outdoor Play…
What can you do to love outdoor play this Easter?
Well I’ve just done an interview with the lovely folks o
ver at BBC Radio Wiltshire (at about 18:20, but I’m about to put all the links below so not suggesting you try & find it!), following today’s publication of the National Trust’s Natural Childhood report and the launch of their debate over at Outdoor Nation.
Given that they used a lot of Play England’s data, and the research we often quote (and that is in our World Without Play round up of key reports) from colleagues such as Richard Louv, Tim Gill, Sue Palmer, Natural England, Penny Wilson, Meyer Hillman and others, you won’t be surprised to know we totally agree with their assessment of the main barriers to playing out:
- The danger from traffic, and how this severely limits children’s ability to venture outside their homes.
- The issue of Health and Safety, and how an obsession with trying to achieve a ‘zero-risk’ world is severely limiting children’s freedom.
- Parental fears of ‘stranger danger’, and its consequences for children’s freedom to roam in the wider environment.
- The negative attitudes of some authority figures, who regard children’s natural play as something to be stopped rather than encouraged.
They quote our research from Playday a couple of years ago where two thirds of parents said that children have less freedom to roam than free-range chickens. This is really true – in that there is legislation to ensure free range chickens get some freedom, whereas there is virtually none to protect children’s freedom to play.
- School break times have been cut to virtually nothing.
- Streets are often empty of children, even ones in our suburbs that have nice wide pavements and few cars.
- babies and toddlers are strapped into chairs and buggies; preteens and teens are on their computers.
Of course it’s not all doom and gloom – many children DO play outdoors after school and in the holidays. Many schools have fantastic grounds and actively encourage children to play during the day and after it. Many, many parents still do tell their fractious nine year old to jolly well go and get his friend and go to the park. And children really do still love playing out – just watch these videos from our friends at Playing Out and Lancashire County Council if you want to hear children telling you how much they love playing outside.
But still, its a fact that there are less children out, that they are generally older than their parents were when first allowed to go play out all day without an adult, and that far fewer have climbed a tree or made a den as a normal, everyday activity.
That’s not just in the holidays or for a special treat. Its every day.
So what can we do about it?
First – Sign up to follow this blog and be a supporter of Love Outdoor Play!
Second – Can you do anything to make where you live just a little more playful? Put up a Love Outdoor Play picture to show that your street is one that welcomes children playing out? Think about how your street could be closed for play? Just put some chalks or a cardboard box outside your house and see if anyone uses them?
Third – Ask your children/grandchildren/friend’s children what they WANT to do this holiday – and see how much more freedom you can let them have, and then just see how much fun they have! We’d love to hear about your adventures – whether 100 yards down your road or further afield – over on the Facebook page. To get some ideas you could check Play England’s playmap to see where other children and young people like playing out near you – and you could add your own.
Fourth – How about finding out if there is a group locally t
hat is organising things to do outside this Easter and let them know you want to get involved?
This blog is supported local organisations including: Birmingham PlayCare Network, Children’s Links, Hackney Play Association, Hillingdon Play Association, KIDS, Lambeth Play Association, London Play, Manchester Young Lives, Milton Keynes Play Association, Play Torbay, Playwork Partnerships, Plymouth Play Association, Shiremoor Adventure Playground Trust (North Tyneside Council), and Wansdyke Play Association, Play Wales, Play Scotland, Playboard Northern Ireland, and Playing Out - all of them are looking for help – a few hours, days or weeks, whatever you can give – to help more children play outside this Easter
Fifth – Write to your MP to ask them how they could support Love Outdoor Play – with all the press coverage for National Trust’s report they should be thinking about how they can ensure local planning, transport, health & schools support children’s freedom to play
If you do nothing else, how about passing on this blog to someone else, just to let them know you love outdoor play and you’d like them to too.
Have a great weekend folks, and I hope you get to play outside too!
Play Torbay Loving Outdoor Play…
So glad to have this wonderful guest post from Tanny Stobart from Play Torbay on the day that the National Trust also is calling on everyone to get involved in getting more children to play outside more often – what better way than helping your local play association this Easter?
