Job Overview
Play Specialist (Emergency Department, 22.5 hours) - Wexham Park Hospital
The Play Specialist will provide therapeutic play support to children of all ages within the Paediatric Emergency Department, ensuring their emotional, developmental, and social needs are met in a safe and supportive environment.
The Post Holder Will
Create opportunities for play that help maintain a child’s connection with home and family while easing adjustment to an unfamiliar and often distressing hospital setting.
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the needs of children in hospital, and act as a resource to staff and students by sharing expertise in therapeutic play.
Use play as a developmental aid to encourage normal growth and learning during hospital admission.
Contribute to the assessment of care needs and assist in the implementation of tailored care programmes.
Support children in understanding and coping with medical procedures and equipment through play, reducing fear and anxiety.
Maintain accurate and timely documentation of all interventions and activities.
This role is essential in helping children feel safe, supported, and empowered throughout their hospital journey.
Main duties of the job
Here are some of the key purposes of a play specialist:
- 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.
In essence, a play specialist ensures that children's emotional well-being is maintained during difficult times, helping them to adjust, cope, and even heal through play.
Working for our organisation
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
Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities
For a full list of responsibilities and tasks associated with this role, please refer to the job description/person specification attached to this vacancy.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Level Four Diploma in specialised play for sick children and young people/EