Preston chosen as pilot area for £250,000 community play library project

Preston has been chosen as one of the areas to pilot a £250,000 community play library project.

A network of community play libraries is to be set up across the North after education charity SHINE awarded £249,000 to fund a major new project for early years children.

The scheme, which will be run by early development experts Boromi, will see free play resources being made available in 250 settings.

It is hoped that more than 16,000 children will benefit from the scheme in the first three years of the project.

Preston is one of four areas to be chosen to pilot the scheme in the first year, with the others being Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds.

SHINE funded an independent two-year evaluation of the programme which found that children accessing Boromi bags experienced an average 25 percentage-point change in their communication skills during the last school year.

However, its creator Evie Keough also explained that “working through school settings alone will not be enough. We need to also be working in a way where we’re able to reach younger children, from birth”.

To achieve this, Boromi is developing community Pop-in Play Libraries, which will operate alongside its existing schools programme and within the local communities.

Evie explained: “The impact of poverty on language can be seen as early as two years old. We’ve known for a long time that we need to find a way to reach children before they start in a formal setting, and this funding enables us to do that.

“We are developing Play Libraries that can be accessed from birth, reaching new families of children aged 0-5 years who we simply wouldn’t be able to connect with through our schools’ programme alone.

“Schools will remain central to what we do, but we will be working deeper into communities through settings such as libraries, children’s centres, food banks and family hubs.

“We want to develop an agile approach that means we can work in a more bespoke community-based way.”

She added: “Our long-term ambition is to develop a national infrastructure of free, accessible and hands-on play support that families can access within their local community. Our priority is to identify cold spots, finding local communities where the need is greatest, where the support doesn’t currently exist.”

In the first year of the project, Boromi is working in partnership with four lead schools – in Preston, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.

Helen Rafferty, Interim CEO of SHINE, said: “We know that the experiences and interactions a child has in their very earliest years are critical to their future development, however, in many of the most challenged areas of the North of England parents lack the support, resources and connections they need to make the most of this exciting stage of their child’s life.

“We are proud to be supporting Boromi to make a substantial and widespread impact on children and families in these early years, and very much looking forward to seeing what comes next for Boromi.”

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