Play Torbay is doing ‘Love Outdoor Play’ this Easter,
quietly building a new model army of volunteers along the way;
- Exploring Nature at Yarner Woods,
- Wild Rocks at the Seashore Centre,
- FUNKY Friday the 13th at the Torquay Museum where young film makers are volunteering to make a playful advert for the museum,
- bag packing at Sainsbury’s and…
We’re taking Love Outdoor Play to the nth degree and camping, yes you heard right, camping at Easter in Devon – and it’s not the first time – but this bit is:
- Children, volunteers and staff from 3 adventure playgrounds perched on 3 hillsides in the 3 towns that make up Torbay are coming together for a ‘Swallows and Amazons’ adventure involving; an epic journey canoeing across the sea, den building in the woods, beach craft and a beach bivvy on a beautiful Brixham beach and then a long trek supported by Bay Walk Volunteers and if we’re very lucky a music making lollipop lady, across a coastal urban landscape to Indigos Go Wild to figure out how the bell tents work and to meet our special guests.
- Famous in these parts for taking the stories played out on computers, Playstation and X box, games like Runescape and Dungeons and Dragons, and giving them life in the outdoors, the Brixham Berzerkers and their fearless friends from the adventure playgrounds are going to use LARPING (live action role play) together with games, stories, spring boards and fascination traps to help animate the classic tale of children’s adventure.
As dusk settles we will snuggle up by the fire to watch the 1974 EMI movie of Arthur Ransome’s immortal book ‘Swallows and Amazons’ by moonlight before heading, stumbling or crawling back to our tents for the night (presuming we managed to figure out how to put them up!).
As well as this epic adventure we’ve also got Nature Play at Fort Apache. Where we will be playing, exploring, making and cooking in the Fort Apache woodland. Activities may include bush-craft, rope swinging, fire lighting, campfire cooking, mini beast hunting, mud painting and natural jewellery making and lots of other natural arts and craft!
Fort Apache only exists when people are there, it only works because people get involved, every week people young and old(er) help create space to play; they pick up the litter, put up a swing, build a den, find firewood, make a curry for everyone to eat, make a spoon on the shaving horse to stir the curry, make some music for everyone to hear, make a fool of themselves sliding down the bank on their bottoms and for those 5 hours they all love outdoor play…
In Brixham the BFG (The Brixham Family Group) are coming together with Indigos to host our annual Easter Party. We’ve got treasure hunts for littlies and bigger folk,’ alternative’ Easter bonnet making, basket ball , donkey rides, a Playpod. And for the first time ever Indigos are buddying up with the Crèche at the Edge (the most happening Community Centre in the world) to bring Mini Adventure Play (for under 5′s) to Chestnut heights! All are welcome and everything is free. Mostly because people are chipping in to help; the BFG are all volunteers, a local Dad/farmer is lending us hay bales, lots of eggs and is bringing some chicks along to the party! The lady who runs the Crèche at the Edge is in the early days of development and is volunteering to make this work – she’s looking to become a social enterprise and Mini Adventure Play maybe just the thing she needs – get ‘em out young!
Would you like to get involved? If you do please email: Jemma@playtorbay.org.uk or tweet: @playtorbay If it’s for an hour, a day or a week, or you could help us in our marketing, website development or finances – or making a cup of tea or packing some bags. This Easter we want everyone to have the chance to get involved in play so that more children can play out more often in Torbay!
Play Torbay Loving Outdoor Play…
Do let us at loveoutdoorplay@ncb.org.uk know how you are getting involved this Easter – or if you know of opportunities to get involved near you.
Happy Easter!
Climbing trees – risk and adventure
This is a Guest Post from Nick Jackson, Play Development Manager at the Learning Trust who knows a thing or two about outdoor play and works closely with the many staff, volunteers and young people that love Hackney’s adventure playgrounds. If this inspires you to get involved with your local adventure playground do let us know, and we can put you in touch with them.
Climbing a tree seems like the quintessential childhood experience. Most people I talk to over the age of 30 have climbing trees as one of their most preciously held childhood memories. I did it myself – a lot!
Yet for children growing up today in an urban environment such as Hackney it is becoming quite a rare experience.
