Children and young people’s workforce gets animated on DirectgovKids

Children can now bring to life the different roles they may meet in the children and young people's workforce through an innovative government website.

The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) has created a new online children's centre on the DirectgovKids website for children, which aims to inform five to11 year-olds about how government supports communities through a range of services.

The world of DirectgovKids already features a range of buildings including a fire station, hospital, library, No.10 and a town hall and now a newly built children's centre adds to the community.

By visiting the children's centre, young web surfers can discover how the roles of social workers, foster carers, education welfare officers and nursery workers can help and support them in addition to their teachers.  The roles are bought to life through adult and child characters in an interactive game, animations and slide show.

With easy to understand language, vibrant graphics and a lot of fun, the new children's centre is a useful tool to help teachers and parents explain to children the need for a little extra help from different professionals and volunteers in caring for them.

Steve Crisp, Director of Stakeholder Engagement at CWDC, said:

DirectgovKids is a fantastic resource for teachers and parents alike to help them communicate difficult subjects about how our society works and the support available to young children at different times of their lives. I'm delighted that the workforce we represent has a new virtual home at the interactive children's centre.

It's important to help dispel any anxiety that children and young people may feel about receiving support from people like social workers and foster carers.  The new children's centre, which was developed with the help of children and staff in settings, helps demystify these roles in an engaging yet educational way.

DirectgovKids has been designed for use on interactive whiteboards and PCs, there is also a teacher's area with notes, lesson plans, downloadable fact files and worksheets, to help bring the Personal Social, Health Education and Citizenship curriculum to life in the primary classroom.

The website also has a parents' area with guidance, downloadable sheets containing rainy-day activities to try at home, an 'I would like to know...' section for answering children's questions and useful links to educational games and websites.

The resource can be accessed at www.direct.gov.uk/kids