8.1.1
The Cultural Strategy advocates the importance of leisure facilities, clubs and organisations providing an essential resource to ensure that physical activity, creativity and constructive use of leisure time become life-long pursuits. Fundamental to the Strategy is the need to develop strong links between schools and leisure activities and that every child should have the opportunity to excel in some cultural, sport or arts activity which they follow through from school into adult life.
8.1.2
For the purpose of this paper the Children’s age range is from 3 – 12 years, though it is acknowledged the development of a child’s leisure needs stretches on into their teenage years.
8.2 Strategic Issues
8.2.1 Facilitating and organising a wide range of children’s activities, pastimes and hobbies
There are several key strategic issues:
i) Taking a broad integrative approach in offering cultural activities .
A lot of emphasis can often be made on the more active side of provision. We must not forget that children also enjoy cerebral and less active pursuits e.g. board games, history and archaeology and conservation activities. Leisure Services will work in partnership with others to provide a wide range of activities and pastimes in the cultural sector e.g. sports and arts festivals and to develop an entitlement policy in Cultural Services for Bournemouth’s children.
ii) Providing safer environments: Child protection
Leisure Services has recently developed Child Protection Charters at sites and in activity programmes where children take part. This is particularly important where activities fall outside current child protection legislation . Whilst child protection arrangements are well developed by certain organisations and groups (e.g. Governing Bodies of Sport, Social Services registered organised child care providers) more needs to be done to ensure child protection charters/policies are in place for individuals or organisations hiring premises at schools and community centres to offer children’s activities.
iii) Building capacity to offer a wide variety of activities
Leisure Services have been working with many partners including the Education Directorate to increase the number of out of school organised play activities and childcare places in the town. In developing more opportunities the following issues have to be considered: –
- The need to recruit and train people to manage and deliver programmes, both by the Council and by independent providers. Whilst some funding is available from the Government to achieve this, there are still insufficient people in the community who are willing to help deliver activities. This is an area for further work.
- Linking people and groups together to provide a variety of activities. Organising imaginative play programmes is often a hard task for many providers and to help improve the quality of provision it is possible to:
– Network with different providers and experts in the Council and the Community to offer sports, arts, play, health and fitness activities at leisure centres, schools and community centres and outdoor play schemes.
– Ensure providers can assess a variety of training programmes that skill them in other areas (e.g. Community Sports Leader Certificate) so as to offer in the community activities for all skills levels and all abilities.
- Assessing vulnerable children
– Leisure Services has been working with groups and organisations including Social Services to find ways of offering leisure activities to vulnerable children. Such provision is resource intensive and future work will have to look to securing statutory and Lottery funding to both facilitate and organise such activities.
– Working with community groups and providers in areas of social deprivation to bring in pre-promoted taster events and activities (Sports Festivals and Community Festivals) is another mechanism to access children who could be socially excluded. However, for real sustainable success those children need to be offered local affordable opportunities.
8.2.2 Links to schools and exit routes to sustain activity participation
i) It is vital to build relationships with schools to offer and develop sports and recreation activities that link to outside organisations and groups who offer those activities outside school time and when children leave school. Building effective relationships will also provide clubs and organisations with a future supply of members, volunteers and organisers.
ii) Initiatives such as the Active Communities Programmes provide a major opportunity to further integrate school sports activity programmes with those in the wider community.
iii) Partnership working will need to consider how schools can be further used to offer more activities for children and adults in the community. Sites like Oakmead College, that offer the community its facilities for hire, are beginning to work with Leisure Services to see how the College can meet wider community needs with more adventurous programming.
