Kieran Brophy on 1000 Play Streets Movement

Lukas: Our next guest is assistant director at Play Australia and loves helping people discover the value and power of play. He's spent most of his career in the health promotion and sports industries. He's a children's book author and illustrator and his favorite pastime is of course playing at home with his three kids. Today we're talking about the 1000 Play Streets movement, overcoming the stigma of children playing in the street and the practical steps in supporting a healthy childhood. A big warm welcome to the studio, Kieran Brophy.

Kieran Brophy: Thanks Lukas, really appreciate you having me on the podcast today. It's great to be here.

Lukas: No problem at all. We love playmakers like yourself so I'm really looking forward to the chat and I think it's a great opportunity to de-stigmatize the modern play approach of trying to get children in the street again. Some people were thinking why are they even worried about that, some people are like no chance. It's a very polarizing topic we found.

Kieran Brophy: Absolutely, we found that yeah.

Lukas: First question of the day - you're in Victoria and you've overcome a lot of challenges with COVID and lockdowns. What is the state of play in Victoria at the moment as you see it?

Kieran Brophy: Yeah look, COVID's just shaken up our world completely hasn't it and it's I guess forced us all to sort of look at ourselves. I mean we faced some serious lockdowns here in Vic and look in a funny way it's actually been a really good thing for play I'll say that Lukas because what it's done is it's shaken up the I guess the family priorities list and children haven't been going to structured activities and they've been given this amazing opportunity to actually play at home and in their communities and I guess we've embraced this really community-centric way of living where we live, work and play where we are and that has real positive ramifications for social connection and providing more opportunities for children so I'm choosing to look at the silver lining. Absolutely we know that there has been some early research around play deprivation and impact on kids as well and I guess there's a need for us to understand well which children have been really affected through COVID and what can we do to really put our hand out and help those children because I mean I reflect on my own experience and look I live in a pretty well connected street, we know our neighbors, I feel safe to let the kids out and go play so we've - look I've got a two, four and a six year old Lukas so I'm very much in that early years pocket and look it's been great for us to have that time at home and to see the kids get out and play with the neighbors but I recognize that our experience is very different from others who've sort of gone through COVID and particularly those who sort of live in high density living and don't have access to quality spaces to play so look lots of learnings there, lots of learnings.

Lukas: Yeah 100% and I can relate. I've got a six and eight year old so in the midst of it there as well. When you think about it it's a hard one because yes they have been deprived from their normality but they've had this extra attention and extra face-to-face time and we look at the brain research and the first thousand days is determining of success at 30 and it all comes down to the face-to-face contact with an adult so in that way there's real positives but then in other ways that change and I think that emotional contagion of what the parents are bringing and how they're arriving in that relationship with their child is such a variable.

Kieran Brophy: Oh it is and I do reflect that COVID has placed pressure on the family dynamic and so I mean if you've got a really cohesive family dynamic then that's not an issue but those that might really struggle in that space and look I guess I'll say blokes in particular who have office jobs to go to in the city and don't spend as much time at home, I think many of them have their identities have been challenged to a certain extent and it's meant that they've sort of had to I guess redefine who they are within the family dynamic and so that can either be a really positive thing or it can be a really stressful thing for some couples and families so yeah look it's been a mixed experience for all.

Lukas: Yeah absolutely and the more people you talk to there's such diversity, it's such a big spectrum of experiences. Let's shift back a bit and I have to consider as we're talking off air, I was recently in the states and I had a few people ask me directly he's like when you mention organizations can you please tell us what they are because we don't know what you're talking about. So for our listeners in the states, Play Australia, give us an approach and where they can find you guys.

