OUR STORY Make-Do Play is a Community Interest Company run by playworkers Dom and Kerri. Between us we have over 20 years of experience working at adventure playgrounds and other children’s services, but we are also parents of young children and our group grew out of our frustration that the sort of play sessions we wanted to go to were hard to find. We understand how unaffordable and inaccessible a lot of children’s activities can be, and we'd had enough of eye-wateringly expensive workshops and overly prescriptive activities. The need for something different grew since the pandemic as families emerged from lockdown - many of them with pandemic babies who had missed out on so much.
We wanted to offer an alternative to structured classes: a drop-in, child-led, informal space rooted in the Playwork Principles, where children could play however they wished without adult interference and not segregated by age, a chance for children to enjoy some freedom again and for the grown ups to relax and chat together, after being isolated for so long. So we began running informal meet-ups in Finsbury Park and inviting others to join us. We brought along trolleys of odds and ends - Loose Parts, open-ended arts and crafts, messy play, den making, mud kitchens, woodwork, dressing up clothes, makeshift swings and rope ladders. And we were completely blown away by the response.
We couldn’t have anticipated how popular our meet-ups became and we heard from so many adults how this was exactly what they needed, for themselves and their children. (Read what has been said about us here). When parents and carers tell us that they've never been to anything like this before, that's an amazing but also sad thing to hear, because allowing children to play like this shouldn't be a rarity. Children know how to play, they don't need us to direct. We've built a little community through these sessions and are so thankful for the support we've been shown.
We now run our sessions at Tollyrise Happiness Garden, a new community garden which has been created at St Mary’s Hornsey Rise (a joint project by Hornsey Lane Estate Community Association, Octopus Communities and Brickworks Community Centre). Basing our group here allows children to have more ownership over the space, we are able to store our materials onsite, have campfires, help with gardening and support the project in building a permanent mud kitchen area which can be enjoyed by children at all times and will make the garden an inclusive, welcoming family-friendly space for anybody who may wish to get involved in volunteering at the garden. So far we have reached over 600 children.
About us
Kerri started in playwork as a teenager working at the holiday playscheme she grew up at and has also worked at after school clubs, adventure playgrounds, schools and messy play groups. She went to drama school to train as an actor, but it didn’t take her long to fall back in to playwork. Kerri is disabled and has worked with disabled and neurodivergent children in inclusive play settings, and as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities. She holds an NVQ Level 2 in Playwork and an MA in Childhood and Youth. Kerri can also be found working for Assemble Play, Somerford Grove Adventure Playground and Woodland Tribe.
Dom studied Linguistics at uni and after was drawn to working with children with Autism and communication difficulties at a specialist school. After four years of constantly hearing the challenges families faced in accessing the play sector she decided to move, and currently also works at The Markfield Project - a charity for disabled and neurodivergent people and their families - where she’s specialised in inclusive play, youth participation and SEND family support work. Dom’s spent 11 years running Markfield’s inclusive Saturday open access service in the adventure playground, where her favourite thing is a big swampy river the children dug out! She also volunteers with Woodland Tribe.