Who are Play Partners at Wolves Play Cafe?
There are lots of other great services and spaces in the city who are supporting little ones and big ones and compliment our fun and friendly faces and important work. Play Partners include; Boundary Way Allotments, Gatis Community Space, All Saints Action Network, The Haven – Women’s Refuge, City of Wolverhampton’s Corporate Care Team (Care Leavers and Fostering Parents). Over the last 6 months we have delivered lots of different projects…read on to see who with and what we’ve been up to!
The Haven, Women’s Refuge
Thanks to a generous grant from Rotary Club of City of Wolverhampton and by working in partnership with The Haven, Women’s Refuge, from January to November 2023, we have been able to deliver 8 stay and play sessions for women and children accessing their services, invest in over £620 of resources for the playrooms in their refuges. There are 18 individual Play Packs and 4 resource boxes including a full set of 24 activity cards and 12 brilliant books to support quality playtime for little ones whilst families live in refuges across the city. Often families have left homes with little more than the belongings they can carry.
The Play Packs have beautiful books, ideas and play resources developed carefully by Helen, our experienced Early Years Specialist. They’re based on our most popular play sessions and four different themes – Dinosaur Safari, Jungle Boogie, Marvellous Minibeasts and How Does Your Garden Grow? Each pack is designed for little ones and filled with fun, open-ended activities, play resources, nursery rhymes and fantastic storybooks and factbooks.
“Thank you for all of the wonderful sessions you’ve carried out with our families, all of your support has been greatly appreciated by us and the Children and Young People- – so many fantastic things about your service.”
Rubina Phloray, Children and Young Persons Manager at The Haven, Wolverhampton
Helen, Director and Co-Founder with Nafeesa handing over Play Packs in December 2023
Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership
In September 2023, it was lovely to welcome Nadia along at a Wolves in the Woods session to have a chat about maternity journey experiences as part of the Wolverhampton Maternity Voices Partnership – a space you can feed back your stories of maternal and neonatal care that helps shape and improve the services. It sits independently of the Hospital Trust and Nadia is just great to talk to!
We hope to join together for more events in the future. If you want to find out more or tell your story go to https://www.facebook.com/WolveMVP
Nadia from MVNP and Lisa, Director and Co-Founder at Gatis Community Space
Childminder Workshops with Education Excellence Team in Local Authority
“I was made to feel very welcome at my first visit. The children engaged well which is a good sign. Amazing activities which my little people really got stuck into and thoroughly enjoyed.”
We have been able to meet lots of people supporting families in the city through being on Steering Groups as part of the new launch of Family Hubs. As part of these networks, we delivered four outdoor play workshops for Childminders in the city across September and October at our two beautiful outdoor play sites Boundary Way Community Garden and Gatis Community Space.
The session had open-ended activities to inspire easy outdoor play, play prompts to further ideas outside of the session, short story and songs and also a Take Home Card to carry on playing at home. We are so pleased that those coming along found the sessions useful for their practice as Early Years Childminders.
“Always very welcoming! Made me feel confident and that we would be welcome again!
Fabulous [story]. We were then able to continue this learning through getting the stories from the library and extending children’s learning further. Lots of open-ended activities and resources. I love the baskets of items to explore.
A lovely amount of adult interaction with the children but also conversation with adults, sharing ideas and knowledge which is valuable.
[Take Home cards were] amazing, because it means that (As a childminder) I can not only share the story that the children have been reading (sometimes with a youtube link so they can share that story with their children at home) but can send out the card with the activity ideas on. Parent feedback had been fantastic on these.”
Care Leavers Week
We were delighted to be invited to be part of Care Leaver’s Week in October 2023, delivering an Autumn themed stay and play session at Oasis Hub with fun and friendly faces!
“Care Leavers Week is an important and enjoyable week for all the young people who either have, or are, making the transition from being in care to starting their journey towards independent living.”
Councillor Chris Burden, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People
Play Partners mailing list – join us!
If you are interested in finding out more about our Play Partner work across the city sign up to our community mailing list hereand we’ll keep you updated. Or perhaps you are a Play Partner yourself who’d like to work with us through Play at Home Packs, play workshops, tailored stay and play sessions or training? If so we’d love to hear from you at info@wolvesplaycafe.org .