Kieran Brophy: Yeah so Play Australia, interesting background, interesting background. So I was part of developing our current strategy, so this was about two years ago and we dived into the history of Play Australia and we've actually been around for 107 years if you can believe it Lukas. So we were born in Victoria and we were born in the back streets of Fitzroy and we were known as the Guild of Play back in the day and the job of the organization was to get children off the dirty streets of Fitzroy and into these new spaces called playgrounds and we had play workers who taught children how to go on swings and how to go down these things called slides and then we sort of developed this relationship with the professional industry and particularly the playground industry so those that develop spaces and we've supported the conversation around risk standards and risk benefit for children. And so what we do and we sort of morphed into Play Australia I guess over a number of years and we embraced the national approach in 2010 so about 12 years ago but I guess there's two parts to our organization. One part is professional support for those that develop play spaces and those that care about play like our early years networks and then the other half of what we do as the peak national advocacy organization for play is to look at our campaigns and look at how we can build the value of play publicly and support all Australians to play. And I guess that's been a big part of my role over the last three years because that's the amount of time I've been with Play Australia Lukas and that's been about developing our campaigns and our most progress campaign is the 1000 Play Streets campaign so that's the one that we've sort of been able to unlock a bit of support from government and as you know a lot of these things come down to resourcing and we've been able to actually resource the growth of the movement which has been a really positive thing.

Lukas: So getting into the thousand play streets, if you do the same thing give us a bit of where did the concept come from and then how did you roll it out because I know there's a lot of listeners that have the advocate's heart for children and play and just like to - you've been successful in this realm so if we could just speak into it give them some encouragement about your journey.

Kieran Brophy: Yeah absolutely absolutely and look we've had some small successes to date, we feel like we're at the very start of the journey to grow the play streets movement. So 1000 Play Streets, we've taken inspiration from Playing Out in the UK and Playing Out in the UK they've been in operation for over 10 plus years I think about 12 years. And Alice who's a co-director at Playing Out, she was living in Bristol about 12 years ago, still is in Bristol today, and she and the other mums in her local street had young children and got together and said look we used to play out when we were kids and it's not happening now and look let's work together so we can support our children to get out and connect with neighbors and play because we know it's a really good thing, it's a really good thing for their health and wellbeing, it's a really good thing for the broader community as well. And so they got to chatting with Bristol City Council and initiated this amazing movement and over the last 12 years they've scaled to over a thousand plus Playing Out streets and these are temporary road closures for play around the UK and they've had some big wins in terms of supporting the conversation at national levels. So their national transport roads group have turned around and said look street play's a really good thing and that's happened through years of advocacy and that's a big thing to happen and they've also seen wins at a local government level. So for example Bristol City Council in trying to cut the red tape and make it as easy as possible for local community members to participate but they support a 12-month permit process. So you as a local resident can apply to Bristol City Council and you can get your permit which covers you for 12 months, you can close your street between you know whatever it is 10 to 12 pm on a Sunday each month and away you go and you don't have to jump through all the red tape every month. So we've seen them do this amazing I guess create this amazing movement and we've gotten in touch with them and we're learning, we're learning about how we can build a movement here in Australia and look we obviously didn't create street play, it's been here for forever and a day.

Kieran Brophy: and and there's lots of lots of organizations supporting play on streets and and over the last sort of six or seven years here in australia we've seen we've seen the opel sunday street play initiative roll out in south australia we we've seen co-design support play streets here in victoria where i am you've got in city of vincent you've got the ray street play street which is a couple of months mums who've been running their play street for for a number of years on a regular basis which is amazing and we've got hyanni he's doing his work up up in logan around supporting neighbours to connect and play so so i guess it's it's trying to learn from everyone and trying to say right well well how can we actually support a broader conversation around livable streets and get get temporary street closures happening here in oz being a catalyst to support those informal connections in informal play at the end of the day so a bit of a long-winded response here

Lukas: well i'm going to ask you more questions increase the wind so when it comes to petitioning and lobbying to get this off the ground what did that process look like

Kieran Brophy: yeah look it's interesting so from a lobbying perspective you you go where the energy is and i think i mean play play is it it's the ultimate tool to support community health and children's health and well-being if you look at early intervention i'm a bit of a health promotion fiend and that's sort of my background but but aware that internationally we've seen really strong physical activity policy that's been embracing play and i say that in the uk more recently and in new zealand we can see those trends and we we've got a we've got sport australia here which is i guess the peak body for sport in australia and and that they've had a history they've had a history of of trying to support the the physical activity conversation and and yeah and at the time oh look what i'm going to say about three years ago they had a they had a ceo by the name of kate palmer who who was absolutely fantastic and supported them to develop up a more holistic strategy that looked beyond sport and looked at well what other unique partnerships can we can we look at to support broader physical activity outcomes and and look we know we know play is the foundation for for for physical literacy and to support movement for children across their all life stages and and so i think it was it was kind of opportune that they were they were running their funding program and what we wanted to do aligned and you've just got to jump on those opportunities when the energy's there and so we're really really fortunate to to unlock some funding through sport australia to run our pilot and we piloted play streets with with about six local governments in one in queensland couple in vic one in sa one in wa and through the process we we learnt a stack about i guess good good policy good policy for play and making it easy for local residents and and we were able to build out build out a heap of planning advice and templates and things that that local government can use to to support their own play street initiatives so that's that's sort of where we're at in the process

