The Essence of Play: A Practice Companion for Professionals Working with Children and Young People

We aim to identify how children's play develops and how they develop as they play. The way that play reflects and promotes children's physical, emotional, intellectual, linguistic and social ability is considered. We look at the emergence of different play skills and why each of these developmental play skills is important. We look at diversity and difference in play with a particular emphasis on professional play practice issues. Play as an effective means of naturalistic assessment and documentation is considered, as is the creation and management of the play space, play materials and professional play practice issues such as safeguarding and risk. Within the book we pose questions which are aimed at developing practitioners thinking about play as well as their practice and suggestions for further reading are provided.