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Examples of Projects

Playtrain has delivered over a hundred 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.

Acorns Children’s Hospice

Acorns Children’s Hospice in Worcester commissioned Playtrain to facilitate a creative consultation with young people who access Acorns’ services to enable them to participate in the recruitment of a full time Youth Worker.

The key aims of the consultation were to facilitate activities that would encourage and empower young people to give their views, ideas and make recommendations about:

• What qualities, skills and experience an Acorn’s Youth Worker needs
• What they envisage to be the primary tasks, objectives and role of a Acorn’s Youth Worker

Young people created a profile of an ideal youth worker and suggested what qualities they need. They devised a series of questions and then posed these as a panel, in a mock interview, through role play. Acorns Children’s Hospice are now looking foward to recruiting the new worker with the further involvement of the young people.

New Library of Birmingham

Playtrain was commissioned by Birmingham Libraries to design and undertake a consultation session with Year 5 pupils from Chandos School to involve children in responding to the new plans and designs for the new Library of Birmingham.

The intention of the Library is that the resulting consultation report be used by the planning committee to inform and guide future decisions around the redevelopment of the new Library. 

Birmingham Children’s Hospital

Birmingham Children’s Hospital commissioned Playtrain to facilitate a creative consultation with children and young people to rename a CAMHS ward within the Steelhouse Lane site of the Hospital. The ward had recently been redesigned and relocated and young people were directly involved in the design process.  The feedback from both young people and staff during its first year of opening had been extremely positive and to celebrate this, staff and young people wanted to seal the process by renaming the ward. Children and young people worked with a creative writer and a creative consultant, specialising in inclusion, in a series of creative sessions to generate ideas and to devise a criteria for helping them to decide on which was the best and most suitable name.

The Queens Theatre

The Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch, Essex commissioned Playtrain to undertake research and consultation to inform the development of an Early Years Programme within the theatre. Playtrain consulted with children and families attending current theatre productions and local Early Years education and care settings to find out what they thought about the current programme and what they would like to see in the future. Playtrain also conducted research into current trends in Early Years Theatre around the country, existing local arts provision and current government initiatives around early years services in order to gather intelligence on current provison and identify examples of good practice. 

Wolverley Memorial Hall

Playtrain was commissioned by Wyre Forest District Council to undertake a consultation exercise with young people and families concerning the future redevelopment of the outdoor play facilities at Wolverley Memorial Hall in Wolverley near Kidderminster. Over 90 local people attended a day long consultation day, packed with fun activities, designed to elicit views and opinions to inform the development of the play area.

Highbury Extended Schools Service

Highbury Extended Service Cluster commissioned Playtrain to design and undertake a series of consultation exercises with children and young people in the local community to ascertain the experiences, views and opinions of children and young people attending school and extended service activities in the area. Highbury Extended Service Cluster was keen to develop an understanding of how it could develop activities and services based around the ‘core offer’ including specialist services, learning opportunities and a programme of activities and sought realistic, practical and affordable recommendations by young people.

Nuneaton Art Gallery and Museum  

Nuneaton Art Gallery and Museum commissioned Playtrain to deliver a creative consultation session with children under five years.  The aim of the consultation was to inform the Gallery and Museums overall strategy for improving access and make recommendations for the development of current displays and interpretation resources for an early year’s audience.

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.

Learning My Way

Playtrain 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.

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.