Lukas: yeah and there seems to be a big divide between the perception of sport and physical activity and playing physical activity so how did you convey that information to for the sports orientated or sports motivated people to look at play with a different lens

Kieran Brophy: yeah look absolutely i think it's the answer is it's not one or the other and i think for us for us to grow physical activity in australia and physical literacy in australia we we re really need strong strong federal strategy we need we need department health and key organizations like sport australia taking a more holistic approach to to understand that that sport is part of the solution sports part of our culture here in australia and it's absolutely fantastic however if we're going to support physical activity of all we need to know that there's only sort of about 15 to 20 percent of people in australia who participate in structured sport and everyone else well we we actively live oh i'm gardening myself lucas and and we walk and we ride and a lot of people go to the gym and and we play as well and so we really need to take that broad brush approach and and sport australia they initiated the physical literacy conversation here with the support of la trobe university and a number of other tertiary organizations to understand what does physical literacy mean for australia yeah and and look physical literacy when you break it down it's it's being able to understand the value of movement i i know how to move i can move i'm confident to move i'm confident to move with others and when we think about play that's what play does play play builds confidence in our children to to move and play supports them to take risks and to try new things yeah and to fall over and get back up and learn how to roll down hills and climb up trees and there's just so much benefit to be had by supporting quality play particularly within those first five years and as you say i mean that's where 90 percent of brain development occurs for for our children so it's for me it's a it's a no-brainer that that play supports broader physical activity and sport at the end of the day which is which is all part of the decision makers logic and you know physically competent children make obviously make better athletes and it's quite an interesting like the my understanding is that participation in sport is steadily dropping as well so it's kind of that pre-activation and feed into sport especially with this coming out of a pandemic where you know those four to five five or six year olds that would traditionally be getting involved in sport all of a sudden they're seven and eight and it's kind of not getting on but they that initiation program and those the scaffolding of that physical confidence in sports may have been missed

Kieran Brophy: absolutely look i think coverts had a really interesting impact on us in society and i know we've seen a lot of kids drop out of structured sport we've seen sports at club level really struggling to to connect and retain volunteers so so sport is working through this new dilemma how do we how do we stay relevant and how can we attract more people in but look i i challenge you i guess i challenge that that thinking and i sort of say well look can we broaden it and and can we can we support children families to move any way they want and and play again again if if families want to play and they're moving let's embrace the unstructured yeah and a lot of air look some of the research we've looked at is that children need twice as much unstructured physical activity as structured for their for their healthy development so there's a strong case to be made that we need to to take place seriously and and unfortunately at a federal level we don't we don't we need to yeah

Lukas: yeah and want to highlight when we talk about play we're not talking about a destination we're not talking about going just to a park play is not an event play statistically is the biggest contributor physical activity probably on the markers and then sports further down the list

Kieran Brophy: yeah absolutely you know and there's also other key advocacy groups out there who support active transport being you're walking and cycling yeah and and they need a bigger seat at the table as well as part of this this broader conversation yeah yeah so there's a lot of i think there's a lot of improvement to be made i mean we've got our national preventative health strategy or national preventive health plan here in oz and a couple of the key focus areas is one of them's increased physical activity and the other ones increase mental well-being and play just aligns so well with those for those focus areas but it's not reflected enough and we've we've recently gone through a change of government so so look i see opportunity i see opportunity lucas we're trying to try to push where we can

