Adrian Voce

Background

About Adrian Voce

Adrian has worked in children’s play in a wide variety of roles and settings since discovering the joy of playwork as a student volunteer in 1979. After nearly 20 years years as a playworker and play trainer he became the first director of London Play (1998), securing a play policy from the London Mayor and drafting official guidance for the London Boroughs. Under his leadership, London Play built several independent local play associations and developed the gold standard for play provision in England, Quality in Play. In 2004 Adrian became director of the Children's Play Council and then founding director of Play England (2006), where he was the main architect of the 2008 Play Strategy: leading the national campaign, advising the government, and providing guidance and support services for local authorities. He played the key role in securing £390m of public funding for children's play in England and led the support for councils to build new play areas and 30 staffed adventure playgrounds. When the Play Strategy was abandoned in 2010-11, in the wake of the financial crash, Adrian worked as a freelance play consultant. He served as President of the European Network for Child Friendly Cities, a founding trustee of the Playwork Foundation and an associate board member for Playing Out. In 2016, he launched his own social enterprise, Playful Planet, running major conferences on play and child friendly environments. During this time Adrian published Policy for Play: responding to children’s forgotten right (Policy Press, 2015) and completed his Masters in Professional Studies in Children's Play, with the University of Gloucestershire (2019) When Covid-19 curtailed live events, Adrian returned to front-line playwork in 2020, steering one of the world’s oldest adventure playgrounds, Lollard Street, though the pandemic and securing the funding for its recovery. In 2021 Adrian joined Starlight, the national charity for children’s play in healthcare, as head of policy and public affairs, where he led a joint taskforce (2022-23) with NHS England to produce new guidelines, standards and a workforce strategy for health play services in England. Adrian has variously authored, published, and contributed to several influential play and playwork publications and both organised and spoken at many national and international conferences. He has appeared often in the media, speaking and writing about children's play and child-friendly environments. In 2011, Adrian was awarded an OBE for services to children.