Play is a critical and often underestimated foundation for the healthy development of children. This means we have to be bold in our approach toward nurturing and maintaining children’s wellbeing which includes understanding how provisions for risk-taking in play spaces, as well as in their approach to teaching and learning are part of that approach.

Robyn and Tim will encourage us to step outside the accepted norm to delve deeper into what wellbeing looks like for the whole child. Inspiring us to consider what action we can take to change or improve approaches to children’s daily lives that foster a culture where wellbeing can thrive.

• Dr Tim Gill, Rethinking Childhood, UK
• Robyn Monro Miller AM, CEO, Play Australia

To register, please click on the button below.  Participants are also encouraged to submit questions to the panelists on the webinar registration page.

Dr Tim Gill
Rethinking Childhood, UK

Tim is a global leader of the movement for a balanced, thoughtful approach to risk in childhood: a position set out in his 2007 book No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society, published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He is one of the architects of risk-benefit assessment (RBA), having had a leading role in its development in the UK over two decades. In 2021 he became Chair of the UK Play Safety Forum, a body whose work he has supported since the 1990s.

Tim is co-author of the government-funded publication Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation Guide, and the publication Risk Benefit Assessment for Outdoor Play: A Canadian Toolkit. His approach to play has been internationally recognised as a safe, beneficial model for children to thrive in risk-taking activities.

Tim is a longstanding advocate for child-friendly urban planning and design. His book Urban Playground: How child-friendly planning and design can save cities was published by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2021. As a Churchill Fellow, Tim has examined the role of urban planning in children’s development on an international scale.

Tim is co-author of the first London-wide planning guidance on children’s play and recreation, helping to shape neighbourhoods for London’s children, connecting children to built and natural environments in a meaningful way for their learning and development.

Robyn Monro Miller AM
Play Australia

Robyn is a former child with over half a century of experience in being playful. Her early years were spent building unsafe structures in gum trees in the bushland in the south of Sydney, Australia.

As a beneficiary of a happy, healthy childhood, Robyn has made her life’s work advocating the same for all children. Her career has spanned 35 years, encompassing senior leadership roles in education, local government, children’s services, and the charity sector.

Robyn’s work as an advocate has included participation on a UN working group for the development of the General Comment on Article 31 “The child’s right to play”. Her advocacy and leadership has been recognized with a number of awards including the Australian Commonwealth Centenary Medal and Order of Australia, a fellowship from the Australian College of Educators and the Joan Matheson Distinguished Service Award from Play Australia, and most recently recognition in the Queens Birthday Honours.

She is currently CEO of Play Australia and has held the position of President of the International Play Association (IPA) since 2017. She is an international speaker and frequently speaks and writes on the topic of play and children in the media.