| The aim of Time to Play was to improve the integration of young children of ethnic minority (particularly Muslim) families, into the services offered by Children’s Centres. The project did this by developing culturally appropriate approaches for mother and child sessions, based on creative play as a foundation for learning. These approaches fostered communication, self esteem, language and creativity, and built on successful practice evolved through PEEP. Through participatory action research the project arrived at recommendations for intercultural practice and materials that respect the mothers’ values and parenting styles and support their children’s development in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage.
Time to Play was participatory in its approach, involving parents in the design of what ‘works’ for them as being culturally relevant and in tune with their aspirations and in recognition of what they already do at home. It extended the PEEP group provision by focusing on creative play for early learning, within ethnic minority communities. These groups were accessed via four existing Children’s Centres in Oxford, Bristol, Southampton and Birmingham. The Centres were already known to the project leaders as serving communities with a high proportion of Muslim families and of different ethnic backgrounds in each city. Each centre already ran sessions attended by mothers and their young children. Experienced play practitioners worked in each centre to develop Time to Play approaches in consultation with mothers and practitioners in those settings. The project ran in three progressive phases.
Phase 1: consultation/information gathering
Phase 2: development and delivery of approaches;
Phase 3: dissemination.
Approaches were documented and elaborated, and evaluation consulted with practitioners and the participating families, so as to arrive at a set of strategies that can be replicated through the dissemination of PEEP. This will be via the PEEP website, and the PEEP for Practitioners training programme.
Time to Play was managed from Oxford PEEP, and the approaches were researched in partnership with Dr Susan Young from the University of Exeter, who has extensive experience of similar projects. |
