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Stop, look & listen: how real is ourcommitment to evidence-based policy?Di Mcneish aa Policy and Research Unit , Barnado's, Tanners Lane, Barkingside,Ilford, Essex IG6 1QG, UK E-mail:Published online: 18 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Di Mcneish (2005) Stop, look & listen: how real is our commitment to evidence-based policy?, Children's Geographies, 3:1, 115-118, DOI: 10.1080/14733280500037372

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Stop, Look & Listen: HowReal is our Commitmentto Evidence-Based Policy?

DI McNEISHPolicy and Research Unit, Barnado’s Tanners Lane, Barkingside, II ford,

Essex, IG61 QG, UK. Email: di.mcneish@barnados.org.uk

What Works and What Matters

We live in an era where ‘evidence-based policy’ has become a new political mantra.

Britain has a Prime Minister who has proclaimed that ‘what counts is what works’ and

government departments are keen to demonstrate that their policies are informed by the

latest research. At the same time, policy makers are equally keen to listen to children

and young people themselves. This was recently demonstrated by the Westminster govern-

ment’s efforts to consult with children over the Green Paper, ‘Every Child Matters’. As

Margaret Hodge, Minister for Children, proudly announced: ‘I am delighted that our deter-

mination to place children and young people at the heart of our programmes has been so

clearly demonstrated by the fact that 3,000 of the 4,500 responses that we received (to

Every Child Matters) came from children themselves’ (Hodge, 2004).

All this seems like excellent news for children. Not only do we have policy makers com-

mitted to adopting evidence of ‘what works’, we seem to have a political will to develop

policy on the basis of ‘what matters’ to children and young people themselves. Or do we?

There is one area of policy for children—that of safe play and children’s use of their

local environments—where we have both sound evidence from research and clear and

consistent messages from children themselves. Surely then, our policy response will

reflect this evidence? So far, in Britain, that does not seem to be the case. Whilst we

have a plethora of policy initiatives aimed at protecting children in the private sphere

of family life, there is a dearth of attention paid to providing children with safe, child-

friendly spaces in their local communities.

Play Matters

Play is vital to the children’s development. Play allows children to experiment, to recog-

nise their limitations and discover their skills. It increases their abilities to recognise and

deal with risky situations. Children deprived of play opportunities have been shown to

display symptoms of withdrawal, impaired concentration, anti-social or aggressive beha-

viour and poor social skills (Hughes, 2003). Active free play promotes physical health and

sets the scene for more active healthy lifestyles in adulthood (Stoate and Jones, 2003).

Children’s Geographies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 115–118, April 2005

ISSN 1473-3285 print; ISSN 1473-3277 online/05/010115-04 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/14733280500037372

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Few of us would deny the importance of play. And yet for children today it is becoming

increasingly rare. Our public spaces are no longer places for adventure and exploration,

but places of danger and fear. The consequences are very restricted play opportunities

or play which has become increasingly structured and controlled by adults. As one obser-

ver put it, we have a generation of children who are not so much free range as battery

reared.

Over the years Barnardo’s policy & research team has carried out numerous consul-

tation projects with children, both to inform our own service development and for external

commissioners. Increasing the availability of safe, child-friendly public spaces emerges as

a top priority. This is particularly the case for children living in deprived areas. Poor chil-

dren not only have fewer opportunities because of material poverty. They are also more

likely to experience environmental poverty.

Poor neighbourhood environments have a massively detrimental impact upon the

availability of children’s play opportunities and on their health and well-being. Children

identify a range of factors that restrict their opportunities for safe play, including dog

fouling, danger from stray or loose dogs, speeding cars, traffic pollution, poor street light-

ing and dilapidated local buildings (Thomas and Thompson, 2004). Of all of these, traffic

presents the greatest risk.

Stop, Look & Listen

New work undertaken by Barnardo’s and Transport 2000 illustrates the extent to which

children, especially those living in areas of high deprivation, are affected by traffic:

I can’t get to my friend’s house because there is too much traffic.

They speed too much and we can’t cross the road or play or anything.

My mum won’t let me play outside because of the traffic.

The only safe places to play are in the school and in your back garden. (Barnardos &

Transport, 2004)

The risks to children are shocking. Last year 3224 children were killed or seriously

injured on UK roads. Across Europe, traffic is the largest single cause of child death

(Child Accidents Prevention Trust, 2004). If these deaths and injuries were the conse-

quence of child abuse there would be a public and political outcry. Because they are

framed as ‘accidents’ we collectively shrug our shoulders.

Traffic volume and speed is a major factor in preventing children from walking and

cycling. Our failure to control traffic and to provide safe play spaces is denying children

basic rights to feel safe on their neighbourhood streets, to take regular outside exercise and

to play with their friends. The ability to access public space and to play safely is vital to the

health and well-being of all children. It is children’s own policy priority. It is also an area

of public policy on which we have some solid evidence of ‘what works’.

Traffic-Calming Works

We know that the faster the traffic, the greater the risk of death and serious injury (Depart-

ment for Transport, 2000). When hit by a car moving at 40 mph only one child in 20 will

survive. At 20 mph, 19 out of 20 children will survive (Child Accidents Prevention Trust,

2004). Research has shown that a one mph reduction in average speed will reduce accident

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rates by up to 6% on urban roads. Risks are increased by volume of traffic, absence of safe

play areas and high levels of kerbside parking.

Two systematic reviews of research have found that urban traffic calming can signifi-

cantly reduce injuries. Findings from a before and after study of two hundred 20-mph

zones indicate a reduction in accident frequency by about 60%. Child pedestrian accidents

fell by as much as 70% and child cyclist accidents by 48% (Elvik, 2001; Bunn et al., 2004).

