‘Born to Play’ Book Group 3 with Jenny Wood and John McKendrick

Upstart's third 'Born to Play' Book Club session with Jenny Wood, Co-Founder and Co-Director of A Place in Childhood (APiC, and John McKendrick, a Professor in Social Justice at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Dr Jenny Wood is Co-Founder and Co-Director of A Place in Childhood (APiC), a Scottish social enterprise dedicated to children’s rights in planning, placemaking, and policy. She specialises in meaningful engagement with children and young people, supporting them to shape the places and services that affect their lives. Jenny is lead author of Co-creating Local Neighbourhood Plans with Children and Young People: A How-To Guide (2024), and her work has influenced national planning policy, Play Sufficiency Assessments, and the design of youth-friendly approaches across Scotland.

John McKendrick John co-edited Born to Play with Tam Baillie, and contributed a chapter on ‘paradox, play and poverty’. John’s research interests cover children’s use of space, children’s play and child poverty. He was on the Board of Directors of Play Scotland from 2007-2017 and was awarded the Play Champion Award by Play Scotland in 2024 for services to play. He has examined several PhD theses on play and served as external examiner for university degrees on play at Gloucestershire, Leeds Beckett and Northumbria universities. He has edited tencollection of papers on play. Four of these collections also arose from the International Play Association’s triennial conference in Glasgow in 2023, for which he co-ordinated the Academic and Practioner Panel: two pre-conference collections and edited two collections of papers, in which participants shared their perspectives on Priorities for Play: Towards 2030 and beyond and Inspirationally Playful: people, places and practices that have inspired play practitioners and researchers and two post conference collections, i.e., Born to Play, a collection that aims to promote play in Scotland, and Play for Health and Wellbeing, an edited collection of research papers in the International Journal of Play. Other collections include ‘Play and education in Scotland’ (Scottish Educational Review, 2019); ‘The playway to the entrepreneurial city’ (Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2018); ‘Unleashing the Power of Play: Research from the International Play Association 20th Triennial Conference’ (Children, Youth and Environments, 2018), two collections of papers examining the impact of Austerity on playwork (Journal of Playwork Practice, 2014) and playspace provision (International Journal of Play, 2015), and an earlier collection of papers on 'Children's playgrounds in the built environment', a Special Edition of the Built Environment (Alexandrine Press, 1999).

Born to Play

Play is a necessity (indeed a biological imperative) for children and young people to develop into the rounded human beings we all want them to become. The predisposition to play can be found regardless of the situations in which children find themselves: play can blossom even in the most adverse circumstances.

The book aims to reach a wide number of readers who would like to find out more about play including those with an interest in what digital play is squeezing out of children’s repertoire and to provide an understanding of what makes children born to play.

Tam Baillie is a member of the International Play Association World Board. He was previously Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People.

John H. McKendrick is a Professor in Social Justice at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Contributors to Born to Play include Sue Palmer from Upstart, Marguerite Hunter Blair CEO of Play Scotland, Dr Lynn J. McNair, Professor Aline-Wendy Dunlop, Cameron Sprague from Stramash and Robyn Monro Miller and Theresa Casey who both hold senior positions in the International Play Association.

To whet your appetite here's one enthusiastic endorsement -

‘For the authors of this snappy collection – an “A List” of play champions from Scotland and beyond – the personal is playful is political. The result is an engaging tapestry that weaves together impassioned argument and moving testimony to highlight the centrality of play in the lives of all children everywhere.’

Tim Gill, author of Urban Playground: How child- friendly planning and design can save cities