Lukas: yeah i'm hoping with the the lens of priority and making early childhood services a bit more accessible we'll shine a bit more of a broader light on things within supporting children of play i'm optimistic about that and also optimistic because when you look at a thousand play streets it's my understanding is like the first play movement that managed to get some federal base support which hasn't been done before so to see that is quite quite motivating to shift it a bit we touched on our perception around you know the outdoor country and the sportsmanship but in in contrast to that when you look at the physical activity data and and scale it worldwide the numbers don't say that we're like the most outdoor nation as well especially coming back from the states they're like you must be outdoors all the time you guys are like well it's kind of embarrassing but no we're not no no a lot of work to be done

Kieran Brophy: well yeah absolutely so i mean i think we've got a we've got a real issue with sedentary lifestyles and and too much screen time and we need to embrace the outdoors a lot more and we need to invest in strategies to to support families to make to make good decisions and to support their children to get out and i mean our parents and caregivers they're out they're the gatekeepers of our children's play and we need them opening up that door and sending children out but also supporting them to find spaces for play as well yeah appreciating that but not everyone has a space a backyard to go out and play in and what is what does that mean for those those families in those communities who don't have access to adequate space what's your thoughts on what's the contributors to us not actually being tha

Lukas: Outdoorsy like when you look at the European countries or states in Canada, I think the seasonality is actually a really big motivator to get people outdoors. You get these wonderful summer seasons in the states and you're out on lakes and it's stunning and then you get winter and you can go skiing and it's wonderful. It's a real appreciation. But yeah as a culture I think in the communities we're really lacking in that motivation to get outside so I'd love to get your thoughts on those barriers.

Kieran Brophy: Yeah look I mean we know that the research points to a lot of barriers in terms of parental fear being a driver to keep children inside and away from harm. So my child might get hurt if they're climbing up a tree or they might get hit by a car if they're playing on the street or they might get abducted by a stranger if they're playing in the community. And so there's also the social stigma so we know a lot of parents are fearful that well if my neighbors see my child playing out on the street they might think that I'm a bad parent and that's a real driver as well. And that's what our parents perceive to be real and what they perceive to be real has a big bearing on how they behave. So I think there's a lot of work to be done around supporting our parents and caregivers to become more aware about the value of outdoor play. It's a good thing and also supporting them around the knowledge in terms of right, well you have a real role to play here and when we talk about providing children freedom, time and space for outdoor play every day for their healthy development, this is your role in that process. You're the one who needs to open up the gate and find time in the day in your busy day and find spaces for children to play and break down that idea of what does actually freedom mean and allows. And it means allowing children to embrace a bit of risk because we know risk is so important when it comes to children's play. Yeah so a bit of work to be done there.

Lukas: Yeah I think there's a common confusion around risk versus hazards a lot of the time as well. Risk being possible to negotiate and you know risk is everywhere and not something to be avoided. What is your strategy to overcome that the danger stigma about children playing in the street? You mentioned if you touched on a few of them in your last question but yeah more specifically?

Kieran Brophy: Yeah absolutely so I mean I did mention before that we see temporary street closures for play being a catalyst. I mean our policy and our legislative context is very different from the UK and so I talked about playing out before and they've been able to scale their play streets and they've seen that these playing out play streets have seen regular participation of their communities. I don't see that happening in the short term here in Australia because of the amount of red tape, because of the legislative, because of the policy context here it's really difficult to run these things regularly. But if we can use them as a catalyst to connect communities then all this good stuff falls out of connection. So what we're finding through our play streets movement is that parents get out in the street and they connect with other parents and they connect with other adults who don't have children and all of a sudden they feel like they belong. And all of a sudden they perceive their neighborhood to be a safer place to be and this is a real driver of confidence and we're seeing that parents who participate in these play street gatherings leave more confident to support their children to get out and play in future on the streets. And I'm really encouraged to see that in the context of our data and thanks to Tribe Uni for supporting us with the data piece. We know research is so important for any kind of growth of this kind of campaign initiative but we found that non-parents, so adults out there who don't have children who've come and participated in play streets, we've seen a shift in attitudes towards I'm not sure about this play street thing to actually now I think it's a really good thing after meeting with the community and seeing children play on the street. I can see the positive benefits for these children and for the community more broadly so this is good, this is encouraging. And I think if we can build confidence particularly with our parents caregivers this is going to be a driver to positive behaviors.

