About Child Friendly Redbridge
Residents have told us that they want Redbridge to be a great place for children and families so we are now working with UNICEF UK and their Child Friendly Cities & Communities initiative to make our community a more child friendly place.
The Child Friendly Programme was launched by the Child Friendly Redbridge Partnership in October 2019. The programme immediately launched into “Discovery” phase, engaging with over 2,000 children and young people of all ages to ask them two things: what is life like in Redbridge for them? What would they like to see changed or improved? These discussions took place throughout the Covid19 pandemic and lockdown and included conversations with primary and secondary school children, toddlers and parents at children centres and college students. We visited schools, went along to youth clubs, sat in on play sessions in children’s centres and consulted with the Youth Council and our Child Friendly Redbridge Ambassadors.
In February 2021, Unicef UK and the Partnership asked the children and young people in Redbridge to vote for the themes (or “badges”) that are most important to them. The badges they voted for were: Safe and Secure, Healthy and Place, which includes having more positive activities to do and taking care of the environment.
Once we were clear on what children and young people wanted to focus on, we spent the summer of 2020 developing an Action Plan to try and address some of the issues that they raised. We did this by creating a lesson plan and a survey with a local school (John Bramston Primary), having online workshops with older children including our SEND Youth Forum and holding focus groups with parents at children’s centres.
The Child Friendly Redbridge Action Plan sets out how we will collectively address the issues and concerns that children and young people have raised.
The programme is now moving into its delivery phase. For this phase the Child Friendly Redbridge Partnership will work with services, communities, practitioners, children and young people to deliver the Child Friendly Redbridge Action Plan.