We support well-being and promote creativity for children by delivering accessible, affordable play opportunities, sustainable crafting, and immersive imaginative activities all over Gloucestershire. Children need space in their worlds where they can just 'be'; exploring creativity, imagination and the world around them. We consciously build these environments, with expertise spanning 40 years of working professionally in education and youthwork.

We promote the importance of play and its role in healthy lives and seek to increase the quality of creative offerings across Gloucestershire. We believe passionately in the power of play to be a catalyst for connection and good mental health.

We are passionate about opportunities for imaginative play for over 6s. We know that these children need space to regulate, to be screen-free, to develop social skills and to be imaginative. 

Children have less and less invitation to play both at school and in their worlds outside of school. School days are dictated and structured, with less time spent outdoors than ever before. The curriculum is inflexible and there is little space for creativity and building the soft skills of effective communication, active listening, resilience and confidence. Out of school, children’s worlds are becoming smaller; there is less safe space for children to play, and increased time on screens and devices.

We offer outdoor play, creative play, imaginative play and community-building play for children and families. We craft, we play, we explore, and we’re silly together. For just a few pounds (we only ever cover costs) children are at our table for an average of 50 minutes. They are drawn in by the activity, but stay because our table is fun, and the Wild Thing grown-up is interested in them and skilled at getting children engaged quickly with no room for 'I can't do it'. The children have a brilliant time, and do something they’re proud of, but the activities are really vehicles for an opportunity to build some confidence, resilience and get the happy hormones flying.  We don’t know of anyone else designing spaces for children in this way, specifically to support childhood well-being, either in Gloucestershire or beyond.

In 2024 we welcomed 2,954 children into Wild Things Play Spaces. This translated into 10,260 minutes of activity and 73 new crafts shared with our community. We are a voluntary team of 2 and are lucky to have found some amazing freelance artists and youth workers to join the Wild Things mission in 2025.

Data shows that 20 minutes spent outdoors results in a) sustained mood improvement and b) increased sense of wellbeing. The benefits of doing creative activities is one of the most consistently supported areas in mental health research, showing that doing something creative for 20 minutes has direct, measurable psychological benefits, even when you’re “not good at it”. It reduces stress, processes emotions, and for children, builds neuron pathways that contributes to them being more resilient learners. Our 10,260 minutes of delivery equates to 513 lots of these 20 minutes.