Using Play to Support Newcomer Children: Tips for Getting Started
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The resettlement process can be extremely difficult for children, particularly when they need to discuss sensitive or potentially traumatic subjects. Using play and play-based methods is a research-proven way to help children feel comfortable and safe, with a sense of agency over their own stories. In this blog post, we explain why play is critical for newcomer children and families and how play can help children navigate difficult circumstances. We also provide guidance on how you can begin incorporating play into your work.
Why Play Matters
When working with children in a humanitarian context, it can be easy to dismiss play as non-essential. But engaging children in play is an important way to support them in a manner they can understand and participate in. Below are a few examples of why play is critical when working with children.
Play Is Critical to Well-Being
Research has proven that play is critical to children’s health, socio-emotional skills, and mental well-being. In fact, play is so meaningful to children’s health and safety that the United Nations has designated play as a fundamental right for every child, alongside food, water, and shelter. When you invite a child to a space of play, you are advocating for their needs. This is particularly important for groups like refugee children, who often are deprived of access to play and are vulnerable to long-term harms.
Play Breaks Down Barriers
Play experts often say that “there are no hierarchies in play”—that when adults engage children in a state of play, they are treated as equals. Play invites children to make choices during meetings with service providers and helps them build trust. It also supports providers in developing multifaceted and nuanced relationships with children, rather than simply being the person who talks to them about difficult experiences.
Play Is the Natural Way Children Communicate
Play is often considered our first language and our most natural form of communication. Children might not be able to talk about traumatic experiences in detail, but they will bring their whole set of experiences to play. Play allows children to bridge the gap between their thoughts, experiences, and what they are able to communicate.
When you work with refugee children and families, incorporating play can help children navigate communication issues and tell their stories on their own terms. For instance, children who struggle to tell their stories in a linear, detailed way often benefit from play-based tools such as art supplies, which allow them to draw their life experiences, family members, and journeys.
Programs Using Play with Displaced Children and Families
Right to Play is an organization that provides multifaceted, play-based services to children across the world in humanitarian environments. They work to help children’s academic, socio-emotional, physical, and cognitive skills through play.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) Play Program brings together play professionals, mental health and child development experts, and even professional puppeteers to design tools and procedures for working with children of all ages. When surveyed, 94% of IRC staff trained in play-based methods said they believed that play made children feel safe in session.
Getting Started with Play
Play can be an intimidating thing to start incorporating into your work. There are a wide range of tools and techniques, and choosing where to begin can be difficult. Below, we review some useful tools for getting started in play.
Gathering Play Materials like Toys and Games: Aim to curate your items. Choose items carefully, giving thought to your space, how much noise the toys make, how easy they are to clean, and the purpose they serve in your work.
Comfort Objects
Comfort objects are tools that a child can use to self-soothe and reduce anxiety, like stuffed animals and dolls. Before you start using a stuffed animal or other comfort object with children, take time with your team to pick a name that everyone will use. For instance, the favorite comfort object of the IRC’s Play Program is a weighted stuffed cow named “Lola.”
You can then introduce the comfort object to the child you’re working with. Tell the child that the comfort object is an employee at your organization who can help during your conversations, and that holding and petting them can help us feel relaxed. You can also add character elements, for example, “He loves being scratched behind the ears!”
If a child is struggling to say goodbye to the stuffed animals, puppets, or other comfort tools at the end of your time together, explain again that they are an employee at your organization and their job is to help other children like them. They need to stay, but they will always be here when the child comes back.
Drawing and Art
Drawing and coloring are practices that can help children reduce stress and gain focus during interviews and discussions. When drawing and coloring with children, it’s important to prioritize their agency: do not try to teach them the “right” way to draw or the “correct” color for an object.
Cooperative drawing—drawing that you and the child do together—can be a great way to build trust, especially early on during your work with a client. One particularly fun cooperative drawing exercise is “Draw a Creature,” described in the box below.
Draw a Creature: In this activity, you and a child will design an imagined creature or monster together by each drawing a different part until it is complete. For example, you can start by drawing the feet and legs, then the child can draw the body, then you can draw the arms. This continues until you have a fully finished, bizarre new creature (see an example below).
Tactile Tools
Tactile toys and tools are handheld objects that can be manipulated during conversation. The most common tactile tools are fidget spinners and stress balls, but there is a wide range of tactile tools that children can click, squish, fold, spin, and many other forms of repetitive motion. These tools can help facilitate conversation, reduce anxiety, and increase focus.
Children will have varied reactions to different kinds of tactile engagement. For instance, some children might like tools that “click” and dislike tools that “squish.” If you’re looking to include tactile tools in your work with children, make sure to have different types available.
Introduce children to tactile toys by showing the child which ones you have, highlighting a few of them (such as your favorite tool), and letting them choose which they will use. Let them know it’s ok to switch tools at any time.
Curious About Play?
This blog post highlighted a few ways to begin using play with children, but there are countless others. Here are some resources and organizations to support you in getting started:
Right to Play: NGO dedicated to using play to help children across the world. They have several resources on the importance of using play and how to get started.
The IRC received competitive funding through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant #90RB0053. The project is 100% financed by federal funds. The contents of this document are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
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