Children in homeless hub get new playground

A NEW ‘imagination playground’ has been presented to the Peter McVerry Trust’s hub for homeless families in Dún Laoghaire Rathdown.

Designed by an award-winning architect in New York, David Rockwell, this unique interactive play-ground consists of large shapes that stimulate children’s imagination as they work together to construct temporary worlds and create their own games.

The Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Children and Young People’s Services Committee was delighted to deliver the playground, the first in the county, to the charity recently.

Lorna Kerin, coordinator of the committee, first became aware of this unique type of playground through a colleague in Tusla Child and Family Agency who had purchased several mobile playgrounds recently for a number of ‘DEIS’ schools in Co Clare.

Lorna recalls: “When I saw the fun, social interaction and collaboration that this mobile playground makes possible, I immediately thought it could support the homeless child population who can be socially isolated and far from the natural play environment of their family homes and communities.”

The playground arrives in a large suitcase with loose interlocking parts so that children can design and constantly reconfigure their surroundings, and experiment with different types of imaginative and social play.

Laura Dunleavy from the Peter McVerry Trust, who is also manager of the Family Hub in Monkstown, said they were delighted to receive the imagination playground.

“Our aim is to make the family hub as positive an experience as possible while we support families to secure a new home,” she said. “So it’s great that children now have access to such an engaging and developmentally appropriate playground. No doubt it will bring them out of their rooms and onto the playground.”