Program encourages play to boost overall health

A dozen New England cities and towns were among those recognized by a program that encourages play to help increase the physical, mental and emotional health of children.

Playful City USA was launched by the non-profit group KaBOOM!, which helps build playgrounds through partnerships across America and is sponsored by the Humana Foundation. Playful City USA honors cities and towns that make play part of a city-wide agenda through creative solutions, coalition building, investment and data to address inequity through infrastructure, policy changes and programs. Among the 212 cities in 43 states recognized as 2014 Playful City USA Communities were Chicopee, Fall River, Greenfield, Montague, Peabody, Salisbury and Shirley in Mass.; Providence, R.I.; Saco, Maine; Coventry and Meriden, Conn.; and Pelham, N.H.

“Our goal is to ensure that all kids get the play they need to thrive,” says James Siegal, KaBOOM! COO and executive vice president, who says only one in four kids now get the recommended 60 minutes a day of active physical play.

Siegal says that children who live in poverty are more vulnerable to “toxic stress,” described as a response that occurs when a child experiences strong, frequent and/or prolonged adversity, such as physical or emotional abuse, chronic neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness, exposure to violence and/or the accumulated burdens of family economic hardship, without adequate adult support. A prolonged activation of this level of stress can be a barrier to healthy development, he says.

Siegal says play can not only serve as an outlet to alleviate stress for a child, but also can work to help prevent it.

“Play benefits the whole child,” Siegal says. “Everybody sort of understands the physical benefits of play, but it also benefits cognitive and creative development and social and emotional well-being.”

Siegal cites one recent project in New Mexico, where his organization worked with a partner to build a play space on a small Native American reservation that struggled with extreme poverty and also had a rash of teen suicides in the community the year before. “We engaged the teens in the community to help build the playground,” Siegal says.

“In the year that followed the building of the playground, there were no suicides and it has become a heavily used area of the community,” he says. “The play space became this safe haven in the community.”

Siegal says the project was a self-esteem builder for the teens.

“The one thing we heard loudly and clearly from the teens in the community was that by including them in the process of improving their community, they were valued for what they could do and not just seen as a problem to solve,” he says.

Play also helps children build resilience, Siegal says. “You think about something like monkey bars – there is a lot of practice and failure before a kid makes it across the monkey bars. Building up that resilience, so you can get back up and brush yourself off and be success the next time you try – that’s a life lesson and we see how particularly important it is for kids who are living under adversity to develop these skills.”