The World Playground Research Institute is dedicated to sharing projects and research, ensuring that valuable insights from our partners are accessible to everyone. We are committed to promoting health initiatives for children and young people, such as the newly launched Australian program, Play Active.
The Importance of Early Childhood Education and Care
Physical activity is crucial during the early years of life for a child’s health and development, providing many benefits including maintaining a healthy body weight, improving bone health and cardiovascular fitness, and enhancing cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial development.
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services play an important role in encouraging physical activity, health, and positive development in young children. They are an ideal setting to help ensure all children are getting enough energetic play throughout the day, every day.
Launch of the Australian Play Active Program
Backed by 10 years of research and co-created with the ECEC sector, Play Active provides clear guidelines on the amount of physical activity, sedentary time, and screen time children should have in ECEC.
Play Active was launched in Australia on Tuesday, the 23rd of April.
What is Play Active?
Play Active is a nationwide, evidence-based physical activity initiative aimed at promoting energetic play in ECEC settings across Australia. It offers clear guidance on recommended levels of physical activity, sedentary time, and screen time for children in ECEC.
Led by the Telethon Kids Institute and The University of Western Australia, Play Active is the only program of its kind in Australia that provides evidence-informed guidelines for ECEC services to ensure children engage in enough energetic play daily.
The program offers service-tailored physical activity policies, free professional development, and additional resources to support healthy, active environments for all children to grow and flourish.
Find out more at playactive.org.au.
Strong Partnership
Play Active is a joint initiative between Telethon Kids Institute and research institutes, universities, ECEC services and agencies, government and not-for-profit organisations. Alongside world leading research organisations, the University of Southern Denmark has been a Play Active partner for more than 10 years.
