Play for Wales | Winter 2021 | 3
News
Retirement – Kathy After over 20 years at Play Wales, our Office Manager Kathy Muse has retired. Kathy joined in the early days of Play Wales, as one of a team of three and has since been responsible for organising the annual Spirit conference, membership admin and the governance of the organisation amongst other duties.
As a team we’ll miss her bright and friendly nature – and she always had a warm welcome for visitors. Happy retirement Kathy from all the team and trustees.
IPA World Conference 2023 Save the dates: 6 - 9 June 2023 The next International Play Association (IPA) Triennial World Conference will be held in Glasgow. It will be a hybrid conference to enable delegates to take part in person or virtually.
The Glasgow 2023 conference will be hosted by IPA Scotland, Play Scotland, Early Years Scotland and Inspiring Scotland. www.ipaworld.org/2023-ipa-world-conference
Care Stars Congratulations to Vale of Glamorgan Council’s Joanne Jones and Julia Sky for both being awarded Care Stars. The Social Care Wales initiative was created to shine a light on the early years and social care workers who made a truly positive difference to people’s lives while the country struggled with the challenges of the pandemic.
workers they felt deserved to be recognised for their work over the previous 15 months. A panel of judges whittled down the 120 nominations to 12 Care Stars who deserved recognition for their inspirational work.
In June 2021, employers, colleagues and the public were invited to nominate the paid care
Senior Healthy Living Officer (Play), Joanne has been recognised for ensuring children had access to
some form of play activity during lockdown, including facilitating provision for disabled children and distributing activity packs to vulnerable families across the county. Community Play Development Worker, Julia has been commended for creating the Vale Play Pavilion to support children from families linked to social services that needed help over the school holidays due to the pressures associated with the challenges of lockdown. https://socialcare.wales/genericcontent/care-stars
