Trustees
managed the Hoxton Sure Start programme, offering support, advice, childcare and family support services to families in Hackney. Anita has over 15 years of experience creating, funding and delivering projects supporting childcare provision.
Simon Fagg is a Chartered Landscape Architect, working for Leeds City Council, with significant experience of designing landscapes for play. He was heavily involved in Rotherham’s Play Pathfinder programme, while Senior Landscape Architect at Groundwork Dearne Valley. Between 2011 and 2014 Simon delivered a Big Lottery Funded project for Sheffield Wildlife Trust, as Living with Nature Co-ordinator. This exciting project combined improving play sites for both their play value and biodiversity and combined ecologically sensitive, playful design with extensive community engagement.
Play England is a charitable company. We have a small, committed team who carry out the running of the charity. They form a board of Trustees, all of whom play an active role in managing the organisation
Play England is a membership-led organisation. Members direct and shape the priorities of the organisation through their on-going active engagement and at the charity’s annual general meetings.
Trustees:
Anita Grant is Play England’s Chair of Trustees. Since 2006 she has led Islington Play Association (IPA) as its Chief Executive. The IPA works to improve children’s lives and to mitigate the effects of poverty through providing excellent play and education services. The IPA delivers major contracts for the local authority, independently funded innovative services for children living in challenging circumstances and continues its campaigning role fighting for the rights of children. Prior to this Anita
Panash Shah runs Cambridge Kids Club, a Cambridgeshire focused provider of Out of School settings and supplementary services. He has previously been a Management Consultant with the big-4 and has a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School. He has a strong skill set in areas of commercial and non-commercial enterprises and was previously an executive trustee for a national faith-based charity.
Since 2007, Kirsty Wilson has lead the development of the Play team at Children’s Scrapstore. The Play Team focus on developing play in school with the Scrapstore PlayPod project along with other projects and products.
Before that, Kirsty worked for a variety of voluntary sector organisations developing outdoor learning, community and play projects from after-school clubs, and forest schools to designing community spaces and resource library.
Helen Dodd is a Professor of Child Psychology at the University of Exeter. She conducts research into the benefits of play for children’s mental health. Helen holds a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship which funds this work. Helen led the PlayFirstUK campaign during Covid-19, advocating for children’s play to be prioritised as part of the recovery strategy. She also co-led the Summer of Play campaign in 2021, working with Play England and Save the Children as well as other partners. Helen is a recognised expert in children’s play, having received awards from a number of organisations including the British Psychological Society, and has published extensively in this area. She joined Play England as a trustee in 2022.
Richard Cocker is a dedicated Landscape & Playground Designer, trained to MLA inLandscape Architecture (Planning and Design) and has a proven record of using his passion and flare to create landscape & play spaces that not only look aesthetically pleasing but provide a positive user experience.
Working in the Sports & Play industry for the last 10 years has allowed him to build up an enviable knowledge bank of Natural "Landscape Led" Play Area Design, MUGA’s & 21st Century & Youth Play Provision such as Skate Parks and Parkourking to bring back quality ADULT FREE PLAY to the masses of (online obsessed) children across the UK -
As a trustee for Play England I aim to provide the very best information to anyone considering a play space with an ultimate goal to create magically visual and internally "child" driven play experiences, whilst reconnecting children with nature and their ancestral right to play!
