Interactions, Interventions, and Reflections

Contextual Interventions - Libby Truscott

This session will look at some of the different contexts which children live in, and interventions that can support children to enjoy their right to play. Drawing on the partnership between Shoreditch Adventure Playground and Hackney Children's Service's, particularly the work with the Context Intervention Unit, we will explore concepts that can support Playworkers to better understand the lives of the children they work with. This session will look at the lives children lead outside of their family home, and where safeguarding concerned cross from family into public and peer networks. We will discuss the importance of Play settings as a knowledge base, and explore how they can feed into a wider community to help improve children's lives.

TIME: 09:30-10:30 LENGTH: 1 hour TARGET AUDIENCE: Play Explorer

Exploring Technology and Play - Sarah Turton

Technology is becoming an increasing 'norm' in todays society, from phones to tablets, consoles and streaming as well as the 'wonderful' YouTube. Technology is an essential and fundamental part of day to day life. But what place does it have in children's play and within playwork settings? Does it hinder or enhance a child's experience? Join me to explore the pros and cons of technology and play.

TIME: 10:45-11:45 LENGTH: 1 hour TARGET AUDIENCE: Play Explorer

Staging - A gender framework - Sarah Goldsmith

As a result of my PhD I have devloped a framework - Staging, to help us understand the multiple, often conflicting, gendered messages and influences that children are constantly being exposed to, and consequently how children negotiate gender during their play. The hope is that playworkers can use the framework to become more aware of the various gender influences, to create more gender equitable play environments and better support children's gendered negotiations during their play.

TIME: 12:00-13:00 LENGTH: 1 hour TARGET AUDIENCE: Play Explorer

Affective Neuroscience: Beyond laughing rats - Kurt Birkenbeil

This session likes to draw attention to the research of the late Jaak Panksepp. He was an innovative Neuroscientist whose focus was on the neuroscience of emotions. He proved that rats laughed, which gave him his nickname Rat Tickler. The neuroscientific branch he coined is Affective Neuroscience. He found seven basic emotional circuits in the mammal brain. One of them, Play expressed as Joy. He saw Rough & Tumble not as a play type but as the fundamental form of Play, the lack of it in the early years as the cause of ADHD. Does this have implications for the taxonomy of play types, and do we play practitioners advocate for R&T enough when facing adult agendas? Is Article 31 foremost the right to play fight? Let's have a rumbly chat.

TIME: 13:00-14:00 LENGTH: 1 hour TARGET AUDIENCE: Play Harder