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Playing with children's health?
Looking back at our policy symposium at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
“What if, for children in hospital, there is a way to reduce the number of attempts at treatment, the need for sedation, and the need for repeat appointments, which also means healthier, happier children, involved in their own healing and their own recovery? We know there is a simple way: it’s play”.
Thus began our recent symposium at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), with a range of specialist researchers, practitioners and policymakers weaving a compelling narrative for change and leaving no one in any doubt about the interconnectedness of children’s play, health, and healthcare; and how public policy should respond.
The message from Starlight’s youth panel, via a special video, rang loud and clear: “Starlight wants the government to make a promise to all children who are sick and in hospital to protect play for us”.
Our own Sarah Owen movingly recounted her lived experience as the parent of a young boy with leukaemia and how “play was absolutely transformative to our experience; it reconnected us as a family … but most importantly it gave Hari back glimmers of his childhood, which we could see him losing”
There were many wonderful presentations, including two pieces commissioned by Starlight:
- A summary of the new literature review on play in healthcare, from Dr Kelsey Graber of the PEDAL centre (Play in Education, Development and Learning), University of Cambridge. Kelsey’s research shines a light on the ‘humanising’ impact of play, not just on children but on the health professionals working with them.
- A theoretical framework from Dr Wendy Russell, for play within health and healthcare policy, adapted the relational capability approach of Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. Wendy considered the integral role of play in children’s wellbeing from a variety of perspectives – intrinsic, instrumental and rights-based – concluding that an holistic approach to policy for children’s play makes “moral, social, political and economic sense”.
Paul Lindley OBE, author of Raising the Nation, How to Build a Better Future for Our Children (and Everyone Else), and chair of the new Play Commission, gave a passionate keynote about the need for a new government play strategy. With one of Starlight’s key aims being to make the case to government for play to be a key part of its child health policy, it was encouraging to hear him say that this would be a key focus of his commission.
The recent Darzi report concludes that “there are real concerns about the NHS’ capacity and capability to deliver high quality care for children … at the moment, too many are being let down”. In this light, the PM’s pledge “to raise the healthiest generation of children ever” already seems a tall order. Our symposium made a persuasive case for why serious government policy for play must be part of the solution.