Playing a Bigger Role: Play, Childcare and the Wellbeing Agenda - Pat Kane, The Play Ethic

Playing a Bigger Role:

Playwork, Childcare and the Well-being Agenda

Pat Kane

theplayethic.com

Aims of this conference:

1.how we can best plan to develop the childcare workforce of the future

2.how we can attract and keep staff, especially during a period of transition (ie, a raising of the status of childcare)

3.why it is so important that we attract high quality staff who understand their role

Re-imagining Social Work (Scottish Executive/ADSW/New Integrity)

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How can social work both improve occupational performance and recruitment/retention?

Not just by undergoing an internal exploration…

But also by exploring what social work has meant, does mean and could mean to the wider society…

Re-imagining internally and externally, and connecting up those two realms, making a powerful new narrative for social work

DOES CHILDCARE NEED RE-IMAGINING?

“Childcare” means… what? To whom?

Externally to childcare, it’s seen as a rather CHILLY word

- Institutionalised - non-parental caring, semi-educational

- Something that involves hard resources, time and money, user/provider

- Something at the beck and call of the economy - “high-quality childcare for hard-working parents”

PLAY IN CHILDCARE - A BETTER IMAGE? AND A BETTER REALITY?

A BETTER IMAGE…

- Parents more at ease with childcare, if children are happily at play there

Yet…

- Play (and playfulness) has become a major adult and societal concern - as part of wellbeing/crisis-of-work agenda. ‘Shouldn’t I be playing more with my children’?

PLAY IN CHILDCARE - A BETTER IMAGE? AND A BETTER REALITY?

A BETTER REALITY…

- Developmental case for play very strong and based in research - particularly neuropsychology (ties into happiness debate)

- Play as a civilizing process - ‘the society that plays together, stays together’

Nike’s Joga Bonita campaign

‘manifesto futebolista’

PLAY IN CHILDCARE - A BETTER IMAGE…

ADULTS WANT THEIR CHILDREN TO PLAY (AND WANT TO PLAY THEMSELVES…)


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‘ronaldhino’s joy’

‘when you were a kid, it was easy. You were not afraid to try, to dare… you do it, just because you like it.’


‘3 brazilians… is all you need’

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‘When you were a kid, it was easy. You were not afraid to try, to dare… you do it, just because you like it… My advice to you is: Never grow up’ (Nike - Soga Bonita)2.2 Play is a behaviour which is:

Freely Chosen - that children choose WHAT they do, themselves.

Personally Directed - that children choose HOW they do something.

Intrinsically Motivated - that children choose WHY they do something: that children’s play is performed for no external goal or reward.

Rationale for a National Play Policy for Wales, 2002


Grown-up Playfulness - a huge market

Young Dad David Cameron

… in his Converses

Rejuveniles

The Sultan’s Elephant

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PLAY IN CHILDCARE - A BETTER IMAGE…The Sultan’s Elephant

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•Leisure now biggest item in family expenditure

•Disenchantment with ‘work ethic’ growing

Childcare occupies strange space…

- Does it support the ‘quality-of-life’ agenda…

Or undermine it?

- How should childcare sector situate itself

to these changes in public ethics and value?


How does play figure in your adult life?

How exactly does the childcare sector contribute to happiness and wellbeing?

Two questions to consider for five minutes…

PLAY IN CHILDCARE - A BETTER REALITY…

BERNIE DE KOVEN’S DEEP FUN

Consultant to corporations in US

Do playworkers do this?

How do you think this ‘plays’ to the outside world?

How does/should a ‘qualified playworker’ behave with other care professionals?

Link to ‘rollover’


BERNIE DE KOVEN’S ‘New Games Movement’

Win-lose model of “quality assurance through playing games”



Win-lose model of “quality assurance through playing games”






Lego Serious Play

How far could the ‘professionalisation’ of playwork go?


• Like social work - distinct nature of the practice of playwork/serious play has to be recognised, not reduced to ‘health’ or ‘education’ or ‘arts’

•Can we find better name than “playwork”?

Play practitioner? Social player?

Playmaker? Ludologist? Don’t forget how important and civilising play is in all our lives - adult and child…

ModernPlay as progress – we adapt and develop through playPlay as selfhood – play as an expression of voluntary freedomPlay as imaginary – play as symbolic transformation, mental energy

AncientPlay as power – we contest and compete with others – in sports and games, in theatres of powerPlay as identity – the play-forms we use to confirm membership in a community – carnival, ritual, festivalPlay as fate and chaos – the sense that we are played by forces greater than ourselves, not accessible to reasonPlay as frivolity – play as laughter, subversion, tomfoolery

Brian Sutton-Smith - the seven rhetorics of play

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Playing a Bigger Role: Play, Childcare and the Wellbeing Agenda - Pat Kane, The Play Ethic