MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

This paper examines the therapeutic potential of promoting play as an ‘ethos’ or way of being as opposed to an activity carried out in discreet locations within a hospital environment. Play can provide us with the ‘’belief in the worthwhileness of merely living’’ (Sutton Smith. 1997, p.254). In a specialist children’s hospital the children attending have highly complex conditions and it is posited here that in a system which pathologises children, that the fundamental importance of play may be lost to the dominant pathological narrative. Staff perceptions of play should therefore be interrogated to uncover assumptions and to ensure that rich environments can be created that offer the best conditions in which play can happen.

Great Ormond street hospital is the leading children’s hospital in the UK and play is a fundamental part of every-day life. It is acknowledged that play in its many forms enhances whole child (cognitive creative, emotional, physical, social) development (Patte, 2015; Piaget, 1951; Vygotsky, 1966), yet there is still a lack of clarity in this setting around what play is and its potential value. This paper analyses events around an outbreak of an infectious illness within the hospital. Different interpretations and understanding of infection control directives led to an extreme interpretation of the rules being enforced, play spaces co-created by children and staff were cleared and materials destroyed. This led to an unpicking of the assumptions and value positions held by actors in the incident.

Using theories of affordances (Kytta. 2003), Production of Space (Lefebvre. 1991) as well as notions of social and cultural determination, this narrative is presented using lively, playful story-telling methods appropriate to play theory, interweaving stories from staff and children with theoretical applications.