Alliance for Childhood
The Alliance for Childhood promotes policies and practices that support children’s healthy development, love of learning, and joy in living. The organization takes a keen interest in research on the current state of child-initiated play in early education and on ways that educators can encourage and restore play.
Frost Play Research Collection
The Frost Play Research Collection was dedicated in the spring of 2004, and is one of the largest children’s play and play environments research collection in the United States. The collection, awarded to the University of the Incarnate Word, in collaboration with Mary Ruth Moore, is comprised of materials from Dr. Joe L. Frost’s extensive research library, as well as other play and related items purchased by the library. It includes over 1,700 cataloged books, journal volumes, reports, video recordings and other materials, many of which are rare and/or out-of-print, collections of Dr. Frost’s research and work in the field of play, and hundreds of his photographs dealing with children’s play.
International Association for the Child’s Right to Play
IPA is dedicated to the improvement of childrens lives. Recognized by UNESCO, ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), and UNICEF, this non-governmental organization has established a Declaration of the Child’s Right to Play stating that the child has a right to leisure, play, and participation in cultural and artistic activities.
International Council for Children’s Play
ICCP is a volunteer association founded in 1959 to promote research on play and toys in various countries and to exchange research findings. The Association also promotes the understanding of play and toys, organizes campaigns to ensure the child’s right to play, advocates the raising of standards of toys, and informs the public about good toys and their value in child development.
KaBOOM!
KaBOOM! is a national non-profit organization that envisions a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Celebrating twelve years of service in 2008, we rally communities to achieve better public policy, funding and public awareness for increased play opportunities nationwide; provide resources, including trainings, challenge grants, and publications for communities that wish to plan a new playspace on their own; and bring together children, business and community interests for a select number of community playspace builds each year. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., KaBOOM! also has offices in Chicago, Atlanta and San Mateo.
National Institute of Play
The National Institute for Play, lead by its founder Stuart Brown, is an organization that promotes public awareness of the knowledge, practices and benefits of play into public life. It also acts as a resource by obtaining research information from diverse play scientists and practitioners; initiating projects to expand the clinical scientific knowledge of human play; and transforming this information into programs and resources to benefit play for all segments of society.
Play Wales
Play Wales is a national charity for children’s play that focuses on raising awareness of the need and right to play and provides advice and guidance to those with an interest in or responsibility for providing play opportunities.
Playwork-Partnership
Playwork Partnerships, part of the University of Gloucestershire is dedicated to enriching children and young people’s lives, by supporting their wellbeing through play including the creation of learning programs.
The Strong
The Strong® is a highly interactive, collections-based educational institution devoted to the study and exploration of play. It carries out this mission through the National Museum of Play, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the World Video Game Hall of Fame, the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, and the American Journal of Play.
Independent and not-for-profit, The Strong is situated in Rochester, New York, where it houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play. These enable a multifaceted array of research, exhibition, and other interpretive activities that serve a diverse audience of adults, families, children, students, teachers, scholars, collectors, and others around the globe.
US Play Coalition
The US Play Coalition is a partnership to promote the value of play across the lifespan and consists of an international network of individuals and organizations that recognize play as a valuable and necessary part of a healthy and productive life. The diverse membership includes educators, parents, physicians, health scientists, park and recreation professionals, psychologists, and landscape architects.
The Institute for Self Active Education (ISAE)
The Institute for Self Active Education (ISAE), is a 501c (3) non-profit organization. Established in Boston in 1980, ISAE is devoted to awakening the creative potential of children and adults using hands-on self active play and art making experiences with open ended, reusable resource materials. The Institute conducts research on the importance of play in the lives children and adults of any age. ISAE provides professional development workshops, play leadership programs, and discovery retreats. ISAE advocates for educational excellence that benefit children and adults through interactive, hands-on experiential learning. To do this we also promote the development of the reusable resource centers that provide free instructional materials donated by businesses from their unwanted surplus, overruns and/or obsolete materials.
The Institute offers creative solutions for problems facing education, business and the environment. It coordinates action among government agencies industry, and educational institutions in order to recycle valuable reusable material resources into the hands of teachers, parents, artists, play coaches and others who use them with children and adults to discover new and creative ways of thinking and solving problems, develop social-emotional wellbeing, and promote peace and healing.
Here is a new 4:16 video highlighting positive outcomes from our collaboration.
Play with Purpose https://youtu.be/XaMVjQpEtZk [youtu.be]
Journals
American Journal of Play
The American Journal of Play is a forum for discussing the history, culture, and psychology of play. An interdisciplinary quarterly of The Strong, the Journal aims to increase awareness and understanding of the role of play in learning and human development and the ways in which play illuminates cultural history.
The International Journal of Play
The International Journal of Play is an inter-disciplinary publication focusing on all facets of play. It aims to provide an international forum for mono- and multi-disciplinary papers and scholarly debate on all aspects of play theory, policy and practice from across the globe and across the lifespan, and in all kinds of cultural settings, institutions and communities. The journal will be of interest to anthropologists, educationalists, folklorists, historians, linguists, philosophers, play workers, psychologists, sociologists, therapists and zoologists.
International Journal of Playwork Practice
Playwork originated with adventure playgrounds to provide children safe spaces to play in post-WWII Europe. Playworkers help to create physical and emotional spaces where children are free to direct their own play and other activities safely and with minimal adult intrusion. Playwork practice is currently used by professionals working with children in an extensive range of international settings such as schools and after-school programs, zoos, museums, parks, hospitals, and prisons, as well as adventure playgrounds. International Journal of Playwork Practice advances playwork research and practice by providing an interdisciplinary platform for the publication and dissemination of scholarship relevant to playwork practice.
Common Threads
Common Threads supports adults who work with children to develop their playwork practice through training, publications, and research. They provide playwork workshops, research seminars, and publications suitable for novice and experienced playworkers.