Category: Physical Health
PEDAL’s new report for the Starlight Children’s Foundation
31 March 2025
This literature review explores the connection between play and children’s health in healthcare contexts.
Trusting play to be meaningful data: using sand tray as a play-based research method with an adapted interpretative phenomenological analysis
27 March 2025
PEDAL PhD student Sydney Conroy explores using play itself as data for the purpose of research.
Fostering the psychological wellbeing of children diagnosed with cancer: Multidisciplinary insights in paediatric oncology
18 February 2025
PEDAL PhD student Paulina Perez-Duarte Mendiola contributed to this paper which was published last month in the Psycho-oncology section of Frontiers in Psychology.
It’s a Pandemic in the Playborhood: An International Perspective of Play Therapists on the COVID-19 Pandemic
7 January 2025
The COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and beyond, impacted many professions and workplaces, including therapists and their therapy rooms.
The Oxford Brain Story: Embedding an understanding of the importance of the early years
22 October 2024
In this PEDAL Conference 2024 keynote, Louise Dalton presents her programme of work entitled the Oxford Brain Story.
Centring children’s lived experiences in understanding the importance of play in hospitals
8 July 2024
We wanted to understand what playing in hospital is like from the perspectives and experiences of young children themselves.
Why and how do healthcare professionals use play in clinical practice?
1 March 2024
We explored what healthcare professionals in different roles and different countries understood to be important and useful about the role of play in paediatric practice.
Do educational programmes for healthcare professionals focus on play?
1 March 2024
This literature review looked at the evidence to understand how educational programmes for healthcare professionals include the use of play. It found that play is not consistently or systematically integrated into medical education.
Play in the face of adversity
1 November 2023
Read our paper for the Scottish Children's Commissioner about the value of play for children in the asylum seeking system.
Exploring play in hospitals in Spain, Australia and England
9 May 2023
In this article, Paulina reflects on her travels and what she has learned about Health Play Specialists and their importance to children in hospital.