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PlayCare
"PLAYCARE"
Draft concept paper
9-8-05
"All children need safe and inviting environments in which to play."
Association for Childhood Education InternationalProject: K.I.D. is organized around a very simple premise: Play is at the heart of what it means to be a kid. This means that as soon as possible in the wake of a disaster, children need protective, restorative environments where they can return to being kids.
When children are exposed to traumatic experiences such as the devastation following a natural disaster or similar disruption to their environment, they are often immersed in a situation marked by physical destruction and emotional fear. Even when children are not separated from their parents, their caregivers are often themselves in despair, strained by the immediate need to ensure survival and protection for their family members and overwhelmed in facing the challenge of rebuilding their lives.
Emergency shelters are a critical component of disaster response efforts, but the very nature of life in shelters often magnifies the sense of despair and disruption to which children are exposed. These problems are exacerbated by the physical confinement and sheer boredom shelter life imposes.
The founders of Project: K.I.D. believe that in these circumstances, the best thing for children and their parents is to as quickly as possible establish environments in which children who are victims of devastation can spend at least some time each day being kids. Children need to experience continuity of loving care and some freedom from the fear of seeing adults grieve.
More and more childrens advocacy and education groups are recognizing the centrality of play to childrens ability to thrive and bounce back from traumatic experiences. Child Play International puts it this way:
"Play is serious business for children; it is the way they learn to master their environment. If everything else is right in their lives, they will always find a way to play. But in conditions of poverty, illness or misfortune, they need some help. They don't need elaborate equipment, but they need the right atmosphere, encouragement, and at least a few simple materials.
Above all, they need affectionate and joyful adults to care for them when their parents can't."
In "Play: Essential for All Children" , a position paper written for the Association for Childhood Education International, Joan Packer Isenberg and Nancy Quisenberry observe that:
"Theorists, regardless of their orientation, concur that play occupies a central role in children's lives. They also suggest that the absence of play is an obstacle to the development of healthy and creative individuals. Psychoanalysts believe that play is necessary for mastering emotional traumas or disturbances; psychosocialists believe it is necessary for ego mastery and learning to live with everyday experiences; constructivists believe it is necessary for cognitive growth; maturationists believe it is necessary for competence building and for socializing functions in all cultures of the world; and neuroscientists believe it is necessary for emotional and physical health, motivation, and love of learning."
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), a leading accreditor of educational programs for children from birth through age 8, also recognizes the role that play has in helping children release tension. They suggest the following strategies for care providers for children dealing with trauma:Give worried children more time for relaxing, therapeutic experiences such as playing with sand, water, clay, and play dough. Provide plenty of time and opportunities for children to work out their concerns and feelings through dramatic play. In dramatic play, children can pretend that they are big and strong to gain control over their trauma and to overcome feelings of helplessness. Spend more time outdoors, at the gym, or in the park so children have opportunities for physical activity that provides an emotional release.
Drawing upon our best understanding of childrens health and education needs and the experience of long-term child care professionals, Project: K.I.D. has developed a operational approach to delivering "PlayCare" rapidly and effectively to kids in devastation.Our "PlayCare" sites are established in the earliest phases of disaster response, when children are often at most risk for secondary injuries and illnesses from having no other place to go amidst debris and destruction. We immediately establish "safe areas" where parents may obtain emergency care for children while they seek to assess damage, sort through rubble, gather belongings and otherwise begin to piece their lives back together.
As other disaster relief agencies set up shelters, distribution and aid application sites, Project: K.I.D. can rapidly relocate our "PlayCare" sites to areas most convenient to parents and children.
While providing a qualified supervisor for each site, it is the goal of Project: K.I.D. to raise funds to screen, hire, train, and pay local personnel to provide "PlayCare" services at each site. By enlisting the assistance of displaced persons themselves, including teens, Project: K.I.D. can help adults as well as children begin to take steps to rebuild their lives.
Project: K.I.D. does not, however, seek to be a long-term provider of child care in devastated areas. Our presence at any site will last only as long as there is clear need for our services. We will work in every way possible to assist local child care providers in reestablishing their facilities and services in order that parents and children may return as soon as possible to a sense of normalcy.
Other references:http://www.playforpeace.org/work/play.html
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/human/disas4.html
Saul Levine, MD, with Heather Wood Ion, Against Terrible Odds: Lessons in Resilience from Our Children (2002).