PLAY@HOME
REPORT
2015
Evaluation report for the CALA Play@Home
(P@H) Project 2014/15
OUTCOME 1
Parents have greater awareness of play at home activities and are
more confident to try these at home.
This outcome was met through the delivery of 20 practical workshops
which reached a total audience of 103 parents / staff and 132 children
across Highland. Workshop materials were updated to link directly with the
principles and practice within Pre-Birth to Three — Supporting our Youngest Children and Families, as well as the drivers from the newest National
Guidance – Building the Ambition, thus providing a wider range of activities
and variations to encourage progression.
Seven of these workshops were delivered at the end of a Baby Massage
block / Breast Feeding class with a total of 36 parents and 34 children
attending, plus one ‘Professionals’ workshop delivered to 2 Prison Officers,
2 Direct Childcare Staff, 2 Family Support workers, 1 Community Project
Worker and 3 Trainee Health Visitors.
By extending the professionals’ knowledge, we hoped to enable staff to
confidently deliver their own workshops, giving ideas and guidance to the
vulnerable families they work with. The Prison staff will be guided by our
PTCO* to deliver these sessions with dads and their visiting families, as
well as looking at extending this successful programme for further weeks in
the future.
We are now working in partnership with the HV teams to run ‘baby
massage plus’ classes – 4 weeks Baby Massage, 1 week Play@Home and
Book Bug, 1 week ‘fun with food’. CALA support 3 of these classes in the
Inverness-shire area at present. Parents accessing these are seeing the
links between baby massage and Play@Home from these very early
stages.
During the workshops Parent Toddler Group Facilitators actively encouraged parents to get involved with their children, boosting their confidence
and encouraging effective parenting skills. Some of the activities offered
had an outdoor theme and had a good success rate. All parents were
happy to see their children ‘having a go’ and commented on how simple
they were to replicate at home.
One group were supported by their church members, who run their own
Toddler Group, and they were delighted with the session and asked the
PTCO for information to allow them to take the activities forward themselves.
(*PTCO = Parent and Toddler Coordinator)
Appendix 3 – Feedback from professionals
“Definitely be making play dough”
“Need more info about your sessions to pass onto families please” (this refers to toddler groups and one off Play@Home work shops that the toddler
team deliver)
“Great networking, well presented”
“Really helpful refresher about how useful a
resource this is”
“Good fun! Getting the time to play”
“Excellent hands on activity practice”
“Great meeting other groups!”
“Dads group, good to know about it too”
“Loved the activities, well thought out but cheap as chips!”
“loved trying some of the games/activities”
“Definitely use for educating our families”
“Would definitely make gloop/do some of the activities. Enjoyed it”
Appendix 4 – Feedback from the Prison workshop
The visiting adults commented
“these are such easy things to do and it’s so much better than other visits,
this feels normal for the kids, they have loved it”
“This is so good to be doing something like this and the kids have really like
to do this, nice for them to take something home too”
Children commented
We made this, can I take it home, really?”
“Making smelly socks is awesome!”
Prisoners commented
“That was great”
“You did great organising all that, thanks a lot”
“That was so good to do things like that with the kids, thanks for doing that”
Staff commented
“That went so well”
“I think that is the first some of these men will have done an activity with their
child, what a positive thing for them and the children”
“Did you notice X, he was joining in and he did all the activities with his kids,
he’s normally trying to work out how to XXXXXXXX, that’s amazing he did all
the activities, great”
Appendix 2 – feedback from Parents
(Parents comments using the ‘Stickman’ Evaluation format)
Please write on a post it — something you have learned from this
workshop, and stick it on the lightbulb.
“I learned you could make bird feeders
with cheerio’s”
“I have learned that having fun
doesn’t need to cost lots of money” –
Bird feeders & Ball-Pool
“I learned to make scented socks”
“How you can use odd materials for play”
“Using bin-liners to cover the table”
“How to fill a basket full of treasures!”
Please write on a post it — something you
joyed, and stick it on the heart.
With the prison, we named the session ‘Play Together’ but it was in
essence a Play@Home workshop. We also adapted the Play@Home
materials because the prison staff pointed out that literacy levels varied
and we wanted to ensure all could join in. The families took written
copies of the activities and the Play@Home books home with them.
At the time of writing this report, one Gaelic session has not taken place,
no one turned up for the Dad’s session in Dingwall (this will be
rescheduled) and the Woman’s Aid in Dingwall had not returned any
communication regarding the delivery.
Gaelic Groups
en-
“I enjoyed making a bird feeder from cheerio’s and pipe cleaners”
“I enjoyed making lots of noise with the spoons and pans”
“Playing with my daughter!”
“Getting messy”
“Everything”
“Getting stuck into the gloop”
“Making a glitter bottle for my baby”
Please write on a post it - something you will take away and try at home,
and stick it on the bag
“I will remember everything”
“Will definitely try the painting water on fences – no mess J and great fun”
“The natural bird feeders”
“Loved making gloop and I will be trying this out again”
“Shaving foam”
“Bird feeders”
“Blueberries for snack”
“Sensory bags with gel and
conditioner”
Please write on a post it — something you did not enjoy, or will forget, and
stick it on the bin
“Nothing, loved them all, the kids will really benefit from them”
90% of parents attending were pleased to take away the offered activity
handouts, as well as copies of the books, if they had not already received
these. All the professionals received a set of the three staged books to
take away.
Three Workshops were delivered by CALA Gaelic Development Workers
and were well attended by a total of 16 adults and 22 children. One of
the workshops delivered was specifically for Dads and the general
comments were - how easily they could replicate the activities at home.
There were also comments about how they felt increased confidence in
allowing their young children time for sensory play with ‘unexpected’
materials.
There were a few grandmothers at one group and
they were going to check
whether their daughters had
the books, as they would
certainly use them to carry
out more of the simple activities.
During one of the deliveries,
the weather was too cold for
outside play so the
development worker took snow
inside in trays, along with
pots and pans, which was
well received by all.
OUTCOME 2
Workshops raise professional awareness of the value and
purpose of Play@Home activities giving confidence to promote these within respective roles.
This outcome was successfully met through the delivery of workshops to:

4 Children’s Daycare Centre staff teams

‘Family First’ staff

Woman’s Aid staff

Staff from Home-Start
These workshops were accessed by a total of 30 staff and 63
children. We linked the workshops to information about the practical
application of the national Pre-Birth to Three Guidance and also gave a focus to supporting the development of
early literacy and numeracy. We provided age appropriate
books, props relating to the stories, story sacks, and literature
on the benefits of reading stories to very young children. We also incorporated Bookbug sessions into the workshops, singing
activities and handing out song cards, as well as encouraging
the promotion of local libraries to parents, by staff. Timetables of
local Bookbug sessions were also handed out for staff information.
Most of the staff at the Daycare Centres were delighted with the
sessions, noting that they had provided them with inspiration
and the confidence to go ahead and carry these out following
the session delivered by the PTGFs*. Staff were delighted by
the level of children’s
engagement and the ease with which
they could adapt indoor
activities for use outdoors.
The *Parent Toddler Group Facilitators gave each centre copies
of the activity sheets to hand out to parents and staff, along with
song cards and extra P@H books.
Appendix 1—PLAY AT HOME EVALUATION PLAN
AIM: To raise awareness of and encourage engagement with the Play at Home project
OUTCOME
1. Parents have
greater awareness
of play at home
activities and are
more confident to
try these at home.
