Presenting on decolonising play in a modern age during the 2025 national playwork conference last week encouraged our CEO, Marie Williams to dig deeper into what it practically looks like to dismantle knowledge systems in the life of someone who has dedicated there life to enable children to play.
You can find some of the reflections she shared below. Please also feel free to read and download an extract of the presentation.
Decolonising Play in a Modern World
🌍 Play is the making of multiple worlds-As we allow children to led their own play and help them to access to diverse play materials, experiences and space, it cultivates autonomy and agency. This can help children to truly express themselves and lead to the making of plural, hashtagdiverse worlds in play that may deviate from what we adults have become accustomed to.
👏 Play workers are doing an amazing job in working with children whose opinions and ways of being have been suppressed.
🔢 There are multiple roles adults can take in empowering children to become decision makers. You can inform others of what you have learnt from the children you serve, you can nurture children’s ideas and help them to know they can shape the world around them through play, you can advocate for children’s desires and needs to be met, you can decide to focus on ensuring children’s decisions are implemented.
💪 The UK state of play report provides us with the hope that local authorities will have the funding available to support adventure playgrounds that have been left in disarray due to budget cuts. It may also provide us with the unique opportunity to revolutionise the adventure play movement so that is amplifies more cultures.
🎙️ In the words of Gill Scott-Heron, this revolution may not be televised by the masses. The lack of coverage or recognition should not deter any of us, who are challenging the systems that exclude children from playing based on their race, social class, abilities and gender.
Thank you for Meynell Walter for inviting us it was a true blessing and honour to take part.
playwork, playworker, play, justice, inclusion , Diverisy
