00:00So we use play in the hospital setting to help reduce anxiety for children and just to help them feel more at ease in the hospital environment.
00:10The reason we have play in healthcare is really to be working with children and young people and to help prevent their development from falling behind and regressing.
00:19I think it's important to have that because it helps you get through the day and it distracts you from everything else, like when you miss your friends at school.
00:36We use all sorts of different types of play. We use what we call normalising play, which is just age-appropriate play,
00:44things that children will naturally gravitate towards themselves because that most helps them reduce anxiety and fear and just feel comfortable in this environment.
00:54We're done with different games and colouring in and stuff and talking about stuff while playing different games.
01:02It made me feel happy or not as scared with it when I was going to do stuff.
01:11I mean the team here, Gillian and Sharon particularly, were just so helpful to us because obviously it was a very new experience.
01:16We hadn't had a kid in the hospital before.
01:18So we were trying to adapt with what was going on in our lives and trying to come up with some coping strategies and they were just so helpful with Maria.
01:25My favourite thing that I did in hospital was make all the friends like the doctors, the nurses and definitely the play specialists.
01:36It can make their whole experience in hospital much more positive. It can make it much more child centred and hopefully that will be some of the more positive things that they remember about their time in hospital as well.
01:48Being a health play specialist, I love the variety in the work day to day. The routine can change quite quickly at times.
01:56It can also be very challenging and a very rewarding career as well and it's lovely just to be able to make a difference.
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