Playworker

Introduction

Playworkers provide stimulating play opportunities to encourage children to learn, develop and express themselves through play. Playworkers set up safe and creative play areas. Playworkers may work in a variety of settings, including schools, creches, adventure playgrounds, mobile play buses, holiday playschemes and hospitals.

Back to Top

Work Activities

Playworkers provide stimulating play opportunities to encourage children to learn, develop and express themselves through play. Playworkers set up safe and creative play areas, equipping them with all the necessary materials and equipment. The playworkers' role is to guide and support play, making sure that it is fun, creative and safe.

Play encourages children's concentration, creativity, ability to solve problems, imagination, general sense of discovery, and many other skills and qualities. Play activities include games, arts and crafts, drama, swimming, and outdoor trips. Playworkers help children to make friends, learn new skills, develop as individuals and work together in teams.

Making sure play is safe is a very important part of the playworker's responsibilities. They deal with injuries and emergencies, and make children aware of safety by pointing out hazards. Playworkers comfort children when they are hurt or upset. They must report injuries to a parent, carer or guardian, or if they work in a hospital, to a doctor.

Playworkers should also report any changes in a child's habits or behaviour, for example, if they are unusually quiet or seem to be off their food.

Play is recognised as very important to the treatment of sick children in hospital. It helps children take their mind off their illness, deal with stress and anxiety, and feel more comfortable with nurses and doctors.

Babies and very young children in special care units and general wards also benefit from play. Playworkers may use resources such as mirrors, colourful mobiles, toys and music tapes.

Playworkers are responsible for setting up and looking after materials and resources, and for making sure children are safely and comfortably equipped to do an activity. They may have administrative tasks, including keeping records, writing reports and looking after petty cash. Playworkers may help to recruit and train new staff.

Some playworkers progress to act as supervisors or managers, dealing with paperwork and looking after staff and resources, usually on larger sites or for a play service in a local authority.

Playworkers usually work with children aged between 2 and 12 years of age, or they may specialise in a particular age group.

Back to Top

Personal Qualities and Skills

You must understand the importance of play to children's physical, social and emotional development and self-expression. You must have enough imagination to plan stimulating activities, and enough awareness of safety to avoid hazards. Creative skills are useful in activities relating to art, music and drama.

A sense of fun, stamina and lots of energy are important qualities. This work involves physical activity, so you must be fairly fit.

Patience and tolerance are very important: you must be able to cope with noise and demands for your attention. You must be able to use initiative, stay calm under pressure, and respond quickly and calmly to emergencies. Knowledge of first aid is useful.

Back to Top

Pay and Opportunities

Pay rates for playworkers vary.

The pay rates given below are approximate.

Playworkers in local authorities earn in the range of £13,500 - £15,000 a year, rising to around £20,000 a year for play leaders.

In the NHS, salaries are around £18,500 for play specialists, rising to around £21,500 - £26,000 for team leaders and up to £33,500 for team managers.

In the private sector, hourly rates for sessional playworkers are around £6.00 - £10.50 an hour.

Working hours for playworkers vary. Full-time playworkers work 35-39 hours a week. In the NHS they also work weekends on a rota basis. Other employers require 'out-of-school hours' working, so that work is concentrated in the evenings or during the school holiday periods. Part-time and temporary jobs are also available.

Local authorities employ playworkers to work in pre-school centres, play buses, summer schemes, adventure playgrounds, community projects and breakfast and after-school clubs.

In the NHS, playworkers are known as hospital play specialists. Children's hospitals have large play departments employing up to 40 hospital play specialists each. In general hospitals small teams of play staff work in different areas of the hospital.

There are also paid opportunities in the private sector, and opportunities exist to work as a volunteer playworker.

Back to Top

Adult Opportunities

It is illegal for any organisation to set age limits for entry to employment, education or training, unless they can show there is a real need to have these limits.

Colleges will usually consider applications from candidates who do not meet their usual entry requirements. You should check the admissions policy of individual colleges.

• 71% of people in occupations such as playworker work part-time.
• 2% have flexible hours.

Back to Top