Playing outside helps children to have a stake in their communities
By Jill Fraser, Community Play Performance Advisor
Community is an old and deeply human idea. It is about sharing; people sharing experiences, sharing places and sharing hopes. We gain a sense of community early in our lives. For children, playing is intrinsically linked to a burgeoning sense of belonging to a bigger group of people and a place. Through play, children share experiences and emotions and build a community with friends. They explore the spaces in which they play and understand how to share them.
When children play and share joy in their physical neighbourhood spaces, they get their first experience of community in the wider sense too. Playing outdoors in a shared community space, whether a small patch of grass, a street, or a play park, allows children to connect with their local areas. It’s also a chance to interact with a broader group of people than in school or at home, meaning opportunities for intergenerational activity and enhancing community cohesion.
Children develop a sense of place and feeling of belonging, ownership and inclusion with the place they are growing up. Because local kids are out playing and having fun in their local spaces and can be seen doing so, the wider community benefits from a positive sense of itself as a safe and happy place. Playing outside really is that powerful a tool.
But too many children in Scotland lack the chance to play regularly outside in their communities and opportunities are reduced further for children in deprived areas.
Our Play Rangers model of community play is designed to change that. Play Rangers are professional playworkers who run open access play sessions within a community using open spaces in neighbourhoods close to where children live. They encourage children to attend the free sessions and support parents and carers who may not be able to take their children out or are not comfortable with their children playing out.
It also combats antisocial behaviour, helps build relationships within neighbourhoods and improves children’s self-esteem, social skills and health. It helps bring about lasting improvements to the quality of children’s play, the use of local open spaces and the way communities come together.
We need communities to come together in this way. Children’s play spaces should be an important part of community life as children who play are healthier and more resilient than those who don’t. We need to work together to make spaces safe and accessible for children’s play, to make sure they’re well cared for and free from litter, vandalism, dog mess, crime and antisocial behaviour.
Through our work with the charities who lead Play Rangers activity, we have seen these improvements in action. As children become more visible in their communities and residents become aware that local spaces are used by children for playing, these spaces tend to become better looked after with less dog fouling or antisocial behaviour.
Being increasingly visible also helps children feel more a part of their community. By supporting and empowering children to reclaim their streets and outdoor spaces, their voices become heard and they feel listened to and valued. And including them in decision making helps break down generational barriers and give them a feeling of control over changes and a greater sense of ownership of their place. Some children who attend Play Rangers sessions now undertake ‘poo patrols’ to highlight areas of dog mess and educate residents about dog fouling.
Giving children a voice and an increased feeling of control over their local area helps them to feel more involved in their community and provides a sense of identity and shared purpose. It is this sense of identity and shared purpose that will enable us to build stronger, more engaged communities for the future.
Find out more about Play Rangers
Beyond play: community play charities are a vital support for struggling families
By Jill Fraser, Community Play Performance Advisor
Inspiring Scotland exists to address poverty and disadvantage. The role of Play Rangers, our community play programme, in this work isn’t self-evident. Yet giving children the opportunity to play outside, in their own neighbourhood, can reveal the damaging effects and true extent of child poverty in Scotland and help families access the support they need.
All our outdoor play programmes aim to address inequality and improve the life chances of Scotland’s children, and their families, by supporting charities to give kids the chance to reap the benefits of play. Working with these charities in community settings and hearing about the experiences of the children they support has been sobering. What they do and see goes way beyond ‘just’ play.
Child poverty is mentioned again and again. The charities we work with believe numbers are increasing. Hunger and lack of food are common. Children who are hungry don’t have the energy to play. As a result, food is now offered at many play sessions. During the recent October holidays, feedback from play workers indicated the snacks provided at these sessions were often the only meal some children had that day.
Lack of appropriate clothing is also an issue. Some children are not allowed out to play ‘in case they get their clothes dirty’. Even for those who do have more clothes, laundry costs can be a worry for parents. And in extreme cases, children are being kept off school on ‘dress down’ Fridays because they don’t have alternative clothing beyond the school uniform. As we move into winter, some children don’t have warm enough jackets to go outside, others don’t have jackets at all. Some can’t play outside because their shoes are too small, and they can’t run around because their feet hurt.
In addition, community play workers have observed that because of poverty and the stress it places on families, many children are facing challenging and chaotic home lives. Some children are struggling to self-regulate and are showing aggressive behaviour because of insecure home lives. And sadly, some children have said that they prefer to be at school rather than at home because they feel safer there.
