Supporters
This year we were pleased to welcome
wide-ranging support for the campaign.
We’re enormously
grateful for the funders that make Playday possible:
Thanks to the Big Lottery
Fund and Persil and to
supporters and funders of local events across the UK.
We also welcome
government support:
Department for Children, Schools and Families
Play is fundamental to the successful development of every child
- encouraging creativity, teaching children to learn about risk,
helping with their development and raising self-confidence. The
Department for Children, Schools and Families is passionate about
providing better open spaces and free play environments for all
children and families, and proud to support Playday - giving
everyone the chance to have fun and highlight the importance of
play in children's lives, instead of keeping children wrapped up in
cotton wool.
Visit their website
Department of Health
The NHS celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. As
part of ongoing celebrations, the NHS is working with a range of
stakeholders to mark the historic milestone in ways appropriate to
local communicates.
Many NHS organisations have organised a range of activities to
involve children from local communities, ranging from poetry
competitions to history sessions. This year’s Playday provides yet
another opportunity for the NHS to engage children in NHS 60
celebrations through play.
Visit their website
Minister for Sport Gerry Sutcliffe
said:
I am delighted to lend my support to the Playday 2008
campaign. Last year we announced that we're going to be giving
children's play a £235 million boost and it's great to see that a
national focus on play is continuing. Playday is a great
opportunity for parents and children to experience how fulfilling
physical activity can be. I'm especially impressed with Playday's
Give us a Go! theme which is about encouraging children to be
adventurous and shake off the 'cotton wool'
culture.
It's an exciting time for play. Over the next few years our
investment will see many fantastic new play areas build across the
country, and I know that Playday will continue go from strength to
strength.
Visit his website
Thanks also to the
following organisations for their support of Playday
2008:
11 Million
The Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, who leads 11
MILLION, says:
For children, every day should be a play
day. It is wonderful that Playday gives the whole country an
opportunity to take part, share the fun, and spread the word about
the importance of play for children. T his year’s theme
Give us a Go celebrates play that is challenging and adventurous,
because we know that this is what children want and need.
After too many years of neglect, p l ay is finally starting to get
the attention it deserves. Playday has made a big
contribution to this progress. I hope that more and more
people, young and old, will continue to take part, until every
child’s right to play is truly recognised as something that really
matters.
Visit their website
Association of Play Industries
The Association of Play Industries (API) is the lead trade body
in the play sector; with over 75 members it represents the
interests of manufacturers, installers, designers and distributors
of both outdoor and indoor play equipment and surfacing.
Founded in 1984 the API represents approximately 85% of the
annual UK market demand of over c. £180 Million.
The API is passionate about play, play which encourages
appropriate thrill and reward from assessing and taking risk. Best
practice in play area design offers visible challenge and risk and
API members use their years of experience to design and create
environments that deliver this within well-developed safety
standards.
Visit their website
CLOA
CLOA is the Professional Association for
Leaders in Culture & Leisure
It works with central government and other
national organisations to influence the development of national
policies, lobby for positive change and provide a peer-support
network.
The organisation represents strategic managers
in local authorities or non-profit distributing trusts and those
working in associated areas such as health, education and social
sectors, who are committed to the development of public sector
culture and leisure.
Visit their website
Clubs for Young People
Clubs for Young People is one of the UK’s
leading club and community based youth work organizations. Our
services are delivered across 3,500 clubs, centres and projects and
are supported by over 30,000 volunteers.
The Clubs for Young People programme of positive activities and
training courses seek to engage, involve and inspire young people
of all abilities to reach their potential and have fun. Every year
over 30,000 young people take part in a vast array of club and
national sports development programmes including football, boxing,
athletics, netball and photography.
Our work is not limited to sport and recreation. We recognise young
people need to equip themselves with a vast range of skills and
attributes in order to reach their full potential. Alongside
physical activities we also offer opportunities for leadership
development, volunteer and youth work training as well as advocacy
support.
Visit their website
ENABLE Scotland
ENABLE Scotland is the largest charity in
Scotland for children, young people and adults with learning
disabilities and their families and carers. We have a strong
voluntary network with around 4000 members in 68 local branches as
well as 500 national members throughout Scotland. Around a
third of our members have a learning disability. ENABLE Scotland
believe that children, young people and adults with learning
disabilities have the same rights as anyone else to lead full and
active lives in our communities. We campaign to improve the lives
of people with learning disabilities and their families and carers
as well as providing a range of services for children, young people
and adults including playschemes and out of school care, employment
and training initiatives, supported living and family-based short
breaks.
