Playworker and writer Kelda Lyons visited the Shop of Possibilities for three days in January 2015 to observe the play sessions and introduce new loose parts into the space. Here are here thoughtful reflections on what she observed.
Context
This project came about after I went to playworker and writer Joel Seath’s talk in late 2014, one of the Play Local Topics talks that happen at the South London Gallery (SLG). I was really glad to find these talks, as for me it meant finding a place outside my existing play networks where I could meet and hear from people from other disciplines who are interested in play. I have a playwork background, and I’m currently doing play development work with staff in children's settings; what I do is changing and expanding, but my interests and focus are always around play, playwork, inclusive public spaces and the built environment, and creative and outdoors opportunities for children. I want to be a part of increasing other professionals knowledge of children and play, (architects, urban planners, and others), and increase my own understanding of how other professionals view and understand play, and the place it has in their work, so I can support others to create more playful places. How I am going to do this isn’t obvious. It is a case of making it up as I go along, talking to people, meeting people, and finding good ways and places to share knowledge. I already meet all sorts of people in the course of doing my work, but finding the Play Local Topics was different, as they have a physical base in the gallery, are organised and run by two staff, Lauren Willis and Jack James, and supported by the gallery as a whole.
I was really inspired by Lauren and Jack - it is rare to meet people whose work focus is not solely playwork, who really understand play and why it is important for children, and who facilitate and support projects with non-playwork professionals, like artists, in a play setting.
After Joel's talk, I visited a play session in the Shop of Possibilities (SoP), which is where a lot of the play sessions that Lauren and Jack run are based. There are also more play sessions on other estates nearby. I then proposed doing a small project in the SoP, based around introducing loose parts for playing with light and dark, and observing how the children played with these.
Aims of this project were:
• To bring something new into the play sessions - loose parts for playing with the darkness, indoors and out.
• To get a written account of what I saw and thought was interesting about the play sessions to share on the Play Local blog.
• Me doing a supported piece of play writing.
• For me to get support with moving from holding a lot of knowledge about play and not always knowing how to share it, to being more of a ‘knowledge sharer’, by doing a piece of play writing in a defined context, with knowledgeable and sympathetic (to play) people.
• To support my professional development; as well as doing play development work with staff in various children's settings, starting to collaborate with other professionals such as artists, architects, urban planners, more schools, community gardens people, and others.
What was planned and what happened (overview):
I attended three play sessions in the SoP on Sceaux Gardens, behind the SLG, on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at the end of January 2015. I haven’t written about what I saw in a chronological order, although sometimes I will specify when something happened, if the timing or order of it is important.
Staff bought and found some new loose parts; candles, string, gas lighters, small and giant matches, torches, loads of glass jars, and other materials. We planned to get them out on the second day I was there, so I had some idea of what a normal day looked like at the SoP, but because the weather was predicted to be so bad for most of that week, we decided to make the room dark the first day, and get the torches out when it got dark outside, so as to make the most of being able to play around in the dark outdoors on all the days I was here.
Me and Lauren Willis, the Children & Families' Programme Manager at the SLG, who was there on the first and second session I attended, decided after the first play session that we wouldn’t talk about the sessions until I had seen all of them, and that I wouldn’t attend their staff meetings that take place after each session, so that my impressions of the sessions remained just that.
Purpose and meaning of the project for me:
Doing this project means that for the first time, apart from whilst doing a play theory module as a stand alone course at university, I have a planned, defined context to write about play observations within. SLG has an existing place to share information, here on their blog, and in books and other material that they publish.
Playwork colleagues and mentors have been encouraging me to publish my play writing more for the past few years, saying that I have a really special perspective on play, playworker relationships with children, and children's views of their worlds and places. However, the ethics of sharing some of my written observations of play has often been difficult for me. Children have shown and shared very personal feelings with me in many playwork settings, and I have experienced very sensitive material being played with, including children talking about abuse and neglect. I believe that children choose the adults that they share these things with, who they sense will be able to respond to them in a sensitive way. I have always struggled with the ethics of publishing material which I see as private for the child who shared it with me, as I believe that these very personal experiences, feelings and thoughts have been shared with me in trust. At the same time, I also want the wider world to know about what I regard as amazing moments in playwork, that I think are important (and possibly therapeutic) for children, that happen in the context of good child-playworker relationships. My reluctance to disregard what I see as children’s privacy, means that I have not published a lot of incidental, but amazing observations that I have recorded in the course of being a playworker.
As a playworker, I have professional networks, but there is no institution or formal professional association that I know of for playworkers, that holds clear guidance on the ethics of publishing play observations. Most places that employ playworkers do not include the aim of supporting or disseminating writing about play in order to share it more widely, as they normally exist to provide play services to children. So for me, there is a great value of doing this writing in a supported way, with a project and institution who I respect, and who have established methods for sharing what happens in their play sessions.
