Nursery World - Travellers take up pre-school on playworkers' intervention

Playworkers in Northern Ireland are behind the increasing attendance at pre-school by traveller children, research has found. An independent report, Early Years Development Through Play for Traveller Children, assesses The Toybox scheme, which was set up by early years organisation NIPPA and Save the Children in 2003 after it emerged that traveller children were three times less likely than settled children to attend pre-school.

An independent report, Early Years Development Through Play for Traveller Children, assesses The Toybox scheme, which was set up by early years organisation NIPPA and Save the Children in 2003 after it emerged that traveller children were three times less likely than settled children to attend pre-school.

The scheme involves weekly home visits to traveller sites where playworkers 'se toys, arts materials and books with young children to develop their communication, creative, motor, speech and language and social skills.

In 1999 traveller children accessing pre-school was only 18 per cent, Siobhan Fitzpatrick, NIPPA chief executive, told Nursery World. It is now 70 per cent. The programme doesn't just increase access to pre-school education, it acts as a bridge. The project, which initially received 503,400 from the Northern Ireland Executive Fund for Children, has been granted an extra Pounds 100,000 over the next two years to expand into other traveller settlement areas.

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