The Association of Play Industries has launched a new Community Hub website to give schools, parish councils, families and community groups the latest news on play funding and a host of resources to help them create new play opportunities in their area.
Check out the Community Hub here: www.api-play.org/community-hub
The “Hub” is designed to be accessible for everyone and includes four key sections which will be updated on a regular basis. Here is a brief breakdown of each section:
1) API How-To Guides: a series of resources produced by the API to give communities information on how to go about creating a playground. These resources range from funding guidance to using social media to promote play projects. API How-To Guides can all be downloaded as ready-to-print PDFs. We have also recently updated our new funding page.
2) The Value of Play: everyone from Government ministers to teachers and parents recognizes that play is an important activity for children. Here we try to explore the social, health and well-being benefits of providing children with accessible playgrounds in their community.
3) Play in Schools: much like adults at work, children spend a significant part of their day at school. And in this environment we expect children to learn and develop skills – play is an essential part of this development process. Modern playground equipment provides children with a diverse set of learning challenges and research has shown that regular exposure to the outdoors and physical activity throughout the school day improves children’s ability to concentrate, both in and out of the classroom.
4) API Blog: The blog allows the API, its member companies and other members of the play sector, to pass on direct advice to communities through interviews, columns and reports on the latest schemes and developments. This is an opportunity for people to visit our site and tell us how they think the playgrounds of the future should be and to post requests for new play resources!
Check out the Community Hub here: www.api-play.org/community-hub
Read the latest API blog post here: http://blog.api-play.org/
Follow the API on Twitter: @apiplay
Find us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/API-Community-Hub/295672913849065
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