Childrens Services

Welcome to the Children’s Services homepage, where you can find out about our programmes and activities for children, young people and families, all across the Southeast!

Whether you’re looking for a holiday playscheme, an after school club, a Saturday club, or you need flexible childcare, or party fun, Mapalim has everything you need to make sure your child is safe, happy and cared for. To view Our Promises, click here. If you want to view the dates and locations, or book for any of our play activities and childcare services, click here, or see below to find out more. If you’re a practitioner or an organisation working with children, young people and families, click here to find our more about how we can work together.

Play Activities and Childcare

Storytelling, singing, world cuisine, textile, collage, model and mask making. Play is the way we learn more about ourselves, each other, and the world
around us.

Extended Schools
If your child attends a primary school in Camden, Hackney or Southwark, you could access wrap-around care at one of our breakfast and after school clubs. Whether you need someone to drop your child at school in the morning or collect them at the end of the school day, we can help you with the school run, and provide somewhere for your child to enjoy stimulating leisure time and interactions with other children outside of school.

Holiday Playschemes
Our fun and exciting playschemes for 3-11 year olds are hosted in welcoming environments across London, Essex and Hertfordshire throughout the spring, summer and winter holidays and half-terms. Your child can choose from a range of free play and planned activities that are carefully designed to meet their individual needs and interests.
click here

Arts Intervention Projects
In Play-in-Schools, we are working with children and young people in a number of schools across Essex, using play to nurture self-esteem, improving behaviour and participation in the classroom. In another project, Drama in the Community, we are using drama and filmmaking as a tool to enable children and young people to explore social issues that are particularly relevant to them today.

Sitter Service
You can rely on us to provide flexible childcare in your home, as and when you want it! Whether you need us to care for your child for a few hours in the morning, afternoon or evening, place your child in our care for a few hours and we will plan lots of fun play activities based around what they enjoy.
click here

Party Service
Got a children’s party to organise, and don’t know where to start? Look no further! From planning activities, to finding a venue, caterers, and performers – we will manage all elements of your party so you can concentrate on enjoying the party fun!
click here

Our Promises

Caring, qualified and knowledgeable staff
We work with people who are highly experienced and have a strong occupational background in playwork and childcare. In addition to holding qualifications appropriate to their level of practice, most have studied or trained in drama, art or education, and use their specialised skills to enrich their work with children and young people. Our staff undergo a comprehensive induction course and receive ongoing training and support as part of a programme of continued professional development.

Safe and welcoming settings
Our settings are child-centred environments, located in schools, community and arts centres and Sure Start children’s centres. The health, safety and happiness of your child is our priority. Over the last nine years, we have built an outstanding reputation with Ofsted. With regular inspection at each of our sites across the Southeast, all of our settings are Ofsted approved and we always score the highest possible grades.

Listening and Learning
We know that you know your child better than anyone else, so we will always talk to you to establish your needs and preferences, as well as those of your child.
We actively involve children and young people in the planning of our activities and our settings, and we listen to their experiences with us to continue to improve our services. We continue to reflect upon and develop our practice and programming. In order to do this we know that it’s really important to find out what you think.
Recorded consultation with children, parent and carer feedback are available upon request.

Strategy and Support Services

We provide a diverse range of direct services for children, young people and families, and the people and organisations that work with them. Using our knowledge of delivering direct community programmes, we provide first and second tier strategic support to a range of organisations across the public and private sectors.

Our priorities for children and young people link into the Government’s Every Child Matters Outcomes. To support these aims, we feel that every child and young person should experience opportunities for learning and development in caring and stimulating environments that foster mutually respectful and supportive relationships with adults and other children and young people. We work with schools, local authorities, community organisations, trusts and artists to promote crucial opportunities for creativity, learning and development in a range of contexts and environments.

Strategy and Support Services
Fostering growth and capacity within communities and organisations, from research into feasibility and consultation to inform local, regional and national policy, to interim management, strategic leadership, advice and support.

View our Play Strategy work here or click on the links below to find out more about our direct services for communities and practitioners.

CPD and Workforce Development
Bespoke Training to support specialised knowledge and understanding of working with children, young people and families, and Qualifying Programmes to develop the skills base of the children and young people’s workforce. Click here to view our Training and Development programmes.

Mapalim Inclusion Toolkits now available
Following on from the success of Mapalim’s highly acclaimed inclusion conferences held in conjunction with Essex Play, we now have more inclusion toolkits available for purchase for those who missed out.

The toolkit is provided in an engaging multimedia format and has been developed in order to provide support and guidance to organisations that provide some kind of play provision for children and young people. The toolkit will help settings to make the transition from theory to inclusive practice through ongoing evaluation, reflection and consultation.
For information and booking form click here