Tayside OWL Committee Meeting 02/03/21 by Zoom

Present Alison Wilson (Chair), Anne-Marie Mackin (Secretary), Kirsty Adam, Mel McRae, Trisha Carrigan, Penny Martin, Cara Roberts

Apologies Jillian Ritchie, Lisa Henry

The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss an application to the OWLS Special Play Project Grant – Covid Recovery through Play and the planned March meeting was brought forward a week to facilitate this

When we had received notification of the grant it seemed sensible to look at building on the existing work that the POP group has been doing and look at expanding the group for older children. Kirsty and Mel had done some preliminary work before the meeting and had a range of ideas based on previous discussions with POP parents and at OWL meetings that we decided to put forward for the grant.

We weren’t sure about the strategic element aspect and wondered if this could be related to for example the relaunch of the Play Strategy or incorporation into Scots Law of the UNCRC or a strategic initiative to do with outdoor play and learning specifically. We agreed that whatever it is that we would work within those guidelines/intentions.

Kirsty and Mel presented their ideas

Extend POP to children P 1 and P2 and run it on a Saturday or in the summer holidays. This would act as a pilot to try and create a momentum for parents of these slightly older children. Having a professionally led nature workshop to empower parents/carers to work with children in the woods.

Outreach sessions in the northern part of Tayside as we now have several members living in Dundee and Angus. Idea to cascade the POP momentum and hopefully stimulate a new POP group to start up there. We also wondered about whether we could run the sessions at Kinnoull to build on the current work and if the D and A people would travel to Perth

Provide transport to support Homestart and other low income families to access the sessions

We discussed ideas about where we might run it. Kinnoull because of the natural affordances but issues with accessibility, Quarrymill, South Inch in the wooded area by the nature ponds etc. We also revisited the idea of using Scottish Centres Belmont Centre as that is fairly central within the Tayside OWLS area.

We also discussed how long the sessions would be and felt probably 2.5 hours

After this we felt the next step was to do a survey monkey to see which of the ideas have traction

Anne-Marie volunteered to be part of the team organising and running the events and to help Mel with the bid. Mel to write the first draft. Penny will also support the project in terms of financial scrutiny. We will get the bid finished and submitted by Monday which is the closing date.

It was noted that some of the POP parents are wanting to do more for example being involved in impact and evaluation methods.

We also had some discussions about building on this work or parallel work with applications to for example the Perth Common Good Fund

Three of the committee felt that they could offer workshops as part of the project

We revisited the potential to use these sessions as a springboard for a network of POP groups across Tayside under the guidance of Tayside OWLS and using the principles we work with and to develop the potential of outdoor sensory for children with additional support needs.

We agreed to look at the Perth Common Good Fund to see if we can get the money for outdoor First Aid training which several of the POP parents are interested in doing and which would enable the group to safely expand ie to two groups running consecutively.

We agreed to have a sub group meeting with Kirsty, Mel, AM and Penny and we will next meet as a whole group on Tues 20th April