Lukas: Yeah big time. I've seen it firsthand and spoke to parents in play streets, the one up in Logan, and it's amazing to see their shift in their honesty and what their perception was pre and post. And there's a great story where one lady's moving out and the whole street's petitioning to be able to find her another rental so they can stay in the play street. How good is that!

Kieran Brophy: Well and I love all the I guess unintended outcomes and all the good stories that fall out of simply supporting a space for communities to come together. And we've had some brilliant stories about what I guess that the social capital being created and neighbours have helped each other with issues and we've seen walking groups kick start and we've seen parents not realize that oh we've got children who live in our street and they go to the same school.

Lukas: You can't believe that!

Kieran Brophy: I can't get over that and now all of a sudden they're connecting and playing on a regular basis. It's beautiful.

Lukas: It is yeah I can relate. I didn't know we're on a it's not quite straight, it's kind of at the bottom of a hill before you go up and it's on a corner but the children across on the diagonal across the street, two young boys, when we first moved in I didn't know kids lived there for months. Right so I just never heard them and never saw them and yeah automatically it's the automatic garage door where they just drive straight in their house and you never see them. It's kind of amazing but we ran a play street here in my street and I live in a court and look I said before Lucas on I mean it's a court of about eight houses and I know everyone pretty well because I just like to poke my nose into people's business and know who's living in our court. But when we first moved in there was I've got an older lady who sort of lives diagonally away from us and she came up to me when we first moved in, this was about five years ago, and sort of said look just to let you know I don't like people parking in front of my house so just don't do it and tell your visitors not to park there either. And I sort of walked away thinking oh well maybe she's not that interested in connecting with me and my family and that's all right and you know it happens and we'll just life goes on and anyway I'd actually I'd assume that she wasn't interested in the play street that we organized and look I went around and did a bit of a letter drop and a door knock to let everyone know that this was happening and as it turns out she loved the idea and came out and started talking about how marvelous it was that the children were playing on the street and we've got a totally different relationship now and it's just that was the unintended consequence for me. I mean I thought I knew which neighbours were going to come and participate and I had it locked down, my assumption I had it completely wrong.

Kieran Brophy: Yeah it was it's been a really good thing good.

Lukas: Yeah I find play, play in social interactions within play and bringing families together really creates those positive learning that's the community to raise a child type of vibe is presented in those situations.

Kieran Brophy: Absolutely yeah I've got another it's a cool story and it was about one of the play street gatherings we had in South Australia. I'll say for a more disadvantaged community there was a mum there, Tikka Waiter with a Samoan background and she had lived in this particular street and felt quite socially isolated. So a new mum with new bub and walked around her street and didn't know many of her neighbors and didn't have much social interaction. And when the local government supported the play street in her street she had a really good time of it and it was interesting that we went and had a cup of tea with her at her place and she said what drew her to the play street was the cultural piece. So she sort of said look back in Samoa in the community that she lived in everyone knew everyone's business and everyone shared things as well and it was really about social connection and quality connections and everyone helped each other. And she actually moved out of her community and moved to New Zealand and then moved across to Australia in time and she learned that our culture was quite different in that she was told from a very young age not to share. And she told me a story of how she was part of her netball team and she was standing around and drinking a coke and she went to pass the coke around the circle, didn't even think twice about it, passed to her soft drink around the circle of girls who were in the team and the coach came over and tapped her on the shoulder and said look what you're doing here is not to be done, he's spreading germs, we don't like that so don't pass your drinks around. And she said that was a real defining moment and she sort of said look from then on I understood that I was in a different culture and we just don't share. So her experience at play street

Kieran Brophy: streets it was it was a really positive one and it was an eye-opener and it got her connecting with her local community again and it reminded her of her home in samoa and as a result now when she walks down the street people stop there and say hello and it's yeah just another another beautiful story there lukas so i'm going they're the ones that are important as the data i feel yeah because it's evidence of that heart piece which moves beyond and transcends what we know in our mind to be true but then this transfers it to our hearts to be like oh that's reaffirming that i know this as truth

Lukas: yeah absolutely absolutely when it comes to those barriers and you look at a lot of red tape like the uk compared to here the states to here finland to here have you overcome that because that seems to be a real problem and sticking point because it's all good like and especially with different states different rules different councils yeah in the there's a thousand the numbers a thousand you've got to come up with some strategy i'd love to know about it

