Prioritizing Play Conference

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Details coming in late 2021/Early 2022

Play may be one of the most universally relatable experiences while simultaneously being deeply personal to the player. As humans approaching play for the younger people in our care, it's imperative that we broaden our relationship to play... meaning that we make it personal to ourselves, that we listen and seek to understand other professions and that we gather all these truths in our hearts and mind before bringing these newfound understandings back to our work. 

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Whether you're a librarian, play therapist, park district official, teacher, playworker, occupational therapist or anything relating to sharing space with children, there is content here for you. There are tools and applicable knowledge waiting for you here to transform your practice. 

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A bit of background on the:

Prioritizing Play Conference 

When we held our first Prioritizing Play Conference in 2018, one thing we believed to be true was confirmed: there are an ever-growing number of folks all around the US (+beyond) who are hungry for resources on how to prioritize play in their settings.  

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Teachers, Landscape Architects, Mayors, Early Childhood care providers and people from park districts, nature programs, libraries and museums attended in 2018... all with a vision-- that play is important and worthy of intentional and thoughtful provision-- and they left with inspiration to bring play to their setting or with ideas and connections on improving what they already offer. Some folks even started their own adventure play projects after the conference!

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KOOP Adventure Play, Pop-Up Adventure Play and the newly formed Playwork Collective are 3 organizations grounded in playwork: a unique and long-established field of study and approach to working with children in which the child is in charge of their play and the adult supports the child's pursuits with a light touch and no judgement. Put very simply: playworkers prioritize play while they support and trust children. Playwork is growing in the United States and an answer to what so many professionals and parents feel to be true for children today: that their play is undervalued, inadequately provided for and generally an after-thought.

 

Gatherings like ours are bringing resources, opportunities for connection with play-minded professionals and support to folks working on better provision in their settings. Our 7-week fully online conference experience in 2020 offered a place for folks from 7 countries on 5 continents to recharge, network and prepare to move forward playfully in their community! We featured over 25 presenters and each week we dove deep into several specific topics that playworkers and community play-leaders need to think about in order to better relate to play. Weekly themes like Relating to Play as radical self-expression, the truest form of education, deeply personal to the practitioner, as anti-racist provision, as it happens in the body, as a natural healer and as a spatial justice issue. We were blown away by the presenters, the interactions in our private Facebook community, the work done in our Playbook and by the connections made over our weekly live chats. This conference was transformative and we're so grateful to all our participants for showing up and being willing to dive deep!

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While the Prioritizing Play Conference has wrapped up for now, we're looking forward to the next rendition. But the earliest you'll hear about details is Late 2021/Early 2022.  UNTIL THEN.... Follow KOOP, The Playwork Collective & Pop-Up Adventure Play for the next webinar, live chat or opportunity to learn more about Playwork. 

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