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32 years ago, I became the project coordinator of one of Leicester’s playgrounds.  Then, the city council wanted to withdraw its funding due to concerns about quality and service delivery.  In 18 months, we turned around the centre’s fortunes through a combination of partnership working, service reform, community engagement, and lots of hard work.  It is where I earned my stripes and learned my craft.  I saw for the first time the profound and long-lasting outcomes that can be achieved by such services, for children and families in the least advantaged communities.  It fuelled my mission then and that remains in my blood.

Now all nine Leicester playgrounds face an uncertain future, due to budget demands CYP Now – Leicester playgrounds’ future uncertain amid £1mn funding cuts  As a result, centres are being asked by the local authority to build self-funding plans for 2025, after a period of advice offered via the council to build alternative funding models. 

Not only has this event brought back memories, but it has also raised all sorts of thoughts and feelings.  Not least, when I saw parents, children and young people protesting outside the council offices.  That was emotional. 

Of course, no single service has a right to exist.  All of us, whatever we do, and however invaluable and impactful we are, must demonstrate our worth, be willing and able to change, and build sustainable business models.  And that is true in all areas, and in all delivery across the public, voluntary, and charitable sectors.  Quite simply, there are lots of needs for what we all do, and a multitude of competing demands, with an ever decreasing and finite resource.  

In 1992, we only had one funder and that was the local authority.  All our eggs were certainly in one basket.  That was a significant risk, and every February we held our collective breath, always with the threat of part or full budget cuts.  It didn’t help our feeling of worth or sustainability.  If we did fundraise, there were challenges for how we did that, what overlaps were created, hoops to be jumped through, and I have to say it sparked the interest of the council who started to think they could reduce their funding as a result.  Hardly an incentive. 

There is no doubt that multiple funding strands build stronger financial foundations.  But it takes a lot of effort to develop and sustain the juggling required to make a success of that.  That’s where capacity building comes in.  Fundraising, sales, or income generation is not a skill everyone has, or indeed wants.  One thing we have seen in the early years sector is how they have federated, or in other words brought smaller providers together by growing small, medium, and large (and super) chains that are better able to fulfil all the functions required and benefit from more efficient overheads and pooled resources and capacity.  Often with external investment.  That is easier said than done in the voluntary play sector, but it is not impossible. 

For the people of Leicester, the council, and partner services, playgrounds are an essential part of the early identification, early intervention, and prevention continuum.  No one should doubt that.  That means they should be strategically and operationally connected to other services.  Yet, it can be hard to connect and to be afforded the respect you need to do that.  I remember doors being closed, invitations not being extended, being asked to leave meetings even, and the challenges of getting people to realise all that could be achieved.  On that note, we are seeing the emergence of a vibrant new policy landscape that is entirely within the remit of playgrounds.  Those including food poverty, the Holiday and Activities and Food programme (HAF), free breakfasts or clubs in primary schools, school attendance, wraparound childcare after school, expansion of early years education, and families’ routes into employment and engagement in childcare.  That means we all need to be thinking about these services in coordinated, long term, and sustainable ways that are diverse, engaging for communities, and play their part in delivering the outcomes we all need. 

This blog was originally published by Children and Young People Now.

Schools used to commonly say “we are here to educate and not to care for children”.  And we all rightly criticised them then.  The Victoria Climbie Inquiry report called out such practices as short-sighted, unhelpful, and failing.  We all agreed with Lord Laming then and signed up to the five Every Child Matters outcomes he recommended (Being Healthy, Staying Safe, Enjoying and Achieving, Making a Positive Contribution to Society, and Achieving Economic Well-being).  Many of us miss their application terribly, although I noticed some missed a golden opportunity by not fully engaging with the economic one. 

It has been a while since I have heard it said by schools, but I would be willing to believe the view education is somehow delivered in a vacuum without due regard for children’s wellbeing and welfare, still exists.  Surprising given we are more attuned to mental health, food poverty, and the effects on child development than ever.  Some of these unhelpful thoughts have been increasing since Covid, promoted by the resultant delays upon some children’s development we have observed since.  Things have undoubtedly changed for this new generation, and we must all change in our response – swiftly and positively.  We must all adjust to fit the child and their families, and not be rigid and unmoving.  We should not expect by some miracle they will adapt for us instead. 

