The John Lewis Partnership launches the second phase of its Healthy Happy Home programme, in collaboration with charity partner Home-Start UK; with the Inclusive Play course.
In 2022, the John Lewis Partnership launched the Healthy Happy Home programme, producing e-learning courses to upskill the thousands of valuable volunteers at Home-Start UK to help families improve their mental and physical health and wellbeing. The three initial needs-led courses coached the volunteers to better support families with food and nutrition, sleep, and financial wellbeing.
Following the success of the first phase of the programme, and research revealing that there was a needs-gap in supporting families with play, we funded a second phase to develop the Inclusive Play course.
90% of Home-Start volunteers felt that some parents struggle to play with their child, and 99% believe that play is fundamental to helping a child build emotional bonds and connections with their parents and others.
To develop the course content, we have worked with researchers at PEDAL, a highly credible centre of research on Play in Education, Development and Learning at the University of Cambridge.
PEDAL launched in 2015 with a donation from the LEGO Foundation, and is based in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, directed by the LEGO Professor of Play, Paul Ramchandani; who also contributed to the Inclusive Play course.
Nathalie Winn, Health and Community Impact Manager at the John Lewis Partnership, said: “It can be hard to define what play is, but play matters. It supports children’s learning and development, making sense of the world, themselves and the people around them. We are thrilled to have been able to grow the Healthy Happy Home programme further with Home-Start UK, supporting another area of need with expert content from PEDAL.”
Peter Grigg, Chief Executive of Home-Start UK, said: “Play is at the heart of every healthy happy home and is every child’s right. We’re delighted to have worked with the John Lewis Partnership again to add this new module to our award-winning Healthy Happy Home programme. By providing expert content, this new course will empower volunteers to help support families using play.”
The John Lewis Partnership and Home-Start UK won the Business Charity Awards ‘Project of the Year’ Award in May 2023 for Healthy Happy Home.
The judges said: “This partnership is a great example of two organisations, working closely together to develop a profound relationship, utilising the expertise of each to create a programme with lasting impact. The efforts to gather lived experience from the charity partners to inform the programme and guide the support provided is impressive and makes for a meaningful partnership.”
Supporting data & trends:
Healthy Happy Home was referenced in the latest report (May 2023) from The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, on behalf of The Business Taskforce for Early Childhood.
Lindsey Crompton, Social Impact & Health Lead at the John Lewis Partnership, and Home-Start UK’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Grigg, were members of the Business Taskforce for Early Childhood who fed into the report.
Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.
In 2022, the year that Healthy Happy Home launched, Home-Start supported 38,000 families and 65,000 children with over 10,000 volunteers and trustees.
