“Social Justice” Despite Sickness: Play and Leisure for Children and Young People in Hospital

Abstract

Millions of children are hospitalized each year for an array of illnesses, injuries, procedures, and medical or social needs; for many, these encounters will challenge their developmental progress and psychosocial wellbeing for weeks to months to come. In these cure-oriented healthcare environments, play is often viewed as a privilege or an indicator of the child’s improving physical state, rather than being recognized for its centrality to the child’s agency, coping, development, and resilience. However, it is especially in this unfamiliar, adult-centered, and highly controlled healthcare environment that play is exactly what children need and desire—and a fundamental human right to which they are entitled. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to explore children’s experience of and access to play in pediatric healthcare settings, as well as the limitations for play that these spaces and circumstances engender. Using Fraser’s framework of social justice as parity of participation and invoking the child life specialist profession as a lens, it is possible (and necessary) to enhance awareness, shift attitudes, and cultivate advocacy for children’s right to play in times of both sickness and health.