UC researcher to study how play therapy helps children

UC researcher to study how play therapy helps children after big events
 
May 12, 2013
 
A University of Canterbury (UC) health sciences researcher is studying how play therapy helps the child make sense of a major crisis or event.
 
UC’s Junita Nawawi hopes to learn how children’s experiences from major crises is brought into the playroom and how, through play, children learn to grow in confidence with their thoughts and feelings following such times.
 
``When children experience some grim events in their lives, play-time helps them to make sense of those experiences.
 
``Play helps children to develop awareness and understanding of their experiences and enables the process of gaining insight, problem-solving, coping and mastery. Play therapy, therefore, is an ideally suited intervention for children with emotional and developmental difficulties.
 
``Research has found that children who participated in play therapy showed greater improvements compared to those who did not.  
 
``The information I gain from the findings of my research will help other therapists, researchers and aid agencies to respond more confidently and effectively in communities which are working to re-establish themselves after major events.
 
``Hopefully, it will not just benefit New Zealand but all communities around the world where disasters occur.’’
 
Nawawi is a trained counsellor and has more than five years’ experience helping children and adolescents with emotional distress as well as social and behavioural difficulties. She has also received training in play-based interventions for children.
 
Nawawi will carry out the project under the supervision of Associate Professor Karyn France, a registered clinical psychologist at UC’s School of Health Sciences. She is seeking children, between ages four to nine, whose parents believe they may benefit from some play-based therapy.
 
She plans to begin the study next month with results available early next year.

ENDS

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