Does What Works Really Matter?

So why is it that traffic-calming and other measures to improve children’s access to safe

play environment fail to appear at the top of our policy agenda? There are three fundamen-

tal issues that need to be confronted. Firstly, we need a clear policy lead for child-friendly,

open space environments nationally, regionally and locally. The importance of play needs

to be recognised across government departments. A signal that this is still not the case was

given in the framing of the five key outcomes for children set out in the Children Bill.

Despite the priority given by children to play and leisure activities, it was only intensive

lobbying by the children’s sector, led by the Children’s Play Council, which persuaded the

government to agree an amendment to include ‘recreation’ alongside education as an

outcome for children. In the meantime, we have a Green Paper on young people with a

welcome emphasis on leisure activities. But play, recreation and leisure for children

isn’t just about more parks and more youth clubs, important though these are. It’s also

about creating child-friendly neighbourhood environments. This requires real cross

departmental thinking. In an era of ‘joined up government’ this is a critical area of

public policy which is very clearly not joined up either between government departments

nationally or between national and local government.

Secondly, we need proper public investment in local environments which address the

links between material and environmental poverty. For most people poverty means low

income, and government initiatives to tackle child poverty have tended to focus on par-

ental employment and fiscal policies aimed at increasing the level and security of

family incomes. Of course, this is important. However, we must not lose sight of the

environmental poverty in which many children live and the very real consequences of

poor environments. Children living in areas of high deprivation are up to five times

more likely to be involved in traffic accidents than those living in wealthier neighbour-

hoods. Yet area-based initiatives aimed at improving life in poor neighbourhoods very

often fail to tackle this very basic issue.

Thirdly, we need to challenge some adult attitudes to enable children to make use of

their neighbourhoods. There is little doubt that adult attitudes to children restricts their

use of public space. We regard them as a nuisance: hanging out in groups is not viewed

as engaging in a natural social activity but as anti-social behaviour. At the same time,

we have become so preoccupied with protecting children from perceived danger that

many parents are too frightened to allow their children to play out unsupervised. One of

the most common anxieties expressed by parents and children is the fear of ‘stranger

danger’ or child abduction. Of course, when a child is abducted it is horrific. However,

the statistical likelihood of this happening is, thankfully, very low. Indeed, of all child

homicide victims, it is a sad fact that the majority are killed by their parents or

someone else they know. Yet fear of strangers tends to dominate the discourse on child

safety. Traffic, which presents a much more significant risk is frequently overlooked.

Indeed, adult attitudes to car use mitigates against traffic calming measures being intro-

duced on the scale which would really make a difference.

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Putting Children First

Opportunities for free play, enabling children and young people to use public space as

equals to adults and promoting the development of open, green environments in every

community must be promoted as policy priorities nationally and locally. Improving chil-

dren’s access to the environment is contingent upon a realistic assessment of the risks that

children face. We have to allow our children to take chances, and be brave enough to admit

that media generated risks may not be as extreme as we are often led to believe. We must

also tackle the real issue of children’s differential access to public space. The limited avail-

ability of safe play space in areas of high deprivation needs to be addressed. A serious

commitment has to be made to traffic calming and speed reduction in residential areas,

especially those of high deprivation. Children’s right to use the streets safely has to be

acknowledged and acted upon across government departments. Above all we must con-

tinue to listen to children’s views. They use the streets, parks and play areas around

them, and have very specific knowledge of how small improvements could make huge

changes to their lives. If we’re serious about policy based both on what works and what

matters we need to hear and act on what children tell us about their environments and

make use of the research on effective measures for promoting safe play.

Policy for children and young people in England and Wales is undergoing major change

with a new Children Act and a host of developments aimed at promoting positive out-

comes for children. There seems to be a genuine will to connect policy for children in

ways which will address their needs in a holistic way. Cross departmental performance

standards include the reduction of accidental injury as a key target. These are welcome

developments. But the proof of this commitment will be in the delivery of change

where it really matters—in the communities where children and young people live.

There is a current frenzy of activity aimed at listening to children and young people. It’s

time we stopped to really look and listen to what they’ve been telling us. And it’s time we

started to act on what matters to children. It might just work.

References

Barnardos & Transport (2004) Views of children cited in Barnardos & Transport 2000, Stop, Look & Listen: Chil-

dren Talk About Traffic, Barkingside: Barnardos.

Bunn, F. et al. (2004) Area wide traffic calming for preventing traffic related injuries (Cochrane review). The

Cochrane library, 1 cited in Liabo, K (2004) Traffic calming & childhood injury on the road, Highlight no

207, National Children’s Bureau.

Child Accidents Prevention Trust (2004) Child Road accidents factsheet.

Department for Transport (2000) New directions in speed management: A review of policy, Department for

Transport.

Elvik, R. (2001) Area-wide urban traffic calming schemes: A meta analysis of safety effects, Accident Analysis &

Prevention, 33(3), 327–336, cited in Liabo, K (2004) Traffic Calming and Childhood Injury on the Road,

Highlight no 207, National Children’s Bureau.

Margaret Hodge, Minister for Children (2004) Young People and Families, Speech to the House of Commons,

Second Reading of the Children Bill 13th September 2004.

Hughes, B. (2003) Play deprivation, play bias and playwork practice, in: Brown, F. (ed.) Playwork: Theory and

Practice, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Stoate, H. and Jones, B. (2003) Tackling the Obesity Epidemic: All’s Well That Starts Well, London: Fabian

Society.

Thomas, G. and Thompson, G. (2004) A Child’s Place: Why Environment Matters to Children, London:

Demos & Green Alliance.

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