Importantly, getting to play outside and make neighbourhood friends is a chance for children to be children; to smile and laugh and have fun. No child should go without food, clothing, friendship, comfort and safety. And no child should go without the chance to have fun. It is a right, not a privilege.
Investing in and valuing the chance to play outside in community spaces is essential. But it’s not ‘just’ play. In providing children with free play opportunities charities are seeing things would not necessarily be visible otherwise. They are able to bring vulnerable children and their families into a community support network. Play organisations themselves are often trusted in the local community and while play cannot solve the problems of poverty, it is increasingly a vehicle to provide access to other support and services that are desperately needed by many families.
The charities we work with are passionate about the work they’re doing and more often than not that work stretches way beyond play. By supporting these essential organisations and helping them to grow stronger we can help to deliver services to those most in need, building valuable networks of support, fostering a sense of community and helping to alleviate poverty and disadvantage among those most deeply affected.
Find out more about Play Rangers
People are at the heart of sustainable charities
All charities have the people they serve at the heart of everything they do, writes Performance Advisor Kirsty Gilchrist. It is a core principle of our sector.
But people are also at the heart of how they do it. Without the energy, compassion and expertise of staff, charities could not do the extraordinary work they do for Scotland’s people and communities. To enable staff to channel that energy, organisations need to be able to operate from a position of strength and sustainability.
Over more than 10 years of funding and working alongside Scotland’s charities and social enterprises, we have identified our top five essentials for charity sustainability. They are not surprising; neither is it surprising that they rely on people.
# 1 Funding and strong financial management
You need the right level of funding to support people and the right level of income to sustain your operations over the long term, but income alone isn’t enough. Charities need to monitor their finances regularly to ensure sustainability. Realistic budget projections, understanding your cash position and, ideally, monthly management information are the best way to monitor your organisational financial health. A lot of this can be captured simply but charities can, and should, reach out if they need help.
# 2 Good governance
Good governance is the foundation of an effective charity – and, again, is predicated on the strengths of people. A good board means strong, accountable leadership that can build a culture of success. It also means a range of expertise to help navigate the many challenges that charities face. Having someone on the board with financial experience is as important as someone who can represent the voices of those you support.
#3 A Strong Strategy
To be effective, charities and social enterprises need to know what they want to do and how they want to do it. Without a vision which sets out your aims and a strategy which identifies the steps for getting there, organisations cannot hope to achieve their aims. The best strategies have a simple, clear direction, putting the people that the charity serves at the heart of their objectives. But charities also must to identify the resources they need to implement their plans. That means a strong fundraising strategy to help them attract funding, but it also means the right people with the right skills.
#4 Understanding the difference you make
It’s crucial that charities evaluate their impact and understand the difference they are making. Monitoring your impact helps you to ensure what you do is working and to develop the way your organisation addresses the changing needs of the people you serve. It also gives you the evidence you need to demonstrate the impact of the work you do. It allows you to build trust with funders and investors by telling the stories of the people you support and the impact their investment is having.
#5 Strong networks and partnerships
Charities cannot succeed alone. Networks and partnerships with all sectors – and the people who work there – are essential. Our colleagues in the public, private and academic sectors, as well as others in the third sector, have a depth of experience and expertise. Building collaborative relationships is essential to help charities be more effective. People, wherever they may work, are our best resource in the fight against inequalities.
Find out more about we could help you
This article originally appeared in Third Force News: Guide to Running a Charity 2019
Strategic support for Macrobert Arts Centre
Kathryn Welsh, Operations Director at the Macrobert Arts Centre
We approached Inspiring Scotland in the hope of finding some pro bono support to help our senior team to navigate a challenging time in our organisational development. Following a funding cut in the new year, we’d been reflecting on our priorities for the year ahead and refining our operations to support our ongoing sustainability.
Inspiring Scotland put us in touch with strategy consultant Catherine Brys. After some initial scoping conversations, Catherine held a long session with our Artistic Director and I, as well as one of our Board Members, and two staff members. She asked really insightful questions that made us think hard about our priorities for going forward, and it was really helpful to have an external person with us to stimulate thinking with (and between) various stakeholders in the organisation.
Off the back of that meeting, Catherine prepared a really detailed report and presentation for us, which focused on bringing staff along on the journey of change, mapping the customer journey and understanding customer expectations, and addressing barriers to change. As a result, we convened a Board finance committee, where we presented our aspirations for increasing our income generation opportunities, restructured a Management Team post to centre our focus on prioritising the customer journey, and held an all-staff meeting, which we used to gather wider input on the changes and build in a wider range of views.
