Home-Start South Leicestershire’s “Play-Full Families” Project celebrates Lottery success
After an uncertain wait, the Harborough District wide Family Support charity has been successful in their bid for a further three years’ funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to continue running their successful therapeutic play project in schools and homes across the District.
The project, which started in July 2022 in partnership with 6 primary schools across Harborough, focuses on the benefits of child-led play in children aged 5-11. Over the last three years project staff delivered play sessions in schools and trained volunteers to pass on these skills to parents and carers, facilitating more child-led play in the family home.
Charity Manager, Stella Renwick, said “The ultimate aim of the project is to create healthier family dynamics by encouraging the understanding and valuing of play and its benefits. We recently commissioned an external evaluation, conducted by Adrian Masters, which demonstrated what a great success the project has been; most care givers stated that they have kept up the increased child-led play time with their children, significantly improving their family relationships.
The extended project will continue until September 2028 and will include the delivery of new workshops for parents and their children referred from the partner schools. All District primary schools are invited to contact the charity if they’d like to benefit from an offer of staff training and support to help embed an ethos and focus on the importance of child-led play in their schools.
In keeping with a focus on play, the theme of the Charity’s AGM is “The Power of Play,” and will feature contributions from Policy Researcher, Ben Firth from the Centre for Young Lives and Play Therapist, Clare Hammond from Treehouse Wellbeing CIC and Little Oak Play Therapy. Members of the public are warmly invited to come and find out more about the work of the charity on 11th November 1-2:30pm at 121 Coventry Road, Market Harborough. RSVP 01858 467982/[email protected].
More information about the work of the charity can be found at www.home-startsouthleics.org.uk and on their social media channels https://linktr.ee/homestartsouthleics