9.3.9 Leisure Activities |
Contents
1. Context
The National Minimum Standards for Children's Homes 2011 emphasises the importance of leisure and activities for children and young people in Local Authority Care.
2. Scope
The Standards recognise that leisure and activities contribute to the overall development of children and young people. Furthermore this is an area that can be neglected when a young person's life is in turmoil.
It is therefore important to create and maintain a positive culture within the home with respect to the pursuit of leisure and activities.
3. Procedure
| 1.0 | There should be plenty of opportunity for young people to engage in a range of leisure and activity pursuits. |
| 1.1 | Staff and young people should be involved and engaged together in discussion, consultation and decision making, in relation to the overall running of the home and more specifically to plan leisure, activities, special events and holidays and outings. For instance, through young people’s meetings and one to one sessions. Please see Consultation (Participation and Involvement) Procedure. |
| 1.2 | The particular interests and talents of individual young people should be considered within the individual Placement Plan. This should include ways in which the young person will be supported to pursue their interests and talents. |
| 1.3 | There should be sufficient financial resources to facilitate leisure and activity pursuits. |
| 1.4 | Young people should be helped and encouraged to engage in leisure and other activities that promote a positive involvement with the cultural, ethnic, religious and language heritages to which they belong. This should also be seen as an opportunity to celebrate diversity and help other young people from different backgrounds to learn about difference in positive and enjoyable ways. |
| 1.5 | Staff should also engage in leisure and other activities, alongside young people, whenever it is appropriate to do so. |
| 1.6 | The staff team, in consultation with young people, should address ways in which to achieve a balance between ‘controlled’ and ‘free’ time within the overall structure of the day (taking into account the controlled time of the school day). |
| 1.7 | Any activities that young people engage in must take into account the safety of the young person. |
| 1.8 | Any high-risk activity that the young person chooses to pursue, for instance rock climbing or horse riding, must be supervised by a qualified person. Additionally, parental consent should be gained beforehand. See Adventurous Activities. |
| 1.9 | Young people should have access to a choice of books, newspapers, magazines and comics. |
| 1.10 | The recreational use of videos and computer games should be age appropriate. Therefore individual arrangements will need to be made in order to allow access to videos for older young people that are not appropriate for the younger ones. Such arrangements will need to be made through individual and group discussions. |
| 1.11 | With ever increasing access to the internet, each home will need to work out ways in which to reduce the risk of young people accessing websites and individual or network predators and perpetrators of child sexual abuse, who use the internet as a means of gaining access to children and young people |
| 1.12 | Whenever possible, young people should be encouraged and supported to engage in community based activities within the locality of the home. This should also extend to helping, whenever possible, young people to make friendships outside, as well as inside, the home. This should also include ensuring that appropriate friends are welcome to visit the young person in their home. |
| 1.13 | Any transport used by the home should be well maintained and should not be distinguished from any other car or bus. |
End