16.06.2022
Supporting Women, Reducing Harm: Supporting a National Conversation
In April, Inspiring Scotland’s Perinatal and Infant Mental Health team co-hosted Supporting Women, Reducing Harm, the first-ever national conversation on how services should care for families affected by substance use in the perinatal period. This event was in partnership with Scottish Government, Perinatal Mental Health Network Scotland, NHS Scotland, third sectors partners and women with
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15.10.2021
Thrive Outdoors Blog Series: ‘Our wee garden’
Blog 2 Read on as we share Blog 2 in our blog series on bringing Outdoor ELC to the Botanics in Edinburgh. This week’s blog contributor is Cath Ashby part of the learning team at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. Hi I am Cath Ashby and I have worked at the Botanics for 23
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15.10.2021
Thrive Outdoors Blog Series: Bringing Outdoor ELC to the Botanics
Blog 1 This week sees the start of an exciting collaboration between the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), Inspiring Scotland’s Thrive Outdoors team, the University of Edinburgh and two Edinburgh-based Early Learning and Childcare settings; Edzell Nursery and Outdoor Nursery Edinburgh (ONE). Over the next six months the partners will undertake research as groups of
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06.11.2020
Accessing the right kind of help can transform the lives of new parents
Pregnancy, birth and caring for a new baby can involve some of the most rewarding experiences in life. Yet being a new parent can also be difficult and isolating for mothers and families.
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21.10.2020
The importance of engaging Scotland’s girls in Active Play
To celebrate Scottish woman and girls in sport week 2020 we decided to interview Anne- Marie, who is involved in the running of the Active Play programme at voluntary organisation FARE Scotland, on the importance of engaging girls in Active play. FARE Scotland (Family Action in Rogerfield and Easterhouse) is a voluntary organisation working within
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02.07.2020
Where should our future classrooms be?
In this collaborative blog, Rachel Cowper of Thrive Outdoors and Central Scotland Green Network Trust’s Deryck Irving present the case for moving classroom teaching outside post-COVID-19. The response to the current pandemic has meant the introduction of new behaviours to many aspects of our day-to-day lives. The process of easing lockdown will require changed behaviours
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22.05.2020
Nurturing the ‘new normal’ through outdoor learning and play
As we move out of lockdown, embracing our outside spaces can help society recover and build resilience for the future, writes Thrive Outdoors Programme Manager Rachel Cowper. The online algorithms must be getting to know my reading habits of late, because I have come across many articles over the last few days discussing what the
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29.11.2019
Playing outside helps children to have a stake in their communities
By Jill Fraser, Community Play Performance Advisor Community is an old and deeply human idea. It is about sharing; people sharing experiences, sharing places and sharing hopes. We gain a sense of community early in our lives. For children, playing is intrinsically linked to a burgeoning sense of belonging to a bigger group of people
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20.11.2019
Beyond play: community play charities are a vital support for struggling families
By Jill Fraser, Community Play Performance Advisor Inspiring Scotland exists to address poverty and disadvantage. The role of Play Rangers, our community play programme, in this work isn’t self-evident. Yet giving children the opportunity to play outside, in their own neighbourhood, can reveal the damaging effects and true extent of child poverty in Scotland and
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22.10.2019
We need our children to be better than us – outdoor play can help
There is a saying, variously attributed to early environmental campaigners but likely a much older proverb from a wiser time and place, that goes: “We do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.” Whatever its origins, the sentiment rings true and by its maxim we have failed our children
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26.09.2019
Working together for wellbeing
I firmly believe that the wellbeing of people is paramount. It directs the work we do at Inspiring Scotland, as well as the work I do personally as a member of several community and advisory groups. It directs the work I do as a sports coach for children and young people. That’s why I was
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28.08.2019
Celia Tennant: Our response to the incorporation of the UNCRC in Scots law
At Inspiring Scotland, we firmly believe that the health, happiness and wellbeing of children and young people is paramount. It is a shared responsibility of civil society – people and organisations across the public, private and third sectors – to protect children and young people. To support them to grow up with the means
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14.05.2018
Go2play is now Thrive Outdoors
At Inspiring Scotland, we want all of Scotland’s children to thrive. We have been working in outdoor play since 2010 and we know that by playing outdoors, children grow, learn and develop, emotionally and physically, in the best possible way. In short, growing playing and learning outdoors is how children thrive. That’s why, after eight
Read More11.12.2017
There is so much to play for when we encourage young children to enjoy the outdoors
By Juliet Robertson, Outdoor learning and play specialist, Creative STAR Learning The image of children splashing in muddy puddles or running, carefree through the woods, giggling in the way only happy children can, might seem like a nostalgic rural idyll to city dwellers in this age of social media and easy-access tech. But it doesn’t have
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11.09.2017
Away and Play: Fun, free and vital for development
We have lost something by scheduling ‘fun’ as part of our busy lives. Who remembers hopscotch? Climbing into a cardboard box? A stick that to you was a magic wand or a Light Sabre? Who remembers just running through the woods or over the grass for no real reason at all? I am sure most
Read More19.04.2017
Make outdoor play the norm for our children
Rachel Cowper from our go2play fund urges us all to let children play outside in The Herald. With a sunny start to April and the longer days ahead, you might begin to see the streets and green spaces of Scotland filled with children and wonder: is it not always so? Sadly, like the rose-tinted memories
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