Kieran Brophy: absolutely so look at a local government level and we see our role as really boosting capability of local government to support play street community-led play streets we know that a couple of the biggest blockers are resourcing so the community development team within that local government having enough people and dollars to actually do productive stuff and culture is a big big barrier i suppose or it can be an enabler so we need really strong support from leadership to say look yeah this is a worthy intervention of our time and also when i talk about culture it's about being progressive with risk and saying that yes we are supporting our communities to get out in the streets and our policy is going to be a human-centered policy driven as opposed to compliance driven policy so we need to see those conversations happening within local government to make headway but in addition to that lukas you've got things like public liability to work through you've got things like traffic management and traffic control and also broader risk management planning as well and in every state it looks a little bit different because we i mean for our international listeners we're over governed we have three different levels of government and our states have different legislation around use of roads but our councils control our smaller roads so it's a bit convoluted but we're working through it and we're i guess we're trying to understand what the issues are within each state and to provide good advice around working around those issues

Lukas: yeah just what comes to mind there is like risk liability that then leads to the perception of risk when we talk about risk from a government standpoint they think liability yeah but when play people talk about risk we think more along the lines of opportunity so how do you bridge that gap or what's the language you use to try to support people to change their assumptions of risk being more based in opportunity

Kieran Brophy: yeah yeah so look just on the public liability stuff like playing out in the uk they support their or at a local government level they support their communities to sign a public liability waiver which is interesting it's an interesting way to go which basically says right well you're the parent or you're the caregiver grandparent and you're going to be responsible for your child when they're on the street and you won't sue us if something happens and this is a really logical way to go we don't support public liability waivers here in australia and so what we say is that local government you need to sort out the public liability you can't push it on to your local resident and say you need to take out your own cover for your street because that's just it's not going to work it's not going to work but look coming back to your question lukas and it was about i guess how we support

Lukas: local government to think about risk benefit is that yeah or just those people that you know the powers have been local government the councillors even the school like when someone's advocating for their child's right to be a child

Kieran Brophy: absolutely yeah absolutely look i think it's about bringing the data bringing the data to the forefront and we've been really cognizant to have a strong relationship with center for sport and social impact yeah at la trobe university so we can in the context of our planning advice and what we offer local government we're building this body of research that says right play streets is a really good thing it's a good thing for physical activity and health and well-being of children and social connection and broader community health and so the more we can push those messages up the line and get those messages to the key decision makers i.e ceo at local government level that the more chance we have of our local government taking a progressive approach to human-centered policy as opposed to compliance treatment

Lukas: also where did it land on the public liability i know the uk do waivers where did you land with that in australia

Kieran Brophy: so at the moment every local government that participates in play streets that needs to go out and get public liability well they feel they need to get covered so what our message is you need to take care of that you need to take care of that and if you're not going to take care of it and you're going to try and push it on your community member or your local resident then the model won't work the model won't work so and in terms of how they take care of it it can vary it might be that they go out and take out separate cover to support a number of communities over the course of 12 months or it might be that local government attend that gathering and their public liability extends to gathering it i mean it's a bit grey and it varies

Lukas: why don't they why don't they accept the waiver

Kieran Brophy: look i think we have i guess we have a bit of a compliance driven culture and we're there's a bit of fear there about well nanny yeah a bit of a nanny state yeah get sued i'm gonna get sued so yeah so it's just not that risk appetite and we've gotta keep mounting the argument that this is about this is about benefit for children is about benefit for communities and risk risks shouldn't be frowned on and like you said it's an opportunity it's an opportunity if we embrace it yeah amazing things can happen

Lukas: absolutely people actually take responsibility for their own safety when that happens oh it's remarkable when you give people agency to look after themselves

