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Cymraeg

Carmarthenshire Children and Young People’s Play Strategy

‘Play encompasses children’s behaviour, which is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated. It is performed for no external goal or reward, and is a fundamental and integral part of healthy development – not only for individual children, but also for the society in which they live’.
- Welsh Assembly Government, 2006

Purpose of the Strategy

The Play Strategy has been developed in recognition of the importance of play in the lives of children and young people in Carmarthenshire. It aims to raise the profile of play, and provide a platform from which future play opportunities can be developed. It is intended that Carmarthenshire’s Play Strategy will be a tool for ensuring that play is included and considered in the work of all agencies operating within the county. The Strategy is intended to be a working document that sets out guiding principles and issues to be addressed through future work.

Vision for Play

Carmarthenshire County Council is committed to providing play opportunities, and would like every child and young person to be healthy, happy and enjoy their free time. We are committed to ensuring that every child and young person living in Carmarthenshire has access to exciting, stimulating and creative play experiences by providing both supervised and unsupervised quality play provision that gives opportunities for challenge.

Strategic Links: National and Local Agendas

The development of the Play Strategy reflects national and local agendas. On a national level the Welsh Assembly Government produced a Play Policy in 2002 and as a result established a Play Implementation Group to develop further recommendations on the direction of play. ‘Play in Wales’ – The Welsh Assembly Government’s Play Policy Implementation Plan was launched in February 2006. Children and Young People: Rights to Action published in January 2004 sets out the Welsh Assembly Government’s seven core aims in relation to children and young people in Wales. Play actively contributes to the delivery of all seven core aims.

Aims

The Play Strategy’s objectives and recommendations are split into six sections:
Objective 1: Encouraging more play provision
Objective 2: Play in schools
Objective 3: Play in the community
Objective 4: A playwork profession
Objective 5: Managing risk and parental concern
Objective 6: Developing play strategically across Carmarthenshire

The Carmarthenshire Play Strategy aims to make the case for a more co-ordinated approach to play by setting out a range of recommendations that can be used by Carmarthenshire County Council, statutory and voluntary sector organisations to improve play opportunities for children and young people across the county.

By working in partnership with these organisations as well as parents, carers, children and young people, the Strategy shows a commitment to ensuring that all children and young people have access to a range of varied, stimulating and fun play environments which are free from unacceptable risk, embrace diversity and encourage inclusion of all children.

The Consultation

The strategy was widely consulted on, with feedback received from schools, youth settings, the county’s youth service, and representatives for looked after children and disabled children and play providers.

Please download a copy of the Children’s Consultation Report:
Children’s Consultation Report (size=180kb)


Please download a copy of the Young People’s consultation report:
Young People’s consultation report (size=40kb)


Please download a copy of the Play Providers consultation responses
Play Providers consultation responses (size=130kb)


The children and young people who participated in the consultation were given the opportunity to enter two competitions. These competitions involved designing a logo for the child and young person friendly Play Strategy and creating a title for the document. The competition was judged by members of the Carmarthenshire Youth Council.

Design a logo: Competition Winners

1st Jade Topham, Capel Iwan Primary School	2nd Felix Buchanan, Capel Iwan Primary School	3rd Kelly Llewelyn, Parc yr Hun Primary School

Create a title: Competition Winners

1st Liam Danter, Parc yr Hun Primary School
‘Hey! Come Play!

2nd Jessica Roderick, Parc yr Hun Primary School
‘Come and play!’

3rd Leigh Webb, Parc yr Hun Primary School
‘Play is healthy for you and fun’


The Launch

Carmarthenshire County Council launched its first Play Strategy on Monday July 14th. Local children helped celebrate the launch, which sets out a vision for play, with a practical workshop on the benefits of play, at Trinity College’s Halliwell Centre. They took part in interactive workshops led by Trysordy, a new Johnstown based company that re-uses scrap materials to make play resources for schools.

The children – school council members from Capel Iwan CP School, Newcastle Emlyn, and Parcyrhun CP School, Ammanford – and were joined in the workshops by special guest the Children’s Commissioner for Wales Keith Towler.

The Play Strategy DVD was also launched at this event and copies are available on loan from the Children’s Partnership. This DVD will be used as a promotional tool in order to continue to raise the profile of the importance of play in the lives of children and young people living within Carmarthenshire.

Please download a copy of the Carmarthenshire Children and Young People’s Play Strategy

Carmarthenshire Children and Young People’s Play Strategy (2008-2011) (size=3Mb)


For further information regarding the Carmarthenshire Children and Young People’s Play Strategy and the DVD please contact the Children’s Partnership on 01267224224.


Big Lottery Up date

The Big Lottery launched their £13 million Child’s Play programme in Wales on 30th October 2006 as part of its Healthy Families initiative. The Child’s Play Programme was made available to fund the development of infrastructure for children’s play, and strategically important play projects across Wales. The programme is aimed at children and young people up to 12 years old living in Wales. Local Authorities across Wales were encouraged to submit cross county applications for this funding. In December 2007 Carmarthenshire County Council and Pembrokeshire County Council received notification from Big Lottery that their joint first round cross county infrastructure application had been successful. £250,000 was awarded initially to develop a play infrastructure across the two counties. As a result of this, a Regional Development Co-ordinator and a part time administrative assistant have been appointed and will be responsible for developing a ‘Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire Play Association’. These posts will be instrumental in supporting and developing the strategic co-ordination of children and young people’s play across both Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. Carmarthenshire County Council and Pembrokeshire County Council will continue to work in partnership to write a second round play projects application to enable further play provision to be developed across the two counties.

The table below outlines the timescales that Carmarthenshire County Council and Pembrokeshire County Council will be working towards in relation to applying for the second round of funding from the Big Lottery Child’s Play Programme.

Big Lottery – Child’s Play Programme application timescales
Second Round: Play Projects
6th March 2009	Deadline for submission of 2nd round play project application form
September 2009	Offer letters sent to successful applicants
Spring 2010	Successful applicants required to have completed and submitted a Business Plan to Big Lottery
Summer 2010	Discuss the continuation of the project with Big Lottery

For further information regarding the Big Lottery funding please contact Pete King, 01267 236367

© August 2008