Programme for babies, toddlers and pre-school children
Irene Miller, National play@home
Co-ordinator
September 2010
play@home is a physical activity programme which originated in
New Zealand in 1990. Presented as a series of books for babies,
toddlers and pre-schoolers, the programme provides resources for
parents to help them support their children to participate in
physical activity to achieve their developmental milestones, to
improve their cognitive development, to achieve strong family bonds
and to raise awareness of the importance of participating in
regular physical activity through fun to do activities.
The programme was recognised as being a useful resource for
practitioners supporting parents and gradually its use spread
across Scotland. In 2008, the Scottish Government funded the roll
out of play@home across the whole of Scotland. Supported by
awareness-raising sessions, early years staff were able to
understand the content of play@home and how it could be related to
policy developments in early years. Recent policy documents have
emphasised the importance of giving children the best start in life
and of collaborative working being most-effective to offer support
in ways that suit individual families.
play@home provides the opportunity to develop a coherent
approach to the ten elements of transformational change in the
Early Years Framework through collaborative working. The outcomes
of Curriculum for Excellence through promoting active learning are
supported by the delivery of play@home to parents to engender a
positive learning environment in the home. The programme also fits
well with the activities presented in Birth to Three and the new
Pre-birth to Three available shortly. Promoting good health and
wellbeing to families and sharing activities that promote bonding
and positive emotional health as well as good physical health and
development of physical and social skills featured in the new
guidance are shared goals across the early years workforce and
tangible goals which are desirable to parents.
"We have been using play@home since Amelia was born. The
guidance reassured us that we were doing the right things to help
her reach her developmental milestones and we could see how much
she enjoyed the activities, especially baby massage and the nursery
rhymes when she was very young. Now that she is 14 months she still
loves the songs and playing peek-a-boo and had great fun with the
empty and fill games all around the house! (Kirsty, a
parent)
play@home now offers a training for trainers course through NHS
Health Scotland that will sustain the philosophy of the programme
beyond the original three-year funding. The training has been well
received with comments such as "I found the training gave me
more confidence to deliver play@home training to others".
Further information on the training and the play@home programme
generally: nhs.HealthScotland-PlayAtHome@nhs.net
Irene Miller: 0131 313 7574 irene.miller@nhs.net