Kieran Brophy: 100 100 lukas and we're finding that like in terms of the communities that get involved we're learning a bit more about the different kinds of communities that participate in play streets and look at the far end of the spectrum you've got communities who are already connected who can actually self-organize and go out and do it yeah local government doesn't want to hear from them they just want them to go out and play because as soon as they contact local government and say look can you help me with a temporary street closure all of a sudden it becomes a lot more difficult for them to participate in play streets that's not who 1000 play streets is for and so if you look down the spectrum in that sort of mid level you've got community members who might have some capacity that may not be connected and what we saw is through one of the pilots it was city of south perth we saw we ran a pilot in the greenfields estate that had been it was a new development that had been up and happening for about three or four years and so there was there's a lot of new families there who hadn't connected and what they found is that by connecting through the local government supported play street a lot of those families went away and continued to connect and play on the street after the fact so what we've seen is that community sort of moved up the spectrum yeah and they become more successful yeah but we've also got to realize that there's a bunch of other there's a bunch of other communities out there at the other end and these are our communities who arguably need play streets the most and often live in our most disadvantaged areas yeah and don't have the capacity or connection to approach local government and get this thing happening so there's an equity piece here and so what we need to see is we need to see local governments understanding that right well some communities need more help than others to get involved and it's going to be a bit more of a burden in terms of resourcing time and effort to help them but the yields and the impacts that we see from connecting with these communities it can be amazing

Lukas: drastically more yeah yeah another reward absolutely absolutely and those communities aren't going to spring right up to the other end of the spectrum it's going to be a slowly slowly approach and it needs to be developed with community and it might mean that you know you do run a play street once a year or once every six months to keep that community connected and keep the conversation going

Kieran Brophy: yeah and what i hear there is this stigma stigma just springs to mind around those communities the higher risk areas are assumed to have higher risk for play when it's actually contradictory because the more play you have outside the safer the streets get

Lukas: absolutely yeah hundred percent it's about connecting people yeah across all communities and yeah again health and well-being spills out connection yeah and children are aware of it as well

Kieran Brophy: We did at the childhood summit that was hosted by the Australian Institute of Play based in Logan. We did the playable cities framework with a bunch of primary school children from there. We mapped out their neighborhood and had it mapped out and they could tell me they had the streets they didn't like to go down when they drove, the reasons why, and they could articulate their whole neighborhood through and where they would play and where they wouldn't play and the changes they would make. Amazing. And what other people think of their area.

Lukas: That's sensational and I think you've highlighted what's really important here. It's about supporting that very local conversation at the street level so families and children can come together and neighbors more broadly and actually define what their play street looks like and where do we want it to be, how do we want it to run. And that's I guess that's the beauty of the model - it comes down to community. For you to deem the thousand play streets movement as success, what would the metric have to be?

Kieran Brophy: Look I mean obviously from a campaign standpoint we've said look we'd love to achieve 1,000 play streets by June 2025 to align with our broader Play Australia strategy. I'm much more interested in the broader conversation around livable streets and where this goes. We've got, we're talking about the use of temporary street closures to support play but also because we're talking about play streets we're finding that we're having all these other interesting conversations with different organisations about space, about space for play more broadly, space within communities, about establishing roaming ranges of children and if we think about the street as the first step away from the home we're trying to connect and what's the next step out from that which is kind of interesting.

Lukas: Let's give a bit of a definition there for at least listeners that might not be familiar - roaming range.

Kieran Brophy: Yeah so we know from a generational standpoint years ago our parents and grandparents that they had a lot more freedom to move independently around their communities and these days within the culture that we live in here in Australia children are lucky to walk to the end of their street and back without being supervised by a parent or caregiver and so there's a lot of work to be done there and we know that independent roaming of children around communities, well that's an indicator for really positive health in terms of those children themselves and in terms of the broader community. So to see children playing independently at the local park, that's a really good thing. But we also, we balance that with understanding that contexts have changed and density of living has changed, more cars have been introduced to streets, and so you know some streets that children played on you know 20, 30 years ago may not be appropriate for children to play on them today. And so we're just calling for a lot of common sense here - how can we support the independent movement of children and support their safety as well so it's a balanced conversation.

Lukas: Yeah and it's kind of the within health and because that's what we're talking about, we're talking about a preventative approach here not a reactive one. So that's right, it's a harder sell because we kind of want to see the bleeding before we act. So how do you pitch a preventative model when people really naturally aren't unaccustomed to acting on it?

