1st Edition
Play in Hospitals Real Life Perspectives
Exploring how practitioners make use of play’s developmental benefits and therapeutic healing properties to aid the child’s healthcare journey, this reflective book expands and enhances the knowledge base underlying the practice of play in hospitals.
The work of health play specialists and child life specialists in hospitals in the UK and around the world requires a deep level of clinical knowledge, so that preparing children for procedures can be done with skill and precision. It builds on an understanding of both child development and the impact of traumatic experiences so that children’s deepest fears and biggest emotions can be faced without flinching. It also relies on an acceptance that play is the foundation of everything – the child’s safest, most natural space – and from this trust, strength and resilience can grow and be nurtured. This new edited text explores the breadth, depth and skills of these trained healthcare practitioners providing play for babies, children, young people and adults, and places the power of play squarely at the centre of most clinical settings. Its starting point of the theory that underpins practice is explored and developed through a combination of reflective essays, case study chapters from the UK and around the world, and the newly emerging use of play in diverse settings.
Drawing on the collective work of over 30 play specialists, child life specialists, play service managers, lecturers and researchers, this book is unique in all it offers to paediatric practitioners and settings, in training and in practice. It is an important resource for healthcare play specialists, playworkers, children’s nurses, occupational therapists and more.
0. Introduction
Fraser Brown and Mike Wragg
Part I: Theoretical underpinning
1. The Development of the Role of Hospital Playworker
Judy Walker
2. Still a Deprived Environment for Children? Revisiting the Case for Hospital Play
Cath Hubbuck and Joanne Cross
3. It Pays to Play! How I discovered cost effective play and the start of the MRI Awake List Project
Irene O’Donnell
4. Support for Siblings during the Medical Journey
Charlotte Hamflett
5. The Elephant in the Room- Mental Health Illness in children and young people; can health play specialists make a difference?
Irene O’Donnell
6. The Hospital Playroom: A key part of children and young people’s care and recovery
David Stonehouse
Part II: Personal Reflections on the Role of the Hospital Play Specialist
7. My Journey
Lisa Beaumont
8. The ‘Magic of Play’- Exploring the importance of play and distraction during medical procedures
Katie Lane
9. A Day in the Life of a HPS
Katie Collins
10. Teenagers in hospital- are they the forgotten age?
Nicky Everett
11. Specialised Play in the Hospital Setting
Susan Fairclough
12. The Angry Health Play Specialist
Cath Hubbuck
Part III: Specific Case Studies
13- Support for children and young people undergoing radiotherapy treatment
Lobke Marsden
14. Working with children and young people with autism in the Health Care Setting
Nicola Voos and Susan Fairclough
15. Virtual Reality: The new distraction therapy?
Tracey Martin
16- The role of the health play specialist in the care of children and young people with cancer
Penelope Hart-Spencer
17. Teenagers in Hospital
Nicky Everett and Sarah Dransfield
18. Ship-shape and Bristol Standard fashion: The ‘why’, the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of implementing the Bristol Standard within the practice of a hospital play team
Julie Fisher, Nicky Bale and Jo Casely
19. Managing a Play Team through the Covid Crisis
Laura Walsh
Part IV: Reflections from around the world
20. Oh! The Places You’ll Go! – A play specialist’s journey
Ana Smith (New Zealand)
21. Play in two different ways- A Reflection on Play Practice in the United Arab Emirates.
Bushra Ashraf and Gemma Hookins (UAE)
22. "G’Day!" A history of hospital play in an Australian Children’s Hospital
Leanne Hallowell (Australia)
23. Integrating Play in North American Hospitals- Historical and Current Approaches
Michael Patte (USA)
24. The Hospital Play Specialist Education Course in Japan: what we have achieved and what we need to overcome
Chika Matsudaira (Japan)
25. Let’s start with play- why play in the emergency department can be our best tool for interventiosn
Cala Hefferan and Laura Sufka (USA)
Part V: Playing in other ways and other settings
26. Play in a children’s hospice- what’s the point?
Lynda Elliot
27. The therapeutic power of playing with chronically abused children
Fraser Brown
28. Play and the paradigm shift
Barrington Powell
29. Playing Beyond the Boundaries- How the role of the health play specialist can benefit adults in healthcare
Irene O’Donnell
30. Play with purpose: the therapeutic value of play for siblings of pediatrtic patients
Cala Heffernan and Mikaela Sullivan
31. Taking hospital play into the home
Tracy West
32. Concluding Thoughts
Nicky Everett and Cath Hubbuck
Appendix- Useful Links
Index
Biography
Nicky Everett is Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, UK, Cath Hubbuck is a registered Health Play Specialist, currently based in London, UK, Fraser Brown is Emeritus Professor of Playwork at Leeds Beckett University, UK.