‘Well, it is dangerous’, I hear you say.
Yes, there is a risk. The risk is that you might fall out of the tree and hurt yourself. You might even break a bone – your arm perhaps. But I would argue that the enjoyment and satisfaction of doing it far outweighs the risk. And even a broken arm will heal up in a few weeks.
It is like learning to ride a bike. At some point the stabilisers have to come off and the learner rider will fall off. They may get bruises and cuts, or even break a wrist. But we all know that the joy of bike riding is worth it.
The risk in tree climbing is very apparent, and if you are careful it can be avoided.
The problem is that if you never try, you’ll never be able to experience and manage that risk for yourself. You will be relying on (usually) an adult telling you that ‘climbing trees is dangerous’. But we don’t learn much from what people tell us. We need to experience for ourselves in order to fully appreciate the circumstances of a situation.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of watching my Mum doing the ironing. ‘Don’t touch the iron, it’s hot’ she told me. So as soon as her back was turned I put my hand flat against the iron. Wow did it hurt! But it was a big lesson that I never forgot.
Climbing a tree teaches you a lot about yourself, physically, mentally and emotionally.
How far can you stretch; can you lift your own weight; do you dare reach for that next branch; why does climbing up seem easier than climbing down; look at the view from up here – I can see my house! Some bark is scratchy; what is the sticky stuff coming out of the tree? Isn’t it amazing the way the tree sways in the breeze? I’m a pirate at the top of the mast!
At Hackney’s adventure playgrounds, I’m glad to say that tree climbing is alive and well. Of course the activity is supervised by experienced Playworkers. Children can practice on smaller trees and then progress to bigger ones when they feel confident. And the sense of accomplishment and achievement on the faces of the children is a beautiful thing to behold.
We need to encourage our children to try things out for themselves. That is part of the basic philosophy of our adventure playgrounds. The step into the unknown – the adventure – is what childhood is all about. And we do our children a disservice if we don’t give them the opportunity to experience as much as possible for themselves.
This post first appeared on the Learning Trust’s blog site.
This seems a particularly suitable topic just now when the trees are so invitingly bare and just right for practising on, so you will be able to climb right up them later when they are clothed in leaves. And to remind us of the joys of tree climbing, I offer thanks to @HodderGeography for sending me this great cartoon by Grant Snider from http://thoughtballoonhelium.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/tree-climbing.html:
Don’t you just love outdoor play? We’d love to hear about trees you or yours have climbed, or see pictures if you can post to Facebook
Like this:
How can outdoor play work with the arts??
Do you think children and young people (& their families) in after-school clubs, holiday playschemes, adventure playgrounds, forest schools or toy libraries could be driving forces behind community arts projects? Would you like to see kids in Bradford and Luton writing plays, performing dance or staging their own exhibitions or festivals? And then graduating to getting involved in circus, film or art in other ways?
I and a number of my existing and new partners in the Free Time Consortium (web page to be updated with new members names!) definitely think so, so have been looking at the Arts Council’s funding for ‘Creative People and Places‘. They don’t want a national bid, even one with locally based community driven partners, but they do like the idea of local play organisations putting themselves forward to be part of the emerging local consortia.
If you think you’d like to be involved in this sort of programme locally – and you are in one of the named areas (see the guidance appendix) then you can register your interest today here, or see who else has and – if you have an appropriate partner locally – then get in touch with them later. Please let us know if you do!
We’d like to develop the ‘Free Time Consortium hub’ (being built) into this and future 
programmes as a place we can all share training, experience, skills and knowledge, ensuring we can all get better at getting more children outside playing more often.
Bit of a different post this, but I was wracking my brains how to let everyone know quickly as the closing date is in just two weeks for the first round, so I hope those not interested in funding won’t mind and could maybe help by passing this on to a local play organisation that hasn’t thought about arts funding in this way.
Hope you enjoy this weekend’s glorious weather, and do check out Play England’s Playmap if you want inspiration for somewhere to play outside!
Laying down memories…
Has the sudden spring weather made you long for that lazy summer holiday? 
Or think about the three – yes three! – bank holiday weekends coming up?