INDICATORS
METHODS FOR COLLECTING INFORMATION
Level of parent
engagement with
activities in workshops
Pre and post workshop questionnaires
Parents are using
activities from
P@H with their
children at home
Graffiti boards during workshops
Discussions with parents (recording
comments)
Verbal feedback from children
Photographs and videos of parents and
children interacting with activities
Follow up visits to groups with discussion on Play@Home
2. Workshops
raise professional
awareness of the
value and purpose
of play at home
activities giving
confidence to promote these within
respective roles
Play at home
activities are
used in various
settings as appropriate
3. Improved partnership working
between agencies
and greater awareness of respective
roles and responsibilities.
Increased interprofessional
working between
EY colleagues
e.g. Health visitors, childcare
practitioners,
Bord Na gaidhlig.
Staff write action
plans for taking
forward ideas
from the training
in their future
work
More regular and
effective communication between
agencies.
Pre and post workshop questionnaires
Graffiti boards during workshops
Verbal feedback from staff attending
workshops
Follow up phone call interview with day
care staff 1 month after training
Collation of information from action plan
Pre and post workshop questionnaires
Graffiti boards during workshops
Verbal feedback from staff attending
work shops
Observation of how well contact
information is received by participants.
Conclusion
OUTCOME 3
A total of 103 adults and 132 children participated in the CALA
workshops and the feedback from adults and children alike was
extremely encouraging and positive. Awareness of the
Play@Home books was undoubtedly improved and parents appeared more confident and eager to use the books at home, in order to find new ways in which to interact with their children. There
were a small percentage of parents /carers who were not previously aware of the books, but through discussion they now know
where they can access them said they would do so, intending to
use them regularly.
Improved partnership working between agencies and greater
awareness of respective roles and responsibilities.
The majority of parents took away the activity handouts, along with
the song cards which were made available at each workshop, implying that they were user friendly and appealing. A variety of activity handouts, which were designed by the CALA Parent Toddler
Group Facilitators, are now available to download from the Health
Scotland website, which can be accessed by parents, staff and
other health professionals. These downloads are also available in
Polish and were produced by CALA’s Bilingual Family Transition
Coordinator. The Toddler Facilitators will continue to highlight
these resources to parents when they visit groups and encourage
them to access them and other materials on the website.
One of the Women’s Aid centres has asked if we would return
later in the year to run a series of workshops for the mums and
children based on the success of the delivery of this project. The
staff were in agreement that the benefits of the Play@Home
practical workshops were just what the mums in their setting needed.
Throughout all the workshops the need for demonstration and role
modeling of activities to bring the Play@Home books to life, was
highlighted. Parents needed and enjoyed this practical experience
to reassure and motivate them to use the P@H books, as well as
reinforcing the importance of simple play and interaction in developing their relationship with their children.
Toddler Facilitators and Gaelic Development Workers worked
together during the project to develop an activity plan for each
focused workshop; changing the layout and content slightly to suit
the age of children. A sustained benefit is that we will continue to
work together in the future, with regards baby / toddler groups and
play activities. We demonstrated we can work positively with other
agencies; much of this is evidenced in the previous two outcomes.
Working alongside other professionals and agencies to ensure ongoing and effective partnerships for the benefits of children and
their families and these established networks will hopefully continue to prove useful in many ways for future collaborative working.
Jayne Watt
CALA Parent Toddler Coordinator
March 2015
This outcome was met through the effective delivery of workshops
to a wide range of parents and professionals. We were able to
fulfil a request from a Practice Lead (EY) to deliver a session to a
group of EY Practitioners. We developed positive links with staff
at Inverness Woman’s Aid, 4 daycare centres and voluntary
organisations in Invergordon and Broadford.
Through the delivery of workshops at baby massage, breast
feeding and Baby Groups, we have built up good working
relationships with the local health professional teams and we are
able to support new mums to take their next step into their local
community, accessing local Baby and Toddler groups.
The geographical spread of the workshops delivered included
Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Inverness, Dingwall, Black-Isle,
Isle of Skye, Tain, Invergordon, Ullapool, Drumnadrochit,
Kinlochbervie and Beauly. Workshops and training deliveries took
place between December 2013 and February 2014.