Access to Play for Children in Situations of Crisis Play: Rights and Practice—A Tool Kit for Staff, Managers and Policy Makers

Abstract

Review: Access to Play for Children in Situations of Crisis… 187 Access to Play for Children in Situations of Crisis Play: Rights and Practice—A Tool Kit for Staff, Managers and Policy Makers Martin King-Sheard and Marianne Mannello, Edited by Theresa Casey (2017) International Play Association: Promoting the Child’s Right to Play, 80 pages Available from http://ipaworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IPA-A4-ACCESSTO -PLAY-IN-SITUATIONS-OF-CRISIS-TOOLKIT-LR.pdf The main objective of the Access to Play in Crisis (APC) tool kit is to provide a practical document for those who work with children in challenging circumstances or situations of crisis (humanitarian, natural and man-made disasters) to support children’s opportunities for play. The premise for the tool kit is based on the Child’s Right to Play (article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child), which bookends the document (introduction and final page) and clearly underpins the content throughout. The tool kit has a total of 26 tools (13 for staff, nine for managers and four for policy makers). This document has the potential to be an effective tool and comprehensive guideline across cultures for adults who have a presence in the lives of children and to further understand adults’ role in supporting every child’s right to play, regardless of the circumstance. The authors outline a compelling rationale at the outset to underscore the fundamental importance of play in children’s lives with suggestions on how to use the tool kit and indicators for adults’ roles and responsibilities. This is an effective way to introduce the resource as it informs the reader immediately of the nature of the tool kit and its variety in application. After the introduction, Section 1 begins logically with information for all those working in crisis situations and then provides more specific information in sections written for staff, managers, and policy makers, respectively. Section 1 highlights play as every child’s right, its importance within the context of crisis, the optimum environments in which children should be afforded quality play experiences, specific challenges to playing, and the play rights of children with disabilities. The inclusion of the note on terminology with regards to “disabled children” (the UK social model focusing on social forces rather than individual traits) is a pertinent point to highlight. The APC tool kit is intended for an international audience, and this note is a pro-active acknowledgement that this terminology has the potential to be problematic depending on the reader’s location. For further information on the “person-first language” commonly used in North America and Australia, see Peers, Spencer-Cavaliere and Eales (2014). The authors provide an extensive Section 2 specifically for staff working with children in crisis, which could be entirely relevant for staff facilitating play in noncrisis situations as well. The authors should be commended for this informative section highlighting many valuable playwork practices empowering practitioners to do the important work of play, while supporting a child-centered focus rather than an adult-imposed agenda. The tool kit appropriately outlines much of the background needed to realize the value of play in situations of crisis as children will often process the events in their current circumstance through playing. In my work Book Review: Access to Play for Children in Situations of Crisis… 188 supervising undergraduate students during play facilitation service-learning experiences in various parts of the world, we have been witness to the tremendous healing effects of play for children in challenging situations. Even here at home in Canada at a local playday designed to facilitate opportunities for children undergoing displacement from their community ravaged by wildfires in Alberta, we saw children playing feverishly, building cardboard homes and cities, with labels such as, “my new home.” Parents stood by, supported one another and observed as their children processed the cruel reality of losing their homes and the uncertainty of never returning to their city, or life as they knew it. This APC tool kit has realworld practical advice that would have been directly relevant to the play leaders during this disaster, and thereby affirming their actions as they facilitated a meaningful and rich...