Let’s Play Ireland campaign launched

Let’s Play Ireland is a whole of Government campaign led by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to promote the importance of play and to provide play resources for families during this time.

The campaign will be supported by a web page on gov.ie and by the twitter hashtag #letsplayireland

The aim of the initiative is to highlight the importance of play for children, particularly in the challenging time and to provide information and resources for families to support their children’s play. The initiative is by no means intended to create another pressure for parents, rather the opposite, it intends to provide positive messages to parents about just allowing their children to play and supporting a positive environment for this. The website will provide information on: -

• playing in a crisis,
• ideas for play,
• the right to play,
• playful families,
• screen time during the crisis and
• useful links and resources.

The campaign will run throughout May and beyond in conjunction with the overall Government campaign on Well Being. Over the coming weeks the campaign will focus on different themes including early years, storytelling, play for play’s sake, playful learning, creativity and well-being.

Key stakeholders and experts from Local Authorities, the Early Years sector, education representatives, National Educational Psychological Service, academic partners (MIC, UCC), Tusla, the Health Service Executive, Creative Ireland and others have contributed to the development of this campaign.

Further specific themes will be developed over the course of the campaign which will run throughout May and beyond

For further information, check out the website