The Scaling of Playworks
Research
Sep-01-2017 |
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2-min read
Playworks provides valuable lessons on growing a small, local organization into a national movement with broad applicability for other organizations that want to bring to scale ideas and contribute to RWJF’s work to build a Culture of Health.
Since 2005 the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has supported Playworks, an innovative program that provides supervised, inclusive recess programs at schools across the country. Jill Vialet, who founded Play4Kids, the precursor to Playworks, saw the need, particularly in urban elementary schools, for a new kind of recess that included everyone, taught an array of games, and developed skills in youth such as how to self-regulate, organize, collaborate, and work with others. RWJF’s $43.6 million in funding enabled Playworks to grow from a small San Francisco Area nonprofit into a national organization and movement, spreading the idea that play is important for children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and physical development. Playworks now serves some 1,300 schools in 23 communities.
This case study provides lessons and insights from the scaling of Playworks that may be applicable to other organizations interested in working with RWJF to build a Culture of Health.
“With its emphasis on the development of key social and emotional skills, contribution to physical activity, and positive effects on readiness to learn and school climate, Playworks is something of a poster child for the building of a Culture of Health,” the study author writes. “In fact, it was the impetus for the inclusion of ‘play’ in the Foundation’s description of health as starting ‘where we live, learn, work, and play.’”
The author reviewed documents from Playworks and RWJF and in 2016 conducted in-depth telephone interviews with 23 individuals–RWJF and Playworks staff, communications professionals, and other major funders of Playworks.
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