Putting play in perspective
Stephen Bell, CEO of Kent Children’s Fund Network, knows who the real experts are when it comes to having fun.
I see my role as CEO as piloting a group of dedicated and enthusiastic people who share a common vision of how children and young people can be empowered through participation and play.
Participation is often confused with words like ‘involvement’, ‘consultation’ or ‘taking part’. For me and the team at Kent Children’s Fund Network (KCFN), it means that children and young people have an inalienable right to affect the policy in the planning, design, development, commissioning, evaluation, monitoring and reviewing of services they receive or that affect them.
Rather than being a tokenistic, tick-box exercise, engendering true participation is about changing the cultures and behaviour of adults who, in our experience, find this a more difficult idea to grasp than the children and young people we work with.
Play is often proscribed by adults on the basis of what they think is fun, safe, educational and appropriate for children’s wellbeing. My view is that the real experts in play are children themselves. Put five children in an empty room and they will, within minutes, devise imaginative and rewarding play – it comes naturally to them. This is why we run free, unstructured and child-led play sessions, which we call ‘free play’. These sessions facilitate child-led play using the cheapest and most readily available everyday materials, and ensure we are reaching the widest possible audience.
As authors of toolkits and training sessions to promote participation and play, we are adept at engaging and empowering service users and providers alike. Therefore, we currently deliver a variety of consultations, workshops and services to a multitude of agencies and professionals that let us cascade our knowledge down to the children’s workforce. Due to the nature of our commissioned, independent and project-based work, we have had the opportunity to develop unique methods in both our core fields.
We are now developing a training centre of excellence to deliver accredited and non-accredited courses to professionals, parents and carers. This will improve the outcomes for children and young people, and is part of KCFN’s forward strategy for sustainability. By equipping parents and carers with knowledge and tools, we can provide improved experiences in other settings for children of all ages.
Although the organisation has the necessary reputation and expertise in these areas, we lack the formal business skills to design and develop the courses. Therefore, we have recently sought partners to assist us in establishing this service and making it a reality. It will also bring the organisation a much-needed new revenue stream that will ensure our sustainability.
In the current economic environment, the challenges that face us are a paradox of diminishing funding sources and an increase in demand for the services that the voluntary and community sector provides. It is important that we are prepared for the challenges ahead. This will create innovation and new ways of working. Similarly, there is a necessity to consolidate our resources and work more closely with our partners to maximise our efforts and reduce the waste of valuable resources.
I see joining NCVO as vitally important to KCFN. It provides a way for us to keep in touch with the rest of the sector, to share and learn from what others are doing, and is a place to network and find new partners.
Our sector – charities, social enterprises, credit unions – has an increasingly prominent role in the delivery of services and economic development in the UK, and it is important that our views and voices are heard at the most senior levels.
I see NCVO as the essential conduit for this information, providing an inclusive and impartial environment for the constructive discussion of key issues in this increasingly important area for public policy.
I appreciate the ability to access information from NCVO with the click of a mouse. NCVO also enables organisations like KCFN to see the fuller, national picture and be informed of the changes, expectations and needs of the UK society, and how we can best serve it.
*image by dchousegrooves