Now, and this is the bones of this blog.  Having criticised schools for taking an isolationist view on their work in the past, some in early years are now doing the same some 20 years later.  They are artificially separating the noble role of child carer from early educator.  The concern is by offering a childcare service, to support the economic wellbeing of a family and its children, that it somehow diminishes the role and status of the early years practitioner, the provider, and the profession as a whole.  I would venture it shares the same root cause that fuelled the narrative of schools.  Like most in the early years sector, I also want more.  I want us to do more, be given more, and to be recognised and valued more for the outcomes and impacts we achieve.

The lobby though is clumsy.  Some in our sector call out “we are not babysitters!”.  Why connect us to the activity of a 16-year-old earning pocket money at the home of family or friends?  The easiest way to make people think about you in the wrong way is to do just that – say what you are not.  Just like when someone says, “I’m not upset”, we immediately think ‘why say that, they must be?’.  We may as well be shouting “we are not pumpkins!”. 

There is an alternative and this is the call to action.  Instead, we should say what we are, what we deliver, and what will make everything better for everyone.  To be solution focused, positively, always.  To be delivering early education, childcare to support families to economically engage, to feed and nourish our children so they get the most out of their days, months and years to come. 

Childcare is everybody’s business, everybody’s concern, and everybody’s responsibility.  Every experience of childcare is a learning opportunity.  It is the foundation of healthy child development, attachment, play, learning, self-actualisation, and economic wellbeing amongst other things.  It is impossible to meet anyone’s needs in any context without having due regard for their care as the basic foundation upon which to build.  Basic Maslow theory is that.  We should be proud to be early years and childcare, delivered seamlessly together for better and multiple outcomes for children, their families, and those that work in the sector, in all the different ways and settings we do it in. 

It was almost a year ago when I met HVH Arts for the first time.  I was presenting the Childcare Works Choice Award for excellence in the provision of Holiday Activities and Food programmes (HAF for short), in the grand location of the House of Commons terrace no less.  The winner was the Sir Hubert Von Herkomer Foundation (more easily known as HVH Arts), who provide HAF in the Kentish Town area of Camden.  We love HAF at Coram Hempsall’s and Childcare Works.  So, it was especially brilliant to be there that day and to present the award – shining the spotlight on what works well. 

HAF is both ambitious and life-changing and we are privileged to play our small part in its continued success.  The experiences that children and young people enjoy in their school holidays help them and us all to achieve better outcomes throughout their continued learning, education, and development, and into their future lives.  And over the past year it has been great to visit HVH and to keep in touch.

In selecting the winner of the Childcare Works award, we were looking for achieving such great outcomes through tangible and transferable approaches, and proving the difference made through data and evidence, examples of collaboration, and achieving added value.  We also needed to know that HAF was truly engaging communities, offering development and capacity building that reduce stigma and social isolation, all through the offer of new opportunities because of attending HAF.  Debbi and colleagues from HVH were thrilled to be the winners and extended an invitation for me to visit their summer activities in 2023.  What I found, that August, was all of that and more, all discharged through a vibrant programme of arts focused activities like graffiti workshops, community kitchens, fashion photography and various other things.

It’s not every day you attend a party with Kings.  But that’s what happened the other day.  I joined HVH Arts to celebrate the work of their organisation, the achievements of children and young people through HAF, and to see three young people receive bursaries, in the name of the late great actor Helen McCrory, to support their continued development in the arts.  The kings I refer to were Emmy and Golden Globe winner and HVH patron Damain Lewis (King Henry VII in Wolf Hall), and Kingsley Ben-Adir (Bob Marley in One Love) – himself brought up in Kentish Town. 

This struck me profoundly, I know from personal experience, when I was a marginalised white working-class boy, how the world was opened-up to me through quality, enabling, and equitable services just like HAF in my school holidays.  My wider world was on screen, TV, or film, that is where things seemed to happen for me, and it was where I could escape to, be inspired by, and dream about.  I ought to mention we were also joined by Royal Ballet principal dancer Reece Clarke, actor and producer Sadie Frost, and TV actor Fay Ripley.  Still now, I get a thrill if I see someone or meet them in ‘real life’.  I could see in the faces of those children and young people attending the launch, that they thought and felt much the same as me.  But the serious point is that such opportunities connect artistry with aspiration and achievement.  A job well done HVH.

Louise leading the HVH graffiti workshop in August