Kieran Brophy: Yeah so I think I mean there's a bank of evidence and data out there that says this is a good thing. How do we take all that data and translate to our parents and caregivers to build confidence and to support them to enable to feel empowered to open up that gate and allow their children to roam and it's a really, look it's a really personal question because every family lives within a different context, every child's ready at different stages and look it's like I think a lot we talk about play more broadly and we talk about the importance of children playing their way and developing in time and doing things when they're ready. And so I think that conversation will naturally come but it is an interesting one Lukas because I mean I said before I'm a parent of a two, four and a six-year-old and the idea that I just leave him up the park and wander off, I'm not there yet. No no. So this is I'm interested to see how I'm going to go personally to support the independent roaming of my children and yeah it is a hard one. It's a natural response to want to protect our children. Yeah I think the biggest disservice we could do to our children to give them the impression that we're always going to be there to protect them - it's not good for mental health. My job I see my job pretty clear-cut as a parent, my job is to encourage independence so my children ultimately don't need me. I hope that they want to hang out with me but I'm hoping to in time they're going to turn around and say yep we got, we got this covered dad, take a seat.

Lukas: One hundred percent. And a question that I'd like to wrap with today - what if the children themselves because I love the work doing work with the children's voice and it's such gold - so what are the children telling you about the play streets they've been engaged with and also the children that aren't, don't have access to a play street?

Kieran Brophy: Yeah so I guess what through our data accumulation we've sort of been chatting with parents and non-parents and kids as well and ultimately we know the benefits of play, we talk about the importance of play developing our children physically, emotionally, cognitively, socially but really what we're finding that the children who participate in play streets they just want to get out there because it's fun and they get to hang out with their neighbors and they get to do whatever they want to do in their own time and really it's been interesting to see who takes back the streets at a community level and the play streets that I've been on it's been the children who have been driving the activity on the streets and dragging mum and dad and grandma and grandpa out on the street and it's just been beautiful to see. So I think I mean we want to play, we want to play let us play and we've got a real responsibility to open up that gate and support freedom time and space for our children to play.

Lukas: One hundred percent. Anyone the caretakers if you will of childhood, anyone that knows a child or anyone that's been a child has a responsibility to fulfill that unique and essential right to be a child.

Kieran Brophy: Absolutely, absolutely.

Lukas: So for our listeners, thousand play streets, where can they find you?

Kieran Brophy: Yep, playaustralia.org.au. We've got a bundle of play streets information on our website and we're constantly adding to it. Yeah but please jump on and get in touch if you have questions.

Lukas: And also where, what's in, where are you looking for inspiration to find these your motivation in doing it and maybe we can steer the listeners in a direction where the stuff you're looking at that inspires you that's actually beyond your program that feeds into it?

Kieran Brophy: So in terms of why am I motivated to do what I do? Or what other projects you're looking at or people you're following or anything like that? Yeah absolutely look from a real personal perspective my motivation comes from my family from being a dad and having three children and understanding that to give them the best start in life play is really important and yeah we've got the research but it's that personal connection that's really important to me and look it's how I experience my children. I mean what the relationships I have with them they're developed through play through being a bit of a silly dad at times as we all are but it's just yeah it's just wonderful for the whole family. But in terms of the broader work that we're looking at for Play Australia we're working on 1,000 play streets, we're working on playground finder as well so that's a website and app to support families to find places to play, we're building more PD for early years in our professional networks and so we encourage people to check out that and we're in the process of developing up our play today campaign which sits across everything which is that broader call to action to say right make time today for outside play and that'll be rolling out the next three months or so Lukas so we're really hopeful to get our bundle together and get that out the door to support that national conversation even further. So yes professional networks but also a bigger conversation with parents and caregivers around building that confidence to open up that gate.

Lukas: Absolutely well thank you for being such a great authentic playmaker and encouraging a positive state of play not just where you are in Victoria but all the way across Australia with the thousand play streets. We'll put all of the links in the show notes of the sites you just mentioned so I'd encourage everyone jump on board. Play Australia website dot org, is there's a bunch of free resources on there dot org dot au you know that's cool but there's heaps of resources on there for the people involved in the play industry please become a member and become a part of participating in that advocacy for authentic play. Thank you so much Kieran keep up the amazing work.

Kieran Brophy: Thanks Lukas appreciate it.