As we got to know Catherine through this process, we realised her skills in facilitation and strategic insight could further support us in our development. After some detailed discussion, Catherine designed a framework for gathering insight from across the Management Team on their perspective and insight, and the challenges and opportunities of their role in realising the future of Macrobert.
She carried out one-to-one conversations with each member of Management Team, then curated and facilitated a full-day workshop for us. The day was thought-provoking, practical and highly engaging, and it was extremely useful to have an external facilitator to enable us all to participate in the process, as well as to bring new perspective and tools to inform our conversations.
The process hasn’t always been smooth sailing. As is always the case with organisations going through change, it’s sometimes been hard to find time and headspace to give to the big, strategic questions that we’ve been so keen to explore with Catherine. However, the time we’ve spent with her, her follow up questions, and even just the requirement to report to an external-but-invested stakeholder has been a real motivating force. I am certain that we’ll keep re-visiting the tools and discussions that we’ve begun with Catherine far into the future. We’re enormously grateful to Catherine for her thoughtfulness, skill and commitment, and to Inspiring Scotland for connecting us.
The Journey to Charity Director
By Christopher Graham, Vice Chair of Stepping Stones for Families & CEO of The Marketing Department
I write this at a time of change for the Stepping Stones for Families (SSfF) board. We are preparing for our AGM in a few weeks, the final one for our outgoing chair. And my fellow board members will not be surprised to hear that at our January board meeting I will be standing for chair.
I’ve been on the board for a few years and my journey to becoming a board member of this great organisation started, I suspect, a tad unusually.
For nearly thirty years, SSfF had worked alongside children, young people and families to give them support, opportunities and a voice in tackling the effects of poverty and disadvantage in their lives. Yet, despite nearly three decades spent transforming lives, the work of the organisation was practically invisible outside of the sector. With the 30th anniversary of the charity’s founding fast approaching, the staff wanted to mark the occasion and celebrate what they and countless people they had supported had achieved.
Inspiring Scotland was working with SSfF to deliver family play programmes and wanted to help it tell its story.
As well as running a creative agency full time, I had been working with Inspiring Scotland since 2016 offering my services to charities they worked with as a Specialist Volunteer.
I met with Isobel Lawson, SSfF Chief Executive, on this basis to work on some ideas for how the organisation could improve its website and social media to better tell its story.
That conversation rapidly evolved into a complete rebrand. The reason for this is what we could see the website wasn’t fit for the mobile era, and worse still, the organisation’s visual style wasn’t fit for the digital area and caused confusion about what the charity did.
My colleagues and I at The Marketing Department worked closely with Isobel and her team to execute the rebrand over six months. It was the largest we had ever executed at that time. As part of our process to understand the work of the charity, and how this new brand had to be deployed, we visited many of the charity’s centres and childcare centres.
What struck me at every site was how dedicated everyone was. Every single person from top to bottom. I’d ever encountered such an organisation, in the private, public or third sectors. During the rebrand process, Isobel had mentioned her desire to recruit board members.
As the process was drawing to a close, I realised I wasn’t looking forward to it. The launch of the new brand, website and social media strategy would mean an end to working together.… or would it? Isobel and I had developed a strong working relationship and I had learnt so much about the work of SSfF and the Scottish third sector from her. So, I approached Isobel about the possibility of joining the board. She was happy to say that she had was going to ask me to consider joining once the rebrand was complete anyway!
I wanted to join because I enjoyed the work and I wanted to keep helping once the rebrand was finished. It’s really important that boards of charities have a diverse skill set that meets the needs of the organisation. In this case, I contribute my marketing, communications and design expertise.
Volunteering on the board of a non-profit organisation ticks an important box for me and my ethos: I feel like I’m contributing and giving something back. I feel like the time I give to the charity is worth it because when I read our board papers, I am often blown away by how effective our various services have been in assisting our service users.
In the interest of full transparency, I have to admit that it has also helped my business: The Marketing Department has executed numerous projects for other charities and non-profit organisations since I joined the board of Stepping Stones for Families, and we use the case study often when bidding for new work.
I also continue to offer my services to other organisations through Inspiring Scotland’s Specialist Volunteer Network and have supported 23 charities with more £12,000 worth of work free of charge.
Currently, SSfF is looking for new board members who can help support and develop the organisation as it moves towards its vision of all children and young people having an enjoyable life in a healthy, fair and safe environment where they are respected and supported to achieve their full potential. Applications from all sectors welcomed, especially those with a financial, childcare or HR background.
Most important is a desire to help make the lives of young people and families in Scotland better.
If you’d like to discuss joining us, don’t hesitate to get in touch:
E: chris@tmd.scot
T: 0141 406 7478
Social: @tophergraham