Researching children's play collaboratively with a local play organisation. Creating synergies for children's rights in a disadvantaged community

The P4Play Marie Sklodowska-Curie Training Network is an innovative European Joint Doctorate programme in Occupational Science for Occupational Therapists. The P4play programme aims to research play occupation and is a collaboration between four universities and 15 organisations. This provides the opportunity to undertake a secondment in a non-academic sector with a partner organisation, adding significant value to the research. This poster presents one of the eight PhD studies and particularly focuses on the secondment partnership.

The secondment is hosted by East Lothian Play Association (ELPA). This partnership encouraged the PhD student’s transferable skills: observing and engaging in children’s play in disadvantaged communities, participating in other play projects, developing networking and being involved in ELPA’s planning and development activities. This closer collaboration prompted the creation of an Advisory-Expert Group to co-create the research.

The overall aim of the research is to gain a multi-faceted understanding of children’s and community members’ perspectives for a play-friendly community in a disadvantaged community of East Lothian. The Advisory-Expert Group contributes with their contextualized knowledge about children’s play, rights-based approach to play and local communities. This enriches the co-creation of the participatory design, through discussion about: study community, recruitment, connecting with key stakeholders, and involving children. This partnership will attempt to work towards play as social justice.