Visit their website
HSE
HSE's job is to protect people against risks
to health and safety arising out of work activities. HSE has
for some years been running a sensible risk campaign, one part of
which is promoting the message that children should not be wrapped
in cotton wool, they need good quality play and adventure where the
risks are responsibly managed, not eliminated altogether. For
more information on HSE's sensible risk campaign please click on
the following link.
Visit their website
Girlguiding Scotland
Girlguiding Scotland is Scotland's leading
voluntary organisation for girls and young women with 60,000+
members from the Borders to Shetland Isles.
We enable girls and young women to fulfil
their potential and to take an active and responsible role in
society through our distinctive, stimulating and enjoyable
programme of activities delivered by trained
volunteer leaders.
Visit their website
GreenSpace
GreenSpace is the only UK registered charity
dedicated solely to parks and green space. It works to raise
awareness of the benefits of green space engage communities around
parks and create skilled professionals throughout the green space
sector. This is done through developing networks at a regional and
national level, organising conferences and training events,
operating the Institute of Parks and Green Space as well as
publishing newsletters and a magazine. GreenSpace is also the
organiser of Love Parks Week, an annual, national campaign that
celebrates the contribution that parks and green spaces make to our
lives.
Visit their website
Greenspace Scotland
Greenspace scotland is working towards the goal that everyone
living and working in urban Scotland has easy access to quality
greenspace which meets local needs and improves their quality of
life. As an independent Scottish charitable company,
receiving funding from the Scottish Government, we work with a wide
range of national and local partners to support and enable the
planning, development and sustainable management of
greenspaces. Our activities include research and knowledge
management, policy advocacy, partnership development and support,
enabling and sharing practice. We are very pleased to support
Playday 2008 because our work has demonstrated that greenspace
plays a key role in providing local opportunities for outdoor play
and the importance of play in more ‘natural’
environments.
Visit their website
Grounds for Learning
Grounds for Learning is the Scottish programme of Learning
Through Landscapes, the UK school grounds charity. Our vision is
for Scotland’s children to be happier and healthier, to learn more
effectively and to develop environmental understanding and care
through enjoying excellent outdoor environments and experiences
while at school.
- We promote the value of these spaces to education leaders and
practitioners
- We work with schools and early years settings across Scotland
to help them design and implement practical grounds improvement
projects
- We equip teachers and practitioners with the skills and tools
they need to develop and use these spaces more creatively.
Visit their website
KIDS
KIDS is a national charity working towards a
vision in which all Disabled children and young people realise
their aspirations, and their right to an inclusive community which
supports them and their families. KIDS provides a wide range
of services in five English regions, and promotes inclusive play
and leisure nationally across the children and young people’s
sectors through its National Development Department (NDD).
KIDS NDD runs the Playwork Inclusion Project (PIP) which provides
workforce development and support, training, publications, and
guidance on the inclusion of Disabled children and young people in
universal play, childcare and leisure services across
England. The PIP Programme is now complemented by KIDS’
Lottery funded Young People’s Inclusion Network (YP-in), through
which groups of Disabled young people around England are defining
their requirements for inclusive leisure and youth services.
Visit their website
Living Streets
Living Streets, the charity working to bring
our streets to life, with more walking in people-friendly public
spaces, is pleased to support Playday again this year. We believe
that our streets should be safe, enjoyable and attractive for
everyone, including children – to do that we need to invest in play
opportunities to encourage children to enjoy the public realm.
Living Streets published research for
Walk to School week in May 2008, which showed that those
children that were outside using their streets were much more
likely to feel actively engaged with their community, had wider
social networks and had a more realistic approach to risk.
This year’s Playday will help highlight the need to give
children more challenging and adventurous play opportunities,
moving away from a “cotton-wool” approach that limits children’s
enjoyment of play.
Visit their website
National Heart Forum
The NHF’s mission is to work with and through
our members to contribute to the prevention of avoidable coronary
heart disease and related conditions in the UK.
The NHF has adopted the following functions in
order to deliver its mission:
1. To provide a forum in which members
- exchange information and ideas and
co-ordinate activties;
- develop policy based on evidence
and the need for action.
2. To stimulate and advocate
effective action nationally and internationally through
information, education, and policy research and development.
3.To facilitate working relationships
between members and policy makers, and to strengthen and develop
public health capacity.
Visit their website
National Playbus Association Scotland
The National Playbus Association has offices
in Bristol and Edinburgh; we are an umbrella organisation
which supports mobile community work across the United Kingdom.
Mobile community projects include: playbuses, mobile toy
libraries, mobile crèches, towdabouts (mobile playgrounds), mobile
youth-work facilities, mobile advice centre’s, mobile IT suites,
mobile arts venues, mobile environmental projects, outreach
work and community consultations.
Our mobile community members take services
into isolated rural areas and under-resourced urban areas.
National Playbus Association helps develop and support mobile
play, youth and community services with some of the UK's most
disadvantaged and isolated communities. We offer our members
an information and advice service, technical support, policy work,
training and competitively priced insurance policies. We are the
only organisation that specialises in promoting and
supporting mobile community services.
Visit their website
NAVCA
NAVCA is
the national voice of local third sector infrastructure in
England. Our members work with 164,000 local third sector
groups and organisations that provide community services,
regenerate neighbourhoods, promote volunteering and tackle
discrimination in partnership with local public bodies.
Our purpose is to promote the local third
sector nationally. We do this by providing our members with
information, advice, networking and learning opportunities, support
and development services. In turn, we draw on our members’
experience to influence government and contribute to national
policy. We also work closely with other national bodies to ensure a
collaborative approach to policy development.
Visit their website
NCVCCO
The National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations
(NCVCCO) is an umbrella organisation whose members are all
voluntary and community organisations that work with children,
young people and their families. They range from very large
national organisations to small locally based charities. Between
them they invest over £500 million in direct services. They work in
different ways, in and across various disciplines, and with
different groups of children, but they share the aim of improving
the quality of life for children.
Visit their website
NCVO
NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations) is a
registered charity (225922) who which gives voice and support to
civil society.
NCVO believes passionately in the voluntary and community sector.
This is a sector with the power to transform the lives of people
and communities for the better.
Visit their website
Play Safety Forum
The Play Safety Forum brings together the main
national organisations in England with an interest in safety and
children’s play. Members include representatives from providers,
regulatory bodies and expert agencies. The aim of the Play Safety
Forum is to build consensus on issues around risk and safety in
relation to play provision. It is an independent body hosted by the
Play England at the invitation of the Department for Culture, Media
and Sport.
The Play Safety Forum has produced
Managing risk in play provision: A position statement to
support the work of those involved in play provision. The summary
states:
'Children need and want to take risks when
they play. Play provision aims to respond to these needs and wishes
by offering children stimulating, challenging environments for
exploring and developing their abilities. In doing this, play
provision aims to manage the level of risk so that children are not
exposed to unacceptable risks of death or serious injury.'
The full statement is available from the Play
England
website
Scottish Out of School Care Network
The Scottish Out of School Care Network
(SOSCN)is a Scottish charity supporting school-aged play, care and
learning. We promote, support and develop good quality, sustainable
out of school care.
Our work promotes equal opportunities and children's rights
according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in
particular, Article 31: the right to play.
Visit their website
The Scout Association
Scouting offers challenge and adventure to
400,000 young people and 100,000 adults across the UK. We do some
pretty amazing things in Scouting, but for us, adventure is a way
of life and not just an activity or expedition. Our Scouts grow in
confidence by trying out new skills and stretching themselves.
Whether it’s an Explorer trying out his French on an international
trip or a Scout leading his Patrol for the first time, each time we
challenge ourselves, it’s a step forward. When a Scout stands up to
a bully, or sticks up for what they believe in; that’s an
adventure.
Visit their website
RoSPA
RoSPA are the leading play safety organisation in Europe, and
are glad to support Playday. We have promoted the view that play
spaces should be "as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible"
for many years, and endorse the efforts to promote free play. We
can assist designers, local groups and councils to improve play
provision and provide exciting and interesting spaces for our
children.
Visit their website
Scottish Pre-School Association
Scottish Pre-school Play Association (SPPA), a registered
charity, is Scotland’s largest voluntary sector provider of direct
support services to community led childcare organisations. It
delivers essential support and guidance services to providers of
pre-school education and childcare services, including all-day care
groups, playgroups, parent and toddler groups and under-fives
groups. It works closely with parents, early years providers,
the Scottish Government, regulators, local authorities and
Childcare Partnerships, as well as training providers and other
umbrella organisations to support early education and childcare
settings. It represents the interests of voluntary sector community
based settings, provides input to national and local policy
consultations and working groups.
Visit their website
Sustrans
Sustrans is the UK's leading sustainable
transport charity. Its vision is a world in which people choose to
travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment. It is
achieving this through innovative but practical solutions to the
UK's transport challenges.
Visit their website
4Children
4Children is the national children’s charity – for children and
young people, 0-19. 4Children works with Government, local
authorities, primary care trusts, children’s service providers, and
children and parents to ensure joined up support for all children
and young people in their local community.
From children’s centres to extended schools, childcare to play
provision, parenting support to support for young people –
4Children is at the forefront of delivery and supporting innovative
children’s services, ensuring that all children and families get
the support they need in their community.
Visit their website
Become a Playday supporter
Contact us for further information on
becoming a campaign supporter.