12 March 2012 - 1 January 0001, 00:00 -

Creating Child Friendly Streets and Communities - an afternoon workshop

A key half day workshop focusing on the delivery of child friendly environments in London.

Facilitators:

Jon Harris and Ashley Rogers, Play England,
Hermine Sanson, GLA

Venue:
Space@119
CIHT
119 Britannia Walk
London, N1 7JE

To book, please click here and email Jon Harris. 

For more information on technical content, please contact the Lead Facilitator for the event, Jon Harris on 07881 805 952.

Child Friendly Communities - 12 March

Essential learning and development:

Play England, in collaboration with the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation, are pleased to provide this CPD event. Designed to make sure our environments are planned with children in mind, this professional development session is being run as a half-day session targeted specifically at planners working in policy and development management arenas.

A chance to engage in the development of latest guidance on children and young people’s play and informal recreation.

The event builds on the Mayor’s draft Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) on Shaping Neighbourhoods: Children and Young People’s Play and Informal Recreation, which is a review of the 2008 SPG on Providing for Children and Young People's Play and Informal Recreation. The draft SPG is currently undergoing a formal consultation which will close on 27 April 2012. As part of the event, we will be outlining the principles of this latest version and how planners can
help advocate the delivery of ‘playable space’ in a wide variety of forms. To view the full document please visit the London.gov.uk website here.

About the SPG:

The provision of play will become of increasing importance with the emphasis in the new London Plan on promoting quality of life and in encouraging lifetime neighbourhoods meeting the needs of all Londoners, at every stage of their lives. The draft SPG introduces or provides a greater emphasis than the previous 2008 SPG on:

• the concept of lifetime neighbourhoods and the role of play provision in meeting the needs of all Londoners

• the importance of ‘playable’ spaces in accommodating the presence of children in the capital and encouraging
‘shared’ public spaces that meet the needs of adults and children at the same time

• updated child yield figures and a new tool to calculate the requirement for play in housing developments

• guidance on the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to pay for play space and equipment

• promoting healthy lifestyles; access to nature and the use of natural features

• community involvement and volunteering to increase the use and enhanced quality of play space provision

The importance of planners in ‘making play mainstream’:

‘Thinking play’ is so much more than just considering playgrounds or ‘formal’ play spaces and it is important that professionals working in the built environment understand the importance of engagement with children in the design process - right through to implementation in wider projects. In Greater London we have diverse spatial challenges ranging from highly dense living environments through to large swathes of green space and parkland – and as part of our
session we will be looking at a range of urban – and suburban – settings.

However, skills in making our spaces playable and accessible to children is an area where we can all learn and develop. The provisions of the Equality Act 2010 are also an important driver, as this covers age discrimination amongst other factors – so it is vitally important to ensure that children and young people are engaged and consulted properly.
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So how will the event help me?

Providing opportunities for children to plan, engage with, and use their local environments creatively is important to the delivery of strong and cohesive communities. Here are just a few example of why a much wider breadth of skills is needed. The course is about mainstreaming children’s needs and issues into what you do as planners - particularly around play and use of the outdoor environment. – and maximising the opportunity for children to play.

The workshop is tailored towards the following planning professionals:

• Development management officers – ensuring that the provision of play facilities is well thought through and is not rigidly fixed on standards – but allowing some flair, creativity and local community support;

• Planning policy officers – looking at how developer obligations and CIL-type funding streams take account of both physical provision but also behavioural change and promotion;

• Regeneration officers- looking at how mixed use schemes for leisure, commercial, residential and other land uses can build in child-friendly spaces;

• Strategic planning managers – looking at how to build in children’s needs into forward strategy– and reinforcing this within their teams’ activities;

• Technical support staff (which may include consultants) – ensuring that any project delivery staff fully understand the importance of children’s needs within the process.

We hope to follow this event later in the year with a cross-professional session for the wider 'built environment’ sector, supported by Urban Design London. We also hope to be able to develop the CIHT/Play England in-house course programme further to support individual authorities at Borough level during 2012.

Building on previous success:

Building on a track record of course development as part of the national ‘Playshaper’ facilitation programme (2009-2010), the ‘Creating Child Friendly Communities’ message builds on previous training and development activities carried out in Cornwall, Bournemouth and Poole, and the London Borough of Islington around placemaking and play.

Programme for the Workshop:

This Creating Child Friendly Communities event has been designed as a half-day event to fit in with the time pressures that all delegates will face – but leave enough time to tackle some of the key issues through applied learning and facilitated workshops. There will also be reference handouts, glossaries and signpost sheets to help you develop your knowledge and competence after the workshop.

1.00 pm Coffee and welcome

1.30 pm Introduction to Child Friendly Communities

2.00 pm Update on the development of the Mayor’s draft SPG on Children and Young People’s Play and Informal Recreation

2.30 pm Supporting and Enabling Child Friendly Communities

3.00 pm Afternoon Break

3.15 pm Making Child Friendly Communities Happen (Exercises)

4.15 pm Developing Your Action Plan - Tools and Support

4.30 pm Close

The workshop exercises will focus on a dense urban location and a suburban ‘edge of centre’ development to give variety and applicability to the Greater London setting. The scenarios will focus on aspects such as:

• The Planning Application Process
• Effective Development Management Negotiation
• Achieving Meaningful Engagement with Communities
• Creating Legacy and Community Ownership
• Designing a Child Friendly Street (including legibility)
• Creating Playable Space
• Creating Safe Environments
• Commissioning Playable Space
• Legal Requirements and Standards