Hospital Play Specialist

We are looking to recruit a Band 4 Play Specialist. The key components of this role will be :

• Reducing Anxiety and Stress: Through play, they help children express their feelings, understand their experiences, and alleviate fear or anxiety related to medical treatments or hospitalisation
• Distraction and Comfort: During medical procedures, they engage children in play or activities that distract them from pain or discomfort, making the experience less frightening.
• Promoting Development: Play specialists provide age-appropriate activities to encourage cognitive, emotional, and physical development, even in hospital environments.
• Education and Preparation: They prepare children for medical treatments by using dolls, toys, or drawings to explain what's going to happen in a way the child can understand. This helps demystify the process and reduces fear.
• Emotional Expression: Play is a natural way for children to express their emotions. Play specialists use therapeutic play to allow children to process and express feelings like fear, anger, or confusion.
• Family Support: They also offer guidance and support to parents and caregivers, helping them understand their child's emotional needs and providing strategies to support their child during stressful times.
Please note this post is only suitable for those with a relevant play specialist foundation degree. or similar.,
• A Play Specialist's main concern is to meet the play needs of individual children of any age by providing a safe environment and appropriate materials. Through play, she/he attempts to maintain the children's contact with home and family. Also to ease the adjustment to a strange and often frightening environment.
• To demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the needs of the child in hospital. May be expected to demonstrate her/his own skills to other members of staff and students.
• To encourage normal development of the child by using play as a development aid. Participates in the assessment of care needs and the implementation of programmes of care.
• Through play, helping familiarise the child with strange apparatus and procedures, and supporting him/her throughout his/her stay in hospital with pre-operative and post operative play.
• Will document and keep accurate records of all areas of her/his work.
  
  Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust is committed to being an inclusive and disability confident employer and has been awarded the Gold for the Armed Forces Employment Recognition Scheme. We provide first class development opportunities for all staff and have a wide range of professional, management and leadership, and clinical skills training available.
Here at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, we know how important it is to have a healthy work life balance; this benefits not only individuals but the patients we care for too. We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service and its users. Frimley Health Trust benefits on Vimeo