Right for the job

Sophie turned to the last page of her interview schedule and read the final question, giggling aloud. Looking at the applicant, she asked, 'When did you last fart in public?' This is not a question one would normally expect during an interview for a playworker! But this interview is no ordinary one. Sophie (pictured above), and her fellow interviewing colleagues, Jamie, Max and Rosie, are all children, and the question above - like 20 others - was compiled by children within Poppleton School's Out Club (PopSOC) in York.

For over a year PopSOC has involved children in the recruitment process because we believe children's participation is vital to the ongoing development of a child empowered organisation. Participation is at the core of all the club's functions and processes. Of course, adult employers require suitably qualified, police-checked, referenced, knowledgeable and capable playwork applicants. But do children look for these same qualities? A survey I conducted at the end of 2001 suggested not, with a high percentage of children having their own ideology of the playworker's role and the types of 'qualities' they expected of adults working within that role. What is more, children seemed to draw on personality issues and the ability to play at child level as key indicators of a good playworker.