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Examples of Projects

playtrain has delivered over seventy children’s consultation projects since the scheme was established in 1999. Here are a selection of some of our most recent ones. If you would like more information about these or any other projects, please don’t hesitate to get in touch through Contact Us.Audiences Central - Family Friendly

Audiences Central, the audience development agency for the West Midlands, commissioned playtrain to deliver a consultation project working with children, young people and their families to identify what ‘family friendly’, in arts and cultural venues and services, means to them. We worked with seven regional venues with a range of family groups to determine how ‘family friendly’ the participating venues were and opportunities for further development. Findings were fed back to each of the venues and training programmes were developed and delivered by playtrain based on the recommendations to support ‘family friendliness’ from front-of-house through to strategic management. For the report please click here.

Learning My Way

playtrain recently completed a six week consultation project, working with newly arrived young people at St. John Wall Catholic School in Handsworth. The project, commissioned by Birmingham City Council Study Support Team, explored young people’s experiences coming to Britain, what kind of support they have already received and what recommendations they have for further action. In response to the findings, the Study Support Team and the school will be trialling a lunchtime club for newly arrived children in a scheme aimed at exploring emotional journeys around the school.

The Collectors

With funding from Arts Council England, West Midlands - playtrain was able to devise and deliver our very own children’s consultation project. After conducting a political, economic, social and technological study linked to what the next 25 years could bring for children and young people we wanted to find out what children and young people themselves thought. All too often children and young people are exposed to adult led activities which have fixed outcomes - we wanted to provide an opportunity that would enable children and young people to voyage on their own journey of discovery and to lead the way all the way. Through regular creative sessions over a six month period, over 50 children and young people took part in the Collectors project and produced a multitude of creative ideas about their day to day lives and futures. We had no idea what they would produce but we knew with time, space and freedom - magic would happen. The creative ideas and physical work produced by the children and young people was show-cased at The Custard Factory Gallery to great acclaim. We look forward to a continued relationship with The Collectors and using the findings from this project to develop a larger scale arts project and space for this to happen with even more young people.

Project 31 - Perry Beeches Extended Schools

In July 2007, playtrain completed a creative consultation project with children and young people in the Perry Beeches ward, through the Perry Beeches Extended Schools Cluster. Young people from 2 to 14 years old worked with playtrain facilitators to design and deliver their own creative arts club and have their say about how they want to play. Findings and recommendations are due to be shared with the wide cluster team to inform planning and decision making about the next phase of the extended schools provision.

Dudley Children’s Services

playtrain worked with the Dudley Early Years and Childcare team over the course of a year on their vision for children in the Borough to be consulted on an ongoing basis so that they are genuinely involved in informing how childcare services are developed and delivered. Over 200 children aged 6 months to 14 years were involved in the consultation process across early years settings, after school clubs, childminder settings and youth clubs. A combination of pilot delivery projects in settings, quantitative data gathering and action learning sessions with the Dudley team were utilised to explore children and young people’s ideas, experiences and future hopes and develop recommendations to inform the team’s three year strategy for childcare services across the Borough.

Lye, Rufford & Wollescote Sure Start

playtrain were commissioned by Lye, Rufford & Wollescote Sure Start to work with young children and their families as part of a project to help them identify a name for their newly built Children’s Centre. Families told us what Sure Start services meant to them through a programme of creative sessions that involved clay work, puppet making and creating collages and images. Local families, staff and governors worked with playtrain to generate lots of ideas for the new name based on three core themes that emerged: Positive Change, Meeting People and Feeling Safe. The open ended creative activies proved a real hit with children and families. playtrain were delighted to be invited back to deliver training with the Sure Start team to encourage creativity across services.