Every year I take my brother’s kids away at least a couple of times, often with some other friends and their kids, so we can all get away from the noise and enjoy that sensation of cold dew on flip flopped feet.
Holiday successes have included a week camping by the beach at Eweleaze farm – swimming in the sea, and cooking our dinner over a fire every night. Another time we went to Fisherground Farm in the lake district – they have a pond in the middle of the campsite with a zipwire near it, old tractor tyres to float around on, and plenty of trees to climb. 
We usually go to Womad, where they can be outside all weekend, and hear music they’d never come across in their small town home.
The key, especially now they are young teenagers, is being somewhere where they can go off and explore themselves, where we don’t have to be with them all the time, but where we can enjoy swapping stories in the evening. Having challenging experiences – climbing a particularly high mountain, swimming out to sea, building the perfect cooking fire and looking after it themselves – makes it all the more memorable because its so much fun.
Last summer I took my second eldest niece to Wilderness festival where she showed me how to row a boat (I was honestly getting into a terrible mess before she took over… her week’s playing at Hackney’s Laburnum boat club was definitely useful as well as fun!). We drifted in the lake as the sun set, the fairy lights came on around the banks and the stars started to come out, and she turned to me and said “This is laying down a memory”.
So this Easter and summer we want to lay down some more memories with the children from our extended families and friends, to make sure they get to enjoy that complete freedom of playing outside. But where to go?
Do you have any holiday places to share for spring or summer outdoor play treats? Where did you love as a kid? Where do your kids love now? We’d love to hear about them, and maybe add them to Play England’s playmap so other families can see where you love to play outdoors.
Lastly I just want to say I owe a lot of my love of the outdoors to, firstly, my mum and dad, who dragged me up hills long before I appreciated them, and secondly, to the Netherley Youth Trust who were a brilliant small voluntary group in Liverpool in the 70s that took kids from the L25 area to Wales and got us camping, canoeing, abseiling and very, very muddy. As kids we never really gave a thought to how much time those volunteers gave us, to teach us precious skills and then let us test ourselves to the limit. But without them, I and many other kids would have never known we had the courage to walk over a cliff edge, would never have known the sense of pride in having slept in a shelter we built ourselves. So I want to say a huge, if belated, thanks to Nigel and all the other volunteers who made those adventures happen and helped me lay down some great memories!
Like this:
An extra day to Love Outdoor Nature Play!
Guest post – Mick Conway, Exploring Nature Play Manager – Play England
The unusually mild February weather and an extra leap year day is a great reason for children to get out and play in nature today – and every day.
Play England Loves Outdoor Play and one way we are showing this in practice is through our Exploring Nature Play project, funded by Natural England’s Access to Nature programme.
Fewer than 25% of children use their local patch of nature compared to over 50% of their parents – we are trying to reverse this trend and would love your help.
What have we been doing so far?
We have been working with three adventure playgrounds in London, North Tyneside and Torbay, along with organisations including the Eden Project to try out simple things that will encourage children to enjoy and learn about nature through play. Over the first ten months of the project, 700 children on the playgrounds have been enjoying all sorts of play in nature:
- At Somerford Grove in Tottenham, London they have been looking after a colony of rare stag beetles, growing and cooking vegetables, and enjoying the accessible nature trail created by a team of 40 corporate volunteers in just two days.
- At Shiremoor in North Tyneside, they have hatched and released their own butterflies, helped plant 400 trees donated by the Woodland Trust and helped build a traditional drystone wall that is both a play feature and a wildlife habitat.
- At Fort Apache in Torbay, they have been cooking healthy food outdoors on open fires and using a shaving horse (a medieval woodworking bench that children from six years old expertly use) to make cooking pot stirrers, chair legs and all sorts of useful and playful wooden bits and pieces.
We have also created an online map, where you can search for or add great places to play outdoors near where you live, upload photos and comments, and see what other people have said about them. People have already added over 3,000 local sites to the map.
What are we doing next?
We will be sharing what we have learned about what works on the adventure playgrounds with the other 170 adventure playgrounds across the country. We will be doing this through a regularly updated resources section on our nature play web page, this blog, our social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook, and an online adventurous play forum.
