Creating a brighter future for children and young people The Birmingham Play Strategy Partnership Group thinks that there are not enough places for children and young people to go and play and spend their time. Our group works with children and understands that children need to play. We work for lots of different organisations, for the City Council, Hospitals, Children’s Fund, Voluntary Organisations, Schools, the full list is in the Strategy. Because we think that play is so important, we have written a PLAY STRATEGY, which tells adults why play is so important. It says what adults in Birmingham should be doing to make sure that there are places and spaces for children and young people to play, hang out, and things for them to do near where they live. We talked with children and adults in Birmingham. They told us the seven most important ways to improve play for Children and Young People in Birmingham. They are: Make sure that all adults in Birmingham know how important play is, and that there must be opportunities for children and young people to play and have things to do. Make sure that there are more supervised open access places that are near where children and young people live. Then they can choose when to go, what to do when they are there, and how long they stay for and when they leave. Make sure that when children have to be looked after in childcare/playcare places you can choose for yourself what to do from lots of different things, and choose how and when to do it. Make sure that there is good quality outdoor unsupervised places like parks, playgrounds and open spaces for children to play near where they live. Make sure that ALL children, whoever they are, whatever their needs and where they are have the chance to play. For example, they might be in hospital, have a disability, have to look after someone or not have been here in Birmingham very long. Make sure that the play that you take part in is exciting and challenging without being too dangerous. Make sure that adults understand that it’s important to let you take some risks in your play. Make sure that the places where you go to play are good quality, and that the people who work there understand children and how important play is. The Children, Young People and Families Board, people who run the city for children, has agreed that this Play Strategy and it’s Action Plan should be put into action over the next few years. The links to the documents below will take you to the Children's Services electronic document store, eBriefing. Select any link and the document window will open. Scroll down and select the red Open Document button to open the document. You can save each document to your own PC for reading or printing. Play Strategy for Birmingham 2007 - 2012 Priorities for Action Priority 1: Promote the benefits of play for children and young people in all areas and environments that they may interact with, and its impact in achieving the outcomes of Every Child Matters Piority 2: Promote and support a range of quality provision for local supervised open access play Priority 3: Promote and support a range of quality provision for year round local out of school play care, with particular emphasis on free play and choice. Priority 4: Promote and support the increased use of local unsupervised play spaces and play facilities Priority 5: Promote and support access to play for specialist children whose play needs are not being met because of their current circumstance Priority 6: Promote and support children’s opportunities to experience risk and challenge through play. Priority 7: Promote and support quality standards across play, including access to education and training.