Researching the Power of Play in Children's Hospitals

In September 2024, A Place in Childhood (APIC) collaborated with children and teenagers from Langlees and Bainsford, Falkirk, to deliver the inspiring Children’s Neighbourhood Festival. This vibrant event, rooted in co-creation, celebrated community spirit and showcased the power of young people’s ideas.

The festival, born from a neighbourhood planning project with local schools, aimed to highlight the area’s positive aspects while promoting play, cycling, and environmental awareness. With funding from Paths for All and Falkirk Council, the young participants took the lead—planning activities, designing posters, and learning valuable teamwork skills.

The event featured everything from inflatables and creative arts to climate action stalls and exotic animals, uniting the community in a joyous celebration. It was more than just a fun day—it demonstrated the lasting impact of empowering children through co-creation.

Read more about this remarkable festival and hear directly from the young changemakers in our blog and podcast!

We’re thrilled to share this short film, co-created and co-produced by the Audit Scotland Youth Advisory Panel! We facilitate the panel, and this inspiring video captures their vital contributions to shaping and celebrating the 2024 National Alcohol and Drugs Services Audit.

Today we publish a new research report on Teenagers and Public Space. This lays our teenager’s views on how to tackle anti-social behaviour from their perspective, and improve places so that they meet the needs of young people.

In December 2022, we worked with Sustrans Scotland and the Edinburgh & Lothians Developing Young Workforce team to deliver a session on urban design at Tynecastle High School. This second blog in a two part series explores outputs from the session where we used the game Cities: Skylines.

In December 2022, we worked with Sustrans Scotland and the Edinburgh & Lothians Developing Young Workforce team to deliver a session on urban design at Tynecastle High School. This first blog in a two part series explores how and why we used the game Cities: Skylines.

Today we launch The Children and Young People’s Manifesto Scotland with our Young Consultants from #ScotYouthandCOVID3. Will you help them get the word out and involve as many children and young people across the country as possible?

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, we detail the experiences and needs of young people who are refugees or asylum seekers and have been separated from their families. We also note what they need to be incorporated into the Children and Young People’s Manifesto for Rights in Recovery.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, the third in a 4 part series, our Young Consultants outline how they feel extra-curricular opportunities and transitions between schools and into employment should change in Scotland’s education system.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, the third in a 4 part series, our Young Consultants outline how they feel assessments should change in Scotland’s secondary education.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, the second in a 4 part series, our Young Consultants outline how they feel the curriculum and delivery of learning should change in Scotland’s secondary education.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, the first in a 4 part series, our Young Consultants outline the principles they think are central to a fair and motivating Scottish education system.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, the second of two, we detail the experiences and needs of Young Carers. This blog focuses on the experiences of young carers living across Highland, and what both they and young carers from Edinburgh need us to incorporate into our Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, the first of two, we detail the experiences and needs of Young Carers. This blog focuses on the experiences of Edinburgh’s Young Carers to incorporate into our Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, we detail the needs to incorporate into our Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery for children in primary school.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, we detail the Asks to add to our Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery for children and young people who have family members in prison.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, we detail the needs to incorporate into our Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery, for children and young living with Long Covid.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, we detail the experiences of children and young people living with Long Covid.

We recently submitted a response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on their draft National Planning Framework 4. Read a summary here of how we think it could become more child-friendly.

In January 2022 we embarked on phase 3 of our #ScotYouthandCOVID project. In this blog, we detail the experiences of children and young people during the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what it’s been like to learn during this disruption.

Play Scotland and A Place in Childhood are inviting representatives of organisations that work with children and young people to a discussion on planning, to help inform responses from the sector to the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) draft, released by Scottish Government in November 2021. We are holding three events 19th, 21st and 22nd February

In June 2021, we had the absolute pleasure of working with Sustrans Scotland, St Paul’s Youth Forum, and St Philomena’s Primary School (in north-east Glasgow), on a pilot placemaking project to engage local children using game Minecraft. Working with a team of 10 budding young designers, we alternated between site visits, group discussions, and using Minecraft to explore designs for a new public square in neighbouring Langdale Street. The Minecraft world included a faithful rendering of the local area, with local landmarks and many of the children’s homes.

Today we launch our #ScotYouthandCOVID2 report with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. The repot tells the story of our Virtual Participatory Action research project on children and young people’s experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic so far. Read all about it here!

In this blog, Dr Jenny Wood and Dr Maureen McBride reflect on a policy roundtable on hearing children’s voices in policymaking.

This blog presents the strategy, constructed with our Young Consultants on the #ScotYouthandCOVID2 project, to turn their Asks to the Scottish Government into a manifesto for as many children and young people as possible. Key themes include representation, communication, cooperation & collaboration, being heard, and considering timelines.

In workshop 4 of #ScotYouthandCOVID2 we reflected together with our Young Consultants on how the project had gone so far, anything new that had emerged over the Easter Holidays, and within each taskforce group looked at how we might learn from best practice for developing recommendations to the new Scottish Government administration. The findings relate to wellbeing, remote schooling and the return to school buildings.

In November 2020, our Dr Jenny Wood spoke at RTPI South East Scotland Chapter event on child-friendly planning. You can watch the event again here.

This blog, the fourth about our Covid-19 Project with Scottish Children and Young People, details further outcomes from Workshop 3 that relate to remote learning and the growing attainment gap. Taking the 5 big Covid-19 challenges discussed in workshop 2, our young consultants were unanimous that remote schooling is having the greatest impact on their well-being.

This blog sets out how to create a child-friendly Scottish planning system. It summarises our response to Scottish Government’s ‘Call for Ideas’ for the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4), which will be the overarching framework that sets out statutory responsibilities of planning at all levels.