The review has been funded by the Welsh Assembly and backed by the main play organisations nationwide. Gill Evans of Play Wales said that the Department for Education and Skills has indicated that it will consider feeding in the results of the consultation to the current review of the National Occupational Standards for playwork and early years education.
The playwork values and assumptions were developed during the drafting of the playwork NVQs over a decade ago and have not been revised since then.
Play Wales believes that they do not reflect the most recent developments within the profession.
The Playwork Principles, the document that is the starting point for the review, aims to support the further development of playwork on behalf of children and to put the playing child at the centre of playwork 'in a way that has not been done before'. The supporting arguments make a clear distinction between playwork as the facilitation of children's play, and playwork that deals with adult agendas such as play provision management and legislation.
The document has been drafted by Bob Hughes, national co-ordinator for Play Education and author of A playworker's taxonomy of play types, Gordon Sturrock, course leader of the BA Playwork and Youth Studies degree at University of East London/Tab, and Mick Conway, co-author of the 'Quality in Play' quality assurance system for play providers.
It offers ten points, beginning with 'One of the fundamental processes that nature has evolved to sustain life is that human children must play'.
An expert group of playworkers, including a representative from sector skills council SkillsActive, will help evaluate the responses and revise the proposal in two phases. The deadline for responses to phase one is 23 April 2004, with phase two starting on 17 May with a deadline of 4 June.
The consultation could be extended for additional revision if a consensus has not been reached.
The Playwork Principles, the supporting papers and the consultation response form can be found at www. playwales.org.uk/values, and hard copies and further information about the consultation can be obtained from Play Wales on 029 2048 6050.