Play Advocacy is about Empowering Communities not Enforcing Control
I’m part of a network of play advocates, advisors, and innovators, i.e., we’re play subject matter experts.
At the moment it’s still a role that needs explaining because it’s relatively new. The quick logic is this:
Play is a right and fundamental to well-being
Play is under threat
Play needs to be understood and valued
Play needs to be somebody’s job
When people understand the role, they’re usually very receptive, but not everybody. The ones that don’t tend to sit within these camps:
Play is frivolous, i.e., it’s not serious or it's a complete waste of time (research debunks this)
Play is a nice-to-have, i.e., it’s good, but it’s an extra if we can afford it (I've argued it's a must-have)
Play is irrelevant, i.e., it doesn’t have anything to do with my work (I’ll address this in a future article)
However, the most curious one I’ve heard over the last 5 years is that the existence of a play role constitutes evidence of a ‘nanny state’ and I think that’s worth interrogating.
Wikipedia defines nanny state as “a term of British origin that conveys a view that a government or its policies are overprotective or interfering unduly with personal choice. The term likens such a government to the role that a nanny has in child rearing.”
Further down the Wikipedia page, there are several references to how the term has been used in New Zealand to describe governments in power and also local government decisions.
This nanny-state suggestion misunderstands the nature and purpose of play advocacy and the approach being developed by Sport NZ through their Play Advocate Workforce Programme. Play advocacy is fundamentally about empowering individuals, particularly children, and removing barriers to their autonomy and development. So, in this article, I’ll argue that play advocacy is the antithesis of a 'nanny state' approach.
Removing Barriers and Embracing Healthy Risk
Historically, local government regulations and actions have often restricted play through overprotective policies and risk-averse decision-making. Some of this is inadvertent and does not specifically target play, but local governments are increasingly making decisions, often in the name of health and safety, that curb individual play freedoms.[1] Such as when Nelson City Council fenced off a healthy tree stump to try and prevent it from being climbed.
Local government Play Advocates work to challenge this risk-averse culture by advocating for balanced approaches that keep the benefits of risky play while managing genuine hazards. Instead of defaulting to "no" because something might appear risky, we ask "How can we make this work?" This approach breaks down barriers rather than erect them, supporting children to develop their own risk assessment skills and resilience through play experiences. This approach is the opposite of overly protective policies that seek to eliminate all risk.
Promoting Freedom and Autonomy
It’s common in New Zealand to hear people talk about how we love cars and we love our sections. But as Dr Bridget Doran points out in the picture below, when it’s all you have to choose from, it’s not love. Because our cities are primarily built out and not up and our roads prioritise movement over place, we’ve limited children’s independence. They don’t drive, so if we’re not planning and designing cities that are child-friendly, their independence is restricted. In fact, we restrict our adult freedoms by becoming chauffeurs, when children should be empowered to roam and take themselves places. That gives us more free time too.
The core of play advocacy is about giving children freedom and autonomy, such as helping us to think about the barriers children have to exploring their neighbourhoods and connecting with their friends. By showing how we can create safe, accessible play spaces and opportunities, play advocacy enables children to make their own choices about how and where they play. This approach directly contradicts the concept of over-regulation and control.
Empowering Communities
Councils receive a heck of a lot of flak – it’s not all warranted either. One of the common complaints is that they make decisions without the community or decisions that ignore the community’s wishes. That’s much more like a nanny state don’t you think? But as David Engwicht says, it’s a mistake to assume that the communities always know what they need, but you absolutely must work with them to gather quality insights.
Play advocacy often involves community engagement and participatory design processes. A play advocate facilitates (or encourages the appropriate council teams) to deliver community-driven initiatives that reflect local needs and preferences. Provided it involves something like David’s “informed community doing” or the Lundy Model rather than traditional public consultation, we have the opportunity to make things happen through a bottom-up approach that is the opposite of imposing top-down solutions.
Promoting Health and Well-being Without Coercion
New Zealand's approach to smoking is an interesting case study in health promotion. We could say that the Labour government's tobacco restrictions are an example of a 'nanny state' intervention, directly restricting individual choice for public health benefits – and it was working. The National Government has claimed they plan to support Smokefree 2025 but through a different regulatory approach. This has nothing to do with play, but it’s a good example of different approaches involving more and less regulation.
The Play Advocate Workforce Programme is an opt-in programme, not a national directive. When a council opts in and receives investment from Sport NZ, they get to explore play as, amongst many other things, play as a health promotion tool but through ensuring access to good quality play opportunities, not a mandatory programme. Whatever you believe about the best way to achieve smoking cessation, the play advocacy approach respects individual choice while creating supportive environments for healthy behaviours.
Supporting Cultural and Community Connections
When councils take a one-size-fits-all approach to delivering their services, particularly in contexts like play, rather than waste collection for instance, they're actually imposing certain cultural values onto communities. Although play is universal, it also has unique elements within cultures and communities, so doing play in a cookie-cutter playground catalogue way could be a type of top-down control that critics might label as 'nanny state' behaviour.
Sport NZ’s approach to play is multi-layered and bicultural (as Scott Mackenzie discusses on pg 46 in issue 1 of the International Play Association’s Play Rights magazine). Through these different layers and roles, instead of prescribing how communities should play, we work to understand and promote diverse play practices. This might mean supporting Māori communities to revitalise traditional games, helping new migrant communities maintain their play culture, or working with local neighbourhoods to create spaces that reflect their unique identity and needs. By embracing this diversity rather than standardising play, we're actively pushing back against centralised control.
Play as an Everywhere Activity
Euclidean zoning is the approach that has long dictated how land is used, often segregating activities into rigid categories—residential, commercial, industrial, or recreational. This method tells people what they can and can’t build and where. This is really good for not mixing high polluting industry with schools. But it goes too far when it begins to dictate where we can and can’t engage in activities, including play, effectively confining play to designated playgrounds, parks, or sports fields. Such restrictions limit the potential of urban environments to foster spontaneous, everyday play.
The play-everywhere logic challenges this rigid segregation by recognising that play can, and should, happen anywhere. Integrating play into the fabric of everyday life enhances the value of the spaces we design and build by making them more engaging, inclusive, and multifunctional. Play advocacy is about creating opportunities, not restrictions. By designing public spaces for multiple uses, we foster creativity, exploration, and community connection, moving away from the ‘nanny state’ idea of controlling behaviours. Instead, this approach trusts people to use spaces in playful, imaginative ways, contributing to vibrant, adaptable, and liveable cities.
Conclusion
I don’t resent anyone challenging things they don’t understand, but the 'nanny state' criticism of play advocacy gets it exactly backwards. Everything about play advocacy – from embracing healthy risk to supporting cultural diversity – is about increasing choices and removing barriers. We're challenging the very restrictions that critics associate with government overreach: overprotective safety rules, rigid zoning that limits where play can happen, and standardised approaches that ignore community differences.
Play advocacy isn't about telling people what to do, it's about making sure they have real choices about how and where to play. Whether that's children being able to climb trees again, communities designing their own play spaces, or different cultures maintaining their play traditions, we're working to create more freedom, not less. That's the opposite of a 'nanny state' approach.
[1] Health and safety and risk management are essential to well-being, but it's often used as a scape goat or without conducting a benefit-risk assessment.
