Children's Workforce Guide to Qualifications and Training: Play

Training for play should be a statutory requirement for all those working in the children's sector, according to a report issued by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on A Fit and Healthy Childhood earlier this year. The report calls for the Department for Education to commission research into the play training needs of the children's workforce.

While local authorities continue to cut back on playwork roles, other positions are becoming available in prisons, women's refuges, hospitals, schools, and soft play centres. The APPG report highlights the need for a play co-ordinator in primary schools, as play makes up 20 per cent of schooling. Outdoor Play and Learning (Opal) runs a mentor-supported school improvement programme including staff training, which focuses on play.

The qualifications available for playworkers are relatively limited. Some specialised roles such as hospital playworkers require specific training. A hospital play specialist will usually need to take a qualification such as the Foundation Degree in Healthcare Play Specialism, for example, as well as holding a Level 3 professional childcare qualification.

Leeds Beckett University, currently the only provider offering a BA (Hons) in Playwork, this year changed the name of the course to Child Development and Playwork. "This better reflects the content of the course," says Lesli Godfrey, Play England trustee and senior lecturer at the university. Leeds Beckett also offers a relevant postgraduate degree, while the University of Gloucestershire offers a Masters in Professional Studies in Children's Play.

At a lower level, the awarding body Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education (Cache), owned by national awarding body NCFE and City & Guilds, offer qualifications from Levels 2 to 5 in playwork, including apprenticeships. Pearson also offers a number of qualifications in play.

Sector skills council SkillsActive has published a new set of National Occupational Standards for the sector, available on the NOS website. The standards can be used to inform any new qualifications, but it is up to the awarding bodies to decide if they want to revise the qualifications or not, says Godfrey: "The standards also offer employers a starting point for the development of job descriptions and person specifications, as well as a tool for use in appraisals and quality assurance schemes."

Cache says it is interested in supporting employers to set up a trailblazer group to develop new apprenticeships for the sector, but this has yet to happen.