The Big Sleepover will consist of twelve overnights per year for five years (60 in total). They will be well-planned and staffed by qualified and experienced play workers who will work throughout the night once a month at the Froud Centre to facilitate children’s free play sessions, but with children having the leading role in what activities take place. The sleepovers will take place in a community centre that is registered with OFSTED for overnight care. The aims of the sessions will be to: • Focus and facilitate play in spaces in areas of need. • Create an environment that encourages risk, but is free from unacceptable harm, where children can freely play. • Foster independence and self esteem by ensuring that activities are child led • Extend the choice and control children have over their play, the freedom they enjoy and the satisfaction they gain from it. • Foster the child’s wellbeing, healthy growth and development while having fun. • Provide play provision at a local level that gives children the opportunity to play with their friends, close to home, facilitated by adult supervision, free of charge and of their own choosing. This project will provide many children from diverse backgrounds with the opportunity to enjoy activities with their peers. It will provide an experience that families on low incomes and/or living in small accommodations could not provide in their own homes. Sleepovers benefit children socially, emotionally and intellectually. As a result of changing local economic circumstances and social demographics, the traditional experience of having friends over for a sleepover has become rarer in deprived inner-city areas such as Manor Park. The Big Sleepover is open to a wider range of children, including those who with special needs, giving parents/carers respite and time to rest/recuperate. It also creates opportunities for quality time with other children in the family. In order to find out about the need for additional play services, we distributed questionnaires to 50 parents in the local area who responded with enthusiastic feedback to the idea of a regularly scheduled sleepover initiative. The positive feedback resulted in us running one single pilot sleepover with volunteer staff. This showed that our Big Sleepover programme was much wanted by local children and their parents. Currently no regularly scheduled sleepover initiative exists. This makes the delivery of fun childcare during the night unique in the area. The project will cost £248,575 over five years.