Our Story
Play. For the joy of it.
“I like Make-Do Play because I feel free”
- Child
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. 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, which has helped us grow our organisation into what it is today.
❊ Meet our staff
About us
Kerri Burton
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 Somerford Grove Adventure Playground and Woodland Tribe.
Dominique Wicks
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 to The Markfield Project - a charity for disabled and neurodivergent people and their families - where she specialised in inclusive play, youth participation, SEND family support work and spent 11 years running their inclusive Saturday open access service in the adventure playground. She is now the SEN Lead for a national charity supporting families who face barriers to school attendance, and also works with Woodland Tribe.
