Play Strategy Action 6.3 Play in the Home

Methodology

Field work for this study took place between the 1^st of May 2014 and the 13^th of June 2014.

During this period over 300 sources from 134 organisations were reviewed, of which 166 were logged on the data sheet as within scope of the project.

Desk top research was conducted for all 134 organisations listed in Appendix A. Each source had its website reviewed in terms of sitemap to identify the right pages, core sections from the navigation that were related and where possible a search on the website for the terms:

"Play"
"Play in home"
"Play at home"
"Parents"
"Families and children"
"Parents Advice Play"
"Teenager parent"
"Teenage interact"
"Families and teenage"
"Youth"

The sources were split initially into: the 32 councils; major public organisations such as NHS Scotland and The Scottish Government; major national third sector organisations such as Children 1st, Barnardo's, Sure Start and Young Scot; smaller or local third sector organisations such Midlothian Association of Play, Shetland Pre School and local toy libraries. These sources were identified through other sources or using web searches for the above terms anchored with 'Scotland' e.g. "Play at home Scotland".

Due to the constraints time of the research:

• Private organisations were only reviewed when they were linked to from a public or third sector body.
• UK-wide organisations were only looked at when there was either direct link to play in Scotland or as an example of a group that is not being directly served in Scotland.
• 4 organisations were contacted for additional information as there was none available online - none responded and so this was deemed an in-effective use of time.
• Social Media for organisations was only reviewed if there was both a prominent link to it on their website and they delivered useful information on either advice or activities.
• Actual online usage was not measured or surveyed. Instead the reach of materials was estimated using the population of the area.

No source organisation had more than 15 minutes spent looking for information and resources on it, unless valuable materials were found. This was deemed a generous amount of time to search the website or organisation as general online behaviour suggests that a parent or carer looking for similar information would spend a maximum of 5-10 minutes looking prior to giving up.

Each resource that was deemed within scope of this research was then assessed and logged in terms of:

• Organisation
• Organisation URL
• Sector
• Author
• Title
• Medium
• Is this available to download
• URL for information
• ISBN (where applicable)
• Frequency of publication or group
• Date of publication
• Cost to obtain information
• Type of message (advice or activity or both)
• Is the information at a Local or National level?
• Which Local Authority Are(s) are covered
• Language
• Target Age for play (0-3; 3-5; 5-8; 8-11; 11-14; and 14-18)
• Type of Play (Symbolic; Rough and Tumble; Socio-dramatic; Social Play; Creative Play; Communication Play; Dramatic Play; Deep Play; Exploratory Play; Fantasy Play; Imaginative Play; Locomotor Play; Mastery Play; Object Play; Role Play and Recapitulative Play)^[4]
• Target Audience
• Target family type
• Ability level of parent/carer to access information
• Are there accessible versions (braille, spoken, large print etc)
• Cost to participate
• Ability of child required to participate
• Estimated numbers targeted (by region)
• Estimated Reach (by region or where possible actual figures)
• Clarity and Accessibility of language (1-5 where 1 is poor, 2 is below average, 3 is average, 4 is better than average and 5 is excellent)
• Is this duplicated elsewhere? If yes by whom?
• Researcher notes

Two interviews were carried out to gain a deeper understanding of work that is conducted with two groups of parents or carers that were suspected to be under-served:

1. Dad's Rocks - with a group leader to discover more about the issues and realities that affect Father's and play in the home

2. Children 1st - with a support worker to discover more about the work that Children 1st do within the home and to discover more about the issues and realities that affect low income and marginalised families.

These interviews last between 25 minutes and 90 minutes.

Definitions

For the purpose of this study the following terms were defined as:

Play = a process that is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated

Cost effective = where a resource or activity costs less than £20 over the course of a year.

Free = where a resource or activity has no spend associated with it directly and uses materials that will not need to be replaced (e.g. an activity using a ball of socks is free as the socks are still usable at the end and do not need to be replaced, an activity of making face paints out of household materials is not free as flour and food colouring will need to be replaced at a cost).

The home or home environment = within the residential home of the child but also in the garden, stairwell or on the street immediately outside the home. This does not incorporate parks, schools or streets (that aren't directly outside of home).

Following each review the data was stored in an excel spreadsheet^[5] and stored on Border Crossing Media's secure server.

Once the initial broad sweep of materials available was completed additional research papers and resources were identified and reviewed in order to contextualise the findings further.^[6]

Limitations, Problems and Solutions:

• This initial study was to incorporate all sectors producing relevant information. Due to the time constraints of the study it was deemed suitable by the working group to restrict this fieldwork to public and third sector organisations solely.
• Further due to the time constraints it was not possible to contact all organisations that were reviewed to pick up additional offline information that they supply. In addition to this, of those that were contacted, only 2 responded. Therefore there is a skew in this study to information that is available online, although the majority of this is also available in the real world.
• Most resources cover multiple types of play and so it is hard to identify where there are real gaps.
• This study has only reviewed what can be found on the websites of all 32 councils and other organisations listed in Appendix A. It relied on information being readily available and easy to find. Whilst the research was conducted across a broad range of public and third sector organisations it is not an exhaustive study but has captured a significant number of relevant resources and so can be seen to be a broad overview on a national if not local level.
• Due to time limitations a full review of Social Media resources was not conducted. Instead where an organisation had a significant amount of useful advice or activities and highlighted that they had social media it was reviewed. Those organisations who did not have extensive information nor prominently provided links to their social media did not have these assets reviewed.
• There has been a level of subjectivity when reviewing the resources in terms of accessibility, relevance, categorisation and cost. For example some activities could vary in cost dependent on the resourcefulness of the parent and carer. Therefore these should be seen as indicators of underlying trends as opposed to robust facts.
• The results of the study should not be counted as a true statistical record of all information and messaging available to parents and carers across Scotland but should be seen a snapshot of what was available between the 1^st of May 2014 and the 13^th of June 2014 on both a National and Local level.