Child Friendly Cardiff recently attended the Play Wales National Conference 2025, Play policy, research and practice: Getting it right for children, held in Cardiff. The event brought together national and international experts, practitioners, and policymakers to explore how to strengthen children’s right to play across Wales and beyond.
The attendance was made in partnership by both the Child Friendly Cardiff team and the Council’s Play Services Team, underlining Cardiff’s commitment to delivering a strong play-rights agenda locally.
The conference opened with a keynote from Dr David Dallimore, researcher in social policy, presenting the findings of the national Play Sufficiency survey, which offers new insights into how local authorities are meeting their statutory duties to provide sufficient opportunities for play. His presentation highlighted both progress and continuing challenges in ensuring every child in Wales can enjoy their right to play, as set out in Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Meanwhile, Professor Emeritus Philip Jaffé, Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, provided an international perspective on children’s rights in relation to play. He emphasised that Wales continues to lead globally in embedding play sufficiency within policy and law.
Simultaneously, Robin Monro Miller, head of the International Play Association, paid tribute to the pioneering work on children’s right to play in Wales, noting its influence on global advocacy.
A diverse programme of workshops showcased practice from across the world — from departmental collaboration on play spaces in Bradford to the powerful insights of ‘Play under occupation’ in Palestine — illustrating the many contexts in which play is both nurtured and challenged.
Child Friendly Cardiff learned more from Professor Jaffé about efforts to standardise some of the tools in a child-rights approach through the International Organization for Standardization, and was pleased to hear Robin Monro Miller express interest in Cardiff’s developing “Vision for Play”, signalling growing international recognition of the city’s child-rights-based approach.