This is the third workshop in a series of three events: Silence as Primer, Kindness as Primer, Play as Primer.
‘Play as Primer’ is a joyful provocation towards play practices for eliciting memories and past experiences that can help clarify the present and give the inner child permission to be, contributing to self-discovery and healing.
This session offers a space to explore a range of definitions of play and practical opportunities to extend these ideas to working with clients of different age groups. The emergent possibilities of play can also be applied to working within a group dynamic, in communities and in business, and with individual clients who may prefer creative modalities for action and healing.
Defining and re/defining play, intentionally, can elicit unexpected solutions, priority-setting and therapeutic pathways. Play can serve as a method for interaction and intervention that has the potential to engage clients’ creative authority and participation, with and beyond words. Play also allows for an appreciation of aesthetic, transformational and material possibilities, emerging in concrete and poetic ways, that can (and should) remain inexplicable, mysterious, even sacred.
Please bring with you: (small) found objects, for example: paper cutouts from magazines and newspapers, paper cups, bus tickets, business cards, jam jars (almost anything…).
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event
- Expect an interactive space for reflection and action that offers a series of ideas to ponder upon as well as ‘playful’ statements that invite a material response from each member of the group. For this purpose, please bring with you (small) found objects, for example: paper cutouts from magazines and newspapers, paper cups, bus tickets, business cards, jam jars (almost anything…). This way you may experience the playful and divergent possibilities for self-expression, surprise and reflection, which can become primers for the therapeutic encounter.
- By identifying different definitions of play, inspired by process over talk, these ideas can be integrated in your approach to therapy, coaching and practices for self-healing.
- Participate in a three-part facilitated gathering to share ideas and shape these in ways that are relevant to you, re-imagining what it means to play, drawing on experiences to engage your originality and resonances from the collective.
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- Anyone hoping to engage in reflection and pause, individually and in therapeutic contexts; therapists, coaches and socially-engaged practitioners working with individuals, couples, groups and colleagues in the helping professions.
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- We often think of play as an age-bound recreational process or activity, yet play is at the centre of our inner joy, in collectiveness and in solitude. Play can be a primer for the therapeutic encounter with adults and children. This workshop welcomes the creative synergies of the group and offers you some techniques for generating ideas, looking to the joy of play as a source of inspiration.
Course Content
Presenter
Dr. Francesca Bernardi PhD is an advocate, author, coach, and artist, with expertise in MA supervision, dis/ability and community engagement. Francesca has an extensive background as a teacher and artist-in-residence, working with children and adults in various settings, including schools, alternative provision, further and higher education, corporate settings, museums, and public spaces (Tate Museums and the RSA.org). She’s dedicated to working with parents and caregivers of children and young people with dis/abilities who have experienced school exclusions and other forms of social discrimination.
Francesca engages in multi-disciplinary and arts-informed practices with marginalized communities, and individuals experiencing loss and homelessness. Her approach is non-hierarchical, socially just, and creative, aiming to nourish healing and personal agency while honouring the wholeness of individuals’ personhood, choices, and capabilities.
Francesca has published her work on autism, arts-informed methodologies, childhood, and children’s rights in books and journals (Bloomsbury, Routledge, Taylor and Francis). She is the founding chair of the Antonio Gramsci Society UK, board member of the Disability Without Abuse Project (2020-), and an Associate Member of CATA/ACAT (the Canadian Art Therapy Association 2021-).
