Apologies for the late appearance of your July Blog!

For those of you who have wondered where on earth your ESCO has disappeared too lately (leaving this sadly neglected website unattended) I've actually been getting down to the grass roots of the job.  In short - I've been playing.

I'm sure that we all agree that play is an essential part of growing up.  Even small animals learn essential skills through play.  As the proud "mum" to an eight week old feral kitten I can happily confirm this fact - and I would challenge anyone to try and tie their shoelaces without a tiny, furry ball of fluff, teeth and claws pouncing at their feet.  It is Trevor's way of learning how to hunt larger prey and possibly less 'unsavoury' prey in some cases (even a scabby, disease-ridden rat smells better than my teenager's socks).  So how sad it is that much of the recent research into play has shown that children are being denied the chance to take part in adventurous play by over-cautious parents.  For example an ICM survey commissioned by Play England found 50% of children aged between seven and 12 were not allowed to climb a tree without adult supervision.   Half of those surveyed said they had been stopped from climbing trees because it was too dangerous, while 21% had been banned from playing conkers and 17% were not even allowed to play chase. 

Good grief methinks...I dutifully packed my eleven year old off to the park to climb a tree.

It cannot be denied that adventurous play both challenges and excites children and helps instil critical life skills.  If nothing else, getting stuck in a pear tree or being spun around on a rubber tyre until you're sick in your hair is a valuable lesson for life.   I believe that it certainly makes you resilient to a lifetime of 'Mickey-taking' from your older sibling (do I sound bitter?) But even the most sound research must show that constantly wrapping children in 'hypothetical cotton wool' can leave them ill equipped to deal with stressful or challenging situations they might encounter later in life.  Just think how different a child's perception of a "space to enjoy childhood" must be if they are denied the chance to get really, really filthy - children are natural born mud-magnets.  Now think back a wee while (slightly longer for some of us) and I can guarantee that some of your favourite childhood memories may have involved a great deal of danger and possibly a fair bit of mud. 

For instance, I remember an incredibly 'girly' childhood family friend (pink dress/white frilly sock type) getting covered head-to-toe in stinky mud after falling off of my sister's bike.  We chased her and she fell in a hole!  My kind and patient mother simply popped her in the bath, gave her a hug and sent her home in a borrowed (but slightly more tatty) dress.  The next visit we climbed on top of my father's car and ate all of the plums in our tree - this time she was sent home with terrific belly-ache.  These activities didn't cost a penny...but still left us with a lifetime of family jokes and shared memories.

How timely that this funny document arrived in my inbox yesterday (many thanks Matt), so I added a few of my own memories of the 1970s (with a guest appearance from some favourite characters) and posted it here.  I thought it may raise a smile amongst those of you of a 'certain' age.

Safety (!!!) in the 1970s

If you are interested, then you can read more about the background to the research and find lots of other useful links at Play England.

So, in response this research and the key link between the Unicef 2007 Report  into children's well-being, the extended services partnership were delighted to be invited by Fareham Borough Council to contribute to the National Play Day event in Portchester on August 6th 2008.  This year's event was based upon the theme 'Give us a go'  which calls for a rethink on our risk-adverse culture (for example challenging the practice of banning conkers from the school playground therefore denying many a small boy from being the envy of his peers by sporting a black eye that perfectly matches his uniform trousers). 

Luckily when the big day arrived - so did the sunshine!   Kenwood Road open space was filled with the sound of children enjoying the bouncy village, strapped into a huge inflatable table-top football game, or partaking in some rather more sedate quiet reading activities organised by Portchester Library.   The Children's Centre, Extended Services & 'v'-volunteering project's contribution (after a rather windy battle on the sea-front to erect our three enormous Gazebo shelters) included face painting, craft activities, sand play, refreshments sales and badge making.  We also utilised the event to consult and engage on an informal level with some of our local families and even had our very own junior roving reporters.

Following our pretty unsuccessful "Space to Enjoy Childhood" competition featured in the summer edition of the Portchester People, it was decided that the National Play Day Competition could be a useful way of consulting with young people in Portchester on their ideas of their ideal childhood play "space".  So we arrived prepared - with competition entry forms, felt-tip pens, crayons, glue, glitter, sticky shapes.  You name it - we took it!  A few hours later we had managed to scrub the glue off of all of the chairs (but sadly not the children who'd sat in it), picked the glitter out of our sandwiches and I can proudly announce that I now have our first entries into our Portchester consultation sat on my desk beside me. 

But we need far more entries to make a truly stunning display at Portchester Community & Children's Centre, so please either contact Susie for some blank entry forms or download them to use at your organisation below:

(Please note that you will need to print both single-page documents)

    Portchester Play Day Competition Template

    Portchester Play Day Competition Support Document

So what else has been happening now that our schools in Fareham East (but by no means all of them) have closed their gates for the summer months?  What does a poor ESCO do when the job is primarily based around building school/community partnerships?  Rather than staring at my half-empty e-mail inbox, I thought that I might explore this idea of play a little further.  So being a complete coward when it comes to climbing trees (too many spiky branches and bad memories) my own adventure took me to Portchester summer holiday play scheme to work alongside Bev, Sandie and Becky in delivering some fun activities for 4-11 year old.  As with all extended services funded projects - evaluation is a key component for measuring impact.  Therefore I have rustled up a brief report from the feedback received from the parents and children I came into contact with of the past (delightful) two weeks.  Please feel free to view this document produced for the partnership (with some of the feedback comments from both user groups) below:

Portchester Summer Holiday Play-Scheme Feedback Document

In fact, I must confess that I had a huge amount of information to include on the site this month.  However, July was incredibly busy leading up to the end of term that I barely had time to draw breath.  So rather than going into huge detail - I thought that I would simply give you a brief resume of my ESCO diary for July 2008 as follows:

July 1st - Extended Services Hampshire Cluster Manager/Coordinator meeting with discussion, networking opportunities and information regarding future funding and restructuring in Hampshire from David Wright. Additional speakers and presentations at the meeting included:

 Hampshire Museums and Archives Service (including a mention for Wicor Primary School and their fantastic pupil maintained museum).

Hampshire Music Service

Parentline Plus

July 7th - Management Group Meeting & Fareham Locality Team meeting.

July 8th - Extended Services Web-site sub-group & a brief visit to our new voluntary services shop in Fareham Precinct.

July 10th - An exhausting (and very muddy) trip to Marwell Zoo with Odyssey's Thursday Group...a month later and I'm still recovering!  I had such a fantastic day, so thank you Jayne and all of the fabulous young people who kept me laughing all day.

July 12th - Rainbow Centre's 'v'live Festival in Fareham town centre.  See the Rainbow Centre's website for more details and pictures of this fun, family event at www.rainbowcentre.org.uk. 

July 14th - Cams Extended Services Partnership Board Meeting (minutes available online)

July 15th - Portchester Extended Services and Children's Centre Board Meeting (minutes available online)

July 17th - Scooter project for Portchester Meeting, Odyssey Young People's Centre.  Many thanks to all who attended and for Jeanette Barker for her kind hospitality and making cups of tea.  I shall be in contact with all attendees soon about progress being made on this project which is being planned in partnership with FBC Community Safety & Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service.

July 18th - Visit to Merryfields Children's Centre at Neville Lovett Community School to view their beautiful new building.

July 22nd - Visit from Phil Dickinson from ContinYou with a brief trip over with Phil to Portchester Children's Centre.  We somehow stumbled into distributing balloons at the Pre-School leavers' party.  Thank you for your useful input and encouragement Phil.

July 23rd - Visit from Sue Brown (Extended Services Remodelling Agent) for a general audit of our provision in preparation for restructuring in September; followed by a quick dash over to Portchester Children's Centre for their first Practitioners' Meeting (fortunately arriving just in time for refreshments).

July 25th - Volunteer evening at Disco at X-Perience Young People's Centre.  Certainly felt my age when I recognised many of the young adults...and I'd known them since Reception year.

July 28th - The start date for our Portchester summer holiday play scheme (with many thanks to PCSO Kim Mitchell for her excellent Lego modelling skills). 

If you wish to discuss any of these meetings, projects, visits above (or kindly find me a few more hours each day to squash in a few more) then please feel free to contact me after 27th August.

Have an enjoyable holiday everyone - and I shall try to catch up with as many of you as possible when I return from my Italian camping adventures...

...although the sunshine, ice-cream and Chianti vineyards of Tuscany may just be a little too tempting to return to gloomy old England.  

So I'll leave you for the time being with this little poem about our wonderful English summer:

What has happened to summer,
That's what I want to know.
Is she on a vacation -
Who knows where did she go?
Tell, what was she wearing;
A zephyr breeze and rosebud
Or grass and wild berry?
Could she be honeymooning
With spring or early fall
Or has she gone so far away
She'll not return at all?

Dorothy Ardelle Merriam, "One July Summer"

Arrivederci!

Susie Higgs (ESCO)