Playing through a pandemic!
Creative Academies share their thoughts and feelings about working in the pandemic with some personal and insightful
perspectives. Thank you, Tia, Taylor, Luca and Vinay for your contributions!
Tia
Play work in a pandemic, a sentence I never thought I’d say at the start of 2020. What a ride it’s been, from the start of lockdown I’d began creating an abundance of plans of what play could look like during a pandemic be it physical or digital, yet when we finally got the go ahead for delivery I was stumped! How could I strike the balance of everyone’s safety and comfort but keep the freedom of play, as to me freedom is key to play, but we would have to take some control over their play to ensure their safety, we created a safe play space that remained limitless to the imagination.
Through the first lockdown and the time after I never left my house due to my own anxieties, I struggled to go for walks and would
panic at the sight of others so when the call came for delivery I was in mixed emotions, play is essential to children and this overrode my anxieties, they needed this and so did I. The first session I was full of emotions, I finally got to see my team in the flesh after 4 months, I got to see the staff at the centre, this was a great moment to reconnect with the real world again without it all being doom and gloom. Then the anxiety creeped back as we were waiting for the participants to show up, I worried how they would react to us as we had no previous relationship with the children, how they would react to the play environment as they hadn’t had freedom for the past 4 months yet these feelings were quickly diminished as soon as I saw their faces, they were like a fresh ray of sunshine after a storm, they were craving a play space you could see the creativity and imagination flourish and it was a massive boost of colour into such a grey time.
Overall, it was a great opportunity for us all to socialize, play and feel a sense of normality in a new, strange and unsettling time.
Luca
Adapting was tough at first but once the understanding was there and the guidelines were in place I felt more than ready to provide the best standard of work delivering sessions. It was great to see young people still being able to get out and have fun at our sessions whilst still following the guidelines in place, it felt very rewarding seeing them smile and laugh amongst each other or with us as staff because during a rough time for everybody it’s always great to see.
Taylor
As a Play Activator delivering during the summer while also tackling the issue of COVID-19 was an eye-opening experience for me personally as there were many challenges that came with COVID-19 and how we would be delivering. I myself had my own worries about COVID-19 but I felt at the time what a great opportunity this would be for the young people not only to be able to play safely again, but also to socialise which I knew was a tough thing at the time due to COVID-19 restrictions.
With this in mind I feel as though any worries I had myself about COVID-19 were outweighed by the need of this delivery for the young people, as I felt it was such a fun and amazing opportunity for them to socialise and safely play with people from outside of their household when we are in such a difficult time.
Vinay
While working on go play during these tough times it has allowed me to re-engage with community work and work on many skills that I would need as a sports coach, overall, I think go play made a big impact on some young people’s social skills and allowed us play workers to build a rapport with the young people for upcoming sessions. I think we have all worked well as a team and managed the rules and social distancing really well and taught the young people on how to keep active at home and how to keep safe.
#pandemic #proudtoplayinsandwell #playmatters #letthemplay
Tia, Luca, Taylor & Vinay
Play Officer - Creative Academies Network