We are also working on the map to make it even easier to use, for example by developing it so you can add a site, comments and photos from your smartphone.
Want to help or find out more?
- Show you Love Outdoor Nature Play by putting your play project or a good place where children can play in nature on the map – have a look first as it might already be there.
- Email natureplay@ncb.org.uk to find out how you can get involved.
- Tell your friends and neighbours about the Love Outdoor Play campaign – they can keep up-to-date by following this blog, our Twitter feed or Facebook page!
Love Outdoor Play in action!
Giving a little of our time and skills to further a cause we believe in is one way we can get involved and make a change. In the past, showing our support for a campaign or volunteering often meant committing a significant amount of our time, but the digital revolution has helped diversify opportunities and create the concept of micro-volunteering; small actions taken by many to help make a big difference. This wide spectrum of social action – from taking a few minutes to complete an action through your mobile phone, to embarking on a long-term volunteer placement over a number of months, is at the heart of the Love Outdoor Play campaign.
Last week for Valentine’s Day, we asked everyone to take action to promote the campaign across their social media platforms and by sending their local MPs and Councillors a card, letter or email asking them to Love Outdoor Play. The response was fantastic. Around 100 people displayed the Love Outdoor Play symbol to show their support, and we already know of many others who contacted their local decision makers too – if you did, please let us know if you got a response. We know that lots of you are taking action to support children’s play. If you are, we would love you to tell us about it here.
As the campaign unfolds, we aim to provide everyone with the opportunity to get involved and show how they Love Outdoor Play. This will range from inviting supporters to write guest blog posts on how they have made a difference to children’s to play, to matching volunteers with local play projects and helping them run successful volunteer schemes. You can keep up-to-date with all the latest campaign news and developments by following this blog and joining us on Facebook and Twitter.
The feedback and support we’ve received for the campaign over the past few weeks has been brilliant. Thanks to everyone who has been involved so far, we look forward to continuing to work together in the future to make sure more children can play out more often.
Can you spread the Love Outdoor Play message this Valentine’s Day?
We Love Outdoor Play and we know you do too! This is a growing movement encouraging everyone to get involved in whatever way they can to make sure more children can play out more often.
And because you love outdoor play, do you think you could spread that love on Valentine’s day?
How about sending a Valentine’s card to your local MP or Councillor?
Local Authorities, accountable to our MPs and Councillors, make decisions that affect every aspect of our neighbourhoods, our schools and children’s centres and the parks, woods and green spaces near us. Town and parish councillors often have direct influence on play spaces.
The decisions they make shape the spaces and places children have to play, as well as the availability of after school clubs (and whether they are staffed by play workers), of holiday play schemes and adventure playgrounds. They decide if it is free to close a street for play or if you have to pay. They will have influence over local schools, and for instance could recommend longer lunch breaks or play training for lunch time supervisors.
But do they even realise how important freedom to play outside is to you, to your family and to your local community?
So how about telling them what’s most important to you, about what you would like to see and encouraging them to show that they Love Outdoor Play too?
This could be as simple as:
- Asking them to email us to add their name to our list of supporters
- Displaying the Love Outdoor Play symbol
- Committing to consider children and young people’s need for freedom to play when they are looking at planning, transport, education, public health and parks
- Keep up to date with the latest campaign news by signing up to:
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/loveoutdoorplay
- Twitter: @LoveOutdoorPlay
You could use this Love Outdoor Play Valentine’s Card and sample letter to tell them why they should support the campaign and children’s play, or make up your own. The more personal the better, but just do what you have time for.
If you’re a parent or work with children and young people, how about getting them to make a card? The more the merrier! And for schools and nurseries that can count towards your ‘civic engagement’ commitments as well as literacy…
If you want more evidence to back up why we all need to love outdoor play you could send your MP or councilor a present of the World Without Play literature review (published by Play England & BTHA) – packed with research from every angle about why play is valuable.
You can find the names of your Councillors, MP and other representatives from Write to Them, through Parliament.gov.uk or through Direct Gov.
And do send a copy or photo to us, so we can share the love with each other – and let us know the responses.
Happy Valentine’s!
