Children learn traditional games

7:46am Saturday 10th November 2007

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YOUTH workers are having to teach Worcestershire children den-building, hopscotch and skipping because the youngsters no longer know how to play traditional games.

The idea is part of lottery- funded scheme Play Rangers, which shows children how to entertain themselves in positive ways rather than through the anti-social behaviour experienced recently in Wor-cestershire villages.

Yesterday, a team of play rangers spent two hours in a Lower Broadheath football field known as the Paddock, helping youngsters climb trees, make mud pies and look for creepy crawlies.

They hope it will also improve the way young people are perceived by adults, who sometimes presume they are up to no good just because they hang around in groups.

Lead officer Sue Rogers said: "Play Rangers is about free open-air doorstep play. It's about integration with young people in their own home zones, where services and activities may not be available and children are perceived as being anti-social because they stand on street corners."

Mrs Rogers believes some of today's children have missed out on a part of their childhood because they were never taught how to play the games adults played as children, such as blind man's bluff.

She said: "There are more than 700 young people in Lower Broadheath and there are no services. There's no youth group, Scouts or Brownies.

There's nothing, so we have young people hanging around on streets. But what villages need to ask themselves is what are we offering for young people?'"

Mrs Rogers says Play Rangers had a dramatic impact at Pickersleigh, Mal-vern, where anti-social behaviour dropped by 33 per cent.

The group, a district council team and police succeeded as disaffected young people joined in with activities when they realised other children were having fun.