Walsall Council offers fun-filled Holiday Activity and Food programme for Easter holidays 2022

Eligible families are encouraged to register as the council opens registration for its Easter session of the hugely successful Holiday Activity and Food Programme.

The council has worked with over 50 providers in the borough to offer Children and young people, fun, locally-based activities, while providing the opportunity for learning and developing new skills. It’s a great chance to get together with friends and even meet new people as well as try an activity they may not have done before. As part of the programme children are also given the opportunity to try out healthy and exciting recipes with their family.

Walsall Council was awarded £1.8m from Department for Education (DFE) funding to deliver the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme in 2022. The programme is aimed at children and young people ages 5 to16 years, eligible for free school meals to offer healthy food and enriching activities over the Easter, summer and Christmas 2022 holidays.

The Easter programme will be available from Monday 11 April to Thursday 14 April 2022 and then from Tuesday 19 to Friday 22 April 2022

Councillor Tim Wilson, Portfolio Holder for Children’s services said, “The Holiday Activity and Food Programme has been very successful so far with great feedback form families that have taken up the offer in previous holiday sessions. We are very pleased to be able to continue the provision during the Easter holidays and following that during the summer and Christmas break so that those families that need it most can benefit from additional support during the holidays.

“We have had some great feedback about our providers as they strive to offer fun-filled learning activities for the children and young people of the borough and they have worked hard to ensure that the needs of children and young people have additional needs are met.”

Following an evaluation questionnaire completed by parents after the Christmas offer one of the parents commented,

“My children have really enjoyed attending your sessions and have had really positive things about the activities and the staff, this has been the first year that we have attended and I would recommend to others with children with similar needs and backgrounds, Thank you to all of you who have assisted from helping me register and adding my children on to groups to the fantastic staff you have running the sessions they are a credit.”

Registration for the programme opens on 7 March 2022. Letters have been sent to families containing a unique booking code for each child that is eligible so that they can register and to book places for the upcoming activities. Families can either do this online or call our helpline.

Further information and details of how to register on the programme are available on the HAF website. You can also watch a video about HAF programme and see the range of activities on offer.

If your child has additional needs or special educational needs please make sure you state this on the registration form to ensure that the provider can make arrangements to meet the needs of your child.

Would you like to volunteer to support the HAF programme?

Walsall Right for Children (WR4C) is recruiting volunteers to help with a range of activities, delivering fulfilling holidays for children and young people. If you think this could be something you can support us with take a look at the website and register your interest.

Contact the team

Walsall Right for Children (WR4C) facilitates the HAF programme and can be contacted by email at WR4C@walsall.gov.uk. Follow the team on Twitter for updates.