5. How Playwork in the United Kingdom Coped with Covid-19 and the 23 March Lockdown

Abstract

This chapter outlines how playwork and playworkers in the UK coped during Covid-19, particularly the March 2020 lockdown. It begins by briefly explaining the nature of playwork, its historical origins and playwork as a community of practice before considering some of the challenges facing playwork during the early days of Covid-19. The chapter is based on four empirical studies which were part of an eighteen-month longitudinal study, undertaken as playwork, and playworkers, were experiencing Covid-19 in the ‘here and now’. It provides a clear descriptive account of how playwork settings operated pre-Covid-19, during lockdown and when playwork settings re-opened in July 2020. There is also a specific study of the play service in Torfaen, Wales, which typified how playwork had to adapt to continue to operate. The nature of playwork, and how it continually adapts, reflects the historical origins of both the nineteenth-century play clubs and the 1950s adventure playground development.