Sometimes concerns about risk, and health and safety, can limit a child’s opportunities to play, especially when it comes to children with physical disabilities or medical needs. When disability charity Sense conducted a public inquiry into the provision of play opportunities for children with multiple needs, a number of other barriers became apparent, such as negative attitudes from other parents and insufficient funding.
‘We held several roundtable discussions with a variety of professionals and parents,’ says Anne Cheesbrough, children and family support worker at Sense, which supports people who are deafblind or have other sensory impairments or complex needs. ‘We were shocked by some of the issues that families raised: many spoke of not being able to access play environments, and others had actually been turned away. You would think that kind of experience would be a thing of the past, but it is still happening today.’
A lack of changing places, unsuitable equipment and poor wheelchair accessibility can prevent disabled children and their parents from accessing play opportunities. Nine out of ten parents of disabled children said they had fewer opportunities to play than their non-disabled peers, while 95 per cent said they needed support in finding ways to play with their children. The inquiry found that outdoor play settings were particularly difficult to access for disabled children, despite the fact that children with more complex needs benefit from exploring sights, smells, textures and sounds in natural environments.
In response to these findings, Sense’s Children’s Specialist Services team decided to develop a set of Play Toolkits, aimed at mainstream play settings and the parents of children with sensory impairments and multiple needs.
PLAY GUIDES AND VIDEOS
The toolkits consist of two instructional guides, one for parents and one for settings, which give tips on making play inclusive and accessible, as well as setting out the legal requirements for providers. Ten instructional videos, available on YouTube, aim to bring the advice to life. The short clips focus on:
- resonance boards
- sensory stories
- hand-under-hand communication
- messy play
- treasure baskets
- den-making
- signing songs
- using household items
- outdoor play
- play in other settings, such as hospitals and doctors’ surgeries.
The ‘hand-under-hand’ approach is where the practitioner’s hand performs the activity and the child’s hand rests on top. If the child decides they want the activity to end, they can take their hand away at any time, giving them choice, control and a sense of freedom.
‘The hand-under-hand approach is a way of engaging children with an activity in a non-threatening way, allowing a child to use your hands to explore an object they are not familiar with,’ explains Helen Potter, senior family support worker at Sense, who appears in some of the videos.
Resonance boards, a thin piece of plywood raised slightly from the floor by a wooden frame, can help to develop a child’s self-awareness. Any movement on the board will produce amplified sound and matching vibrations, encouraging communication, turn-taking, anticipation and problem-solving, among other things. ‘Although quite expensive to buy, they are actually quite easy to make,’ says Ms Cheesbrough. ‘They are really good to encourage children to look at where their bodies are in space and to locate sound and direction.’
Items such as portable speakers, vibrating toys, spinning tops and stringed beads and bells can be placed on the board, or a child can stand, sit or lie on it.
Sensory stories are stories that are accompanied by various sensory experiences. ‘You can adapt any story to be a sensory story,’ says Ms Potter. ‘All it needs is a little bit of imagination and research, and sourcing materials to bring the story to life.’
Objects might include dolls, toy animals and everyday items such as shoes. ‘It is key to use real and everyday objects to create the actual sounds,’ says Ms Cheesbrough.
‘Our initial list of activities was around 40, so it was a challenge whittling them down to ten,’ says Ms Cheesbrough, who was involved in putting together the videos, and appears in them demonstrating various activities and approaches. When she is not being a YouTube star, she works to support children with disabilities in different settings, using play as a tool to encourage communication. ‘Play is used as a means of developing a relationship with a child,’ she says.
SIMPLE EVERYDAY RESOURCES
Although Sense has not been tracking which settings are using the kits, general feedback has been positive. ‘One of my concerns with the toolkits was that perhaps we were stating the obvious, but professionals have told me that it is useful to watch the videos, and they make you think about different approaches you can take, or can be used to start a discussion,’ says Ms Cheesbrough.
‘Schools have used them in twilight training sessions, focusing on just one aspect, such as messy play, and parents have said their nurseries have found them useful,’ she adds. ‘One family is quite housebound because of their child’s medical needs, and they have been able to bring the videos to life doing activities in the home, and involving the child’s siblings.’
The toolkits are also useful for speech and language therapists. ‘Communication is at the heart of all the play ideas,’ Ms Cheesbrough adds.
It was important for the toolkits to focus on ways to engage children using simple, non-specialist resources. ‘The feedback we have had from mainstream settings is “I don’t know how I would cope with a deafblind child, we would need lots of specialist equipment”, but in fact you can use normal household objects,’ says Ms Cheesbrough. ‘It’s about the process; it is how you use them that is important.’
Ideas for everyday items that can be used in sensory play include soft dusters, bags with zips and pockets, brushes, bath scrunchies, and even saucepans.
Sense runs a number of family centres, and some of these have been promoting the toolkits to the families they work with, and to the wider community. One is Hadley Family Centre in High Barnet, which delivers a weekly pre-school group for children with sensory impairment and additional needs and their parents and carers.
It held an open evening in January when staff were able to demonstrate parts of the toolkit to other professionals. ‘The elements of the toolkits are intrinsic to the approaches used at the Hadley Centre,’ says Lorna Slee, children’s hub manager.
Parents of children with disabilities do not always want to access specialist provision only. ‘They may have three children without disabilities and one deafblind child,’ says Ms Cheesbrough. ‘Specialist activities will probably not be suitable for the other children, and vice versa, so parents want inclusive activities that are available to everyone.’
The toolkits are one way of helping mainstream settings to develop activities that are open to all children, no matter what.
TOP TIPS FOR SUPPORTING FAMILIES
Offer a warm welcome – parents of disabled children are often worried about the reaction they will receive when they attend a new play setting.
Promote inclusion and change attitudes – practical ideas include putting up posters that promote the idea of acceptance and inclusion.
Be flexible and accommodating – factor in parents being late.
Make time to get to know families – be mindful that the child may have been on a difficult medical and developmental journey, and that this could impact how their family relates to professionals.
Create opportunities for families to get to know one another – play settings can help to create social networks.
Provide clear information – parents say they have limited time to research suitable activities for their child, in addition to their caring responsibilities.
Get the right training and skills – this could involve working with specialist settings and training providers.
Source: ‘Making play inclusive: A toolkit for play settings’, Sense
MORE INFORMATION
Play toolkits and video mini-series, www.sense.org.uk/play/toolkits
Making the case for play: Findings of the Sense Public Inquiry into access to play opportunities for disabled children with multiple needs, www.sense.org.uk/sites/default/files/the-case-for-play-report.pdf
Play report video, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UCfBd6O5h8
