Let Your Kids Engage in Risky Play: Playwork Principles are the Key

Dr. Rhea brings back playworker and risky-play advocate, Jill Wood, to share how she brought adventure play into The Parish School in Houston, Texas, and just how beneficial it has been for her students and community. More than that, risky play is key to building resilience, joy, trust, and healthy relationships. The language and insight that playworkers bring to recess or play environments helps determine when play that is observed is risky in a healthy way or in a hazardous way. This session highlights different playworker approaches that are beneficial to the rights of a child to play in risky ways. Jill Wood is founding director of⁠ Adventure Play at The Parish School⁠, an outdoor, child-directed after school program in Houston Texas. It is one of only a handful of adventure playgrounds in the United States and the only one based at a school for children with speech and language delays. Jill is founder of ⁠Bayou City Play⁠, a group of educators and therapists, who partner with organizations to improve play opportunities in the Houston metro area, and she provides training as a regional consultant for UK-based Pop-Up Adventure Play. She is mom to an amazing 10-year-old, who is the real expert on play in our household. Resoures mentioned in this episode: Play Wales - ⁠https://play.wales/playwork/⁠ Pop-up Adventure Play - ⁠https://www.popupadventureplay.org/⁠ Bayou City Play - ⁠https://www.bayoucityplay.com/⁠ The Playwork Principles - ⁠https://playwork.foundation/the-playwork-principles/⁠ The Playwork Primer: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/⁠https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED511455.pdf⁠ Play Street Initiative - ⁠https://londonplaystreets.org.uk/