- Area:
- England
- Programme:
- Playful Ideas
- Release date:
- 19 2 2007
An innovative play project, nostalgic for the days of Saturday morning Swap Shop, is one of nine groups to scoop a grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s £16 million Playful Ideas programme. A total of £1.46 million playful pounds have today been awarded to projects across England.
The Playful Ideas programme, launched in March 2006, aims to fund innovative projects with a creative and novel approach to play. The scheme is part of the Big Lottery Fund’s £155 million commitment to support children’s play.
Rainy days will never be dull again with the Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change project, who will use their £234,980 grant to buy play containers and equipment for local estates. The project will give children on estates the chance to play, with the added excitement of reinventing the wheel of play through local Swap Shops. A Play Development Worker will be recruited to help children swap their play equipment with neighbouring estates, making every play experience new and challenging. The money will also fund over 40 local people to participate in accredited play training courses to become play volunteers, finance out-of-school play activities and 72 open-air mobile play days. The project aims to work in partnership with outside agencies to develop the scheme across the county.
Newborn babies will be bouncing with joy from the news of a £48,227 grant to the Devon Arts in Schools Initiative (DAISI) to work on an innovative play project in rural areas. DAISI will use artists to create play opportunities to engage the imaginations of 0-5 year olds in eight early years projects across Devon. Art materials, movement, sound, words and stories will be used to encourage early years children to use their senses to explore and experiment with the world around them. The grant will fund training for local artists and develop good practice and knowledge for other early years creative projects in the South West, to ensure the scheme has a long lasting impact on early years play beyond the life of the funding.
Sir Clive Booth, Chair of the Big Lottery Fund, said: “This funding is a fantastic investment of lottery money for children, their families and communities, particularly at a time when the issue of children’s wellbeing is high on the agenda in the UK. Our funding includes innovative projects that challenge, stimulate and improve the wellbeing of children through play and positively contribute to their physical, emotional and social development. Children from all walks of life will benefit from the money including young carers, children at risk, early years and those living in isolated areas.”
The table below lists the nine awards, totalling £1.46million, announced today:
| Project | Project details | Award |
| Haven House Foundation | A project to provide play services for life-limited children in their own homes through trained play workers and a specialist free toy and equipment loan service. The project will work in Waltham Forest, Hackney, Redbridge, Enfield, Epping Forest, Havering, Barking and Dagenham. | £164,634 |
| Honeypot Charity | A project to extend the service provided by a mobile double decker playcentre on wheels aimed at disadvantaged 5 -12 year olds living in the South East of England, who typically do not have access to play services. | £178,804 |
| The Dartford & Gravesham Consortium Ltd | A project to construct a timber cabin that will house a sensory room and a newly designed soft playroom with disabled access and a control unit for interactive technology, which will be installed around a themed garden. The project will cater for children with challenging behaviour, physical and sensory impairment. | £87,068 |
| Children’s Scrap Store | This project will provide a 'Pod' full of diverse materials that can stimulate, facilitate and enhance children's play in the school playground. These loose parts will be chosen and stocked by the children themselves from a list of renewable resources. The project will run in Bristol, Bath, North East Somerset and South Gloucester. | £173,051 |
| Northumberland Toy Library and Children's Resource Centre | This project will provide a mobile play programme in three rurally isolated and disadvantaged districts in Northumberland. The project will provide play sessions, a toy lending service and training to parents and volunteers to ensure play opportunities continue when the service is not there. | £232,943 |
| North Tyneside District Disability Forum | This project will employ a full time play development worker to work with young disabled people aged 9 to 16 years. The worker will enable the children to come together with able-bodied peers to share experiences, learn new skills, interact, be creative and instigate play. | £185,218 |
| Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change | This project will purchase four play containers on local estates. They will house a range of themed and interchangeable play equipment that will be available to local children. The equipment can also be swapped between areas. A Play Development Worker will also be recruited to co-ordinate the Swap Shop and new locally relevant play provision in the Penwith, Kerrier and Carrick areas. | £234,980 |
| Special Toys Educational Postal Service | This project is implementing a play scheme for physically disabled children. It will purchase multifunction toys and set up a free loan scheme to provide them to disabled children throughout England. A library of multifunctional developmental toys will be developed in Devon, which will deliver the service to children across the UK by post. | £163,375 |
| Devon Arts in Schools Initiative | The project in Devon will build on an initial pilot scheme and will aim to extend and embed the experiences gained by providing child-centred creative play opportunities for 0-5 year olds. | £48,227 |
Further information
Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 078 6750 0572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Notes to Editors
- The Big Lottery Fund will support children’s play with £155 million through:
- the £124 million Children’s Play programme, with funds available to every local authority area in England;
- a separate £16 million Playful Ideas programme focussing on innovation; and
- a £15 million grant to the Children’s Play Council, part of the National Children’s Bureau, to fund England-wide development and support.
- Under the Children’s Play programme, in deciding how best to allocate the available funds to each authority the Big Lottery Fund have allocated: 50 per cent of the funding on the basis of child population, and 50 per cent of the regional population living in the most deprived 20% of Super Output Areas included in the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004. The minimum amount allocated to any local authority is £200,000.
- Under Playful Ideas registered charities; voluntary or community groups; charitable or not-for-profit companies; social enterprises; and town and parish councils can apply. However, other organisations, such as schools, can work in partnership on Playful Ideas projects.
- The Big Lottery Fund awarded a grant to the Children’s Play Council a strategic alliance of organisations working to promote the importance of play and to stimulate better play opportunities. Play England - a project of the Children’s Play Council - lead on this work by helping agencies to develop play strategies and apply for Children's Play funding. For further information please visit www.ncb.org.uk
- The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in lottery good cause money every 24 hours, which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
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