About PARS
PARS is a model of professional playwork practice, a programme of
introductory and accredited courses for adults who work with children in their
leisure time and an international community of
like-minded practitioners and
academics.
Our Vision
Children are naturally curious, creative, spontaneous, experimental and live in the ‘here and now’. These characteristics of childhood are hugely important for children’s happiness and well-being (now and in the future).
PARS practitioners advocate for recognition by the adult world that children need time and space to be children and that childhood is an equally important stage of life to adulthood.
Our Mission and Purpose
Our mission is to create a worldwide community of professional PARS playwork practitioners. We are achieving this by qualifying adults who provide supervised leisure time for children in PARS playwork practice.
PARS practitioners free up time and space for children to be children by enabling children to direct their own free time, despite the presence of adults.
Our Values
Our international PARS community of practitioners, academics, assessors and administration team all have the PARS vision, mission and purpose in common and also share several fundamental values. These values underpin all our work – whether that’s working directly with children, in our training delivery and research, and even in our meetings (there’s no such thing as a ‘boring meeting’ in PARS!).
Above all, PARS people always find joy in what we do – even the tricky bits! – as we can see children’s experiences of their leisure time changing around the world as a result of our work. And of course, being supported by such a dynamic international community of like-minded people is a real joy in itself! If you share our vision of a world where childhood is treated as a different but equal part of the human life span and would like to connect with like-minded adults around the world, do......
Our PARS playwork community is a fun, stimulating and supportive space to explore the needs of children and childhood from different perspectives. In the spirit of curiosity and adventure, we constantly develop new partnerships and projects, finding innovative solutions to old playwork problems. We are happy when we are can learn from our mistakes and we respect and support others when they do the same. We never position ourselves as ‘experts’, as we are all learning about children, childhood and how to work in different contexts all the time. We value other approaches to working with children and love to learn from and with professionals from diverse disciplines.
Reflexion, empathy, authenticity, curiosity, collaboration, integrity, flexibility, creativity, innovation, transformation, respect, joy.