What's this week about?

I don’t believe that there is a single professional in the play and playwork world who doesn’t talk about risk taking in play. The way we look at risk has changed in the past decade, moving from direct risk assessments to risk benefit analysis. The emphasis on keeping the child and their play at the centre of the process has become even more important. We need to move away from a culture in which risk taking is balanced against the tension of potential litigation, to a fundamental recognition that without the potential risk in children’s play lives we are doing them a disservice. As a practitioner I too am keenly aware of the need for risk taking in children’s play but more and more I realise that we do not spend enough time also thinking about the emotional, social, and behavioural risk taking that children engage in. This week addresses all these issues.

How does the Conference work?

Conference doors open at 11am to give you the opportunity to sit around the ‘small table’ with people you know and people you have yet to know, to make friends and have conversations before the core part of conference starts. You will have the opportunity to move from one table to another as you mingle with other participants in our ‘lounge’.

The formal conference commences at 12 o’clock with an introduction from Meynell as conference chair, to each of our three presenters. Each of our presenters will then make a 15-20-minute presentation which we have nicknamed their ‘first piece’. You will be able to make comments on these presentations in a number of ways, as will have been explained to you in your pre-conference zoom registration. Once all three presenters have finished, we will take three questions from the floor, hopefully one for each presenter, before breaking out into the workshop sessions.

Each participant will be able to choose which workshop session they wish to attend, or you can choose to stay in the ‘lounge’ and network with other participants. The workshop sessions provide the participants an opportunity to go deeper into the subject matter presented in the first half of the conference. Each presenter will structure their workshop differently, but all will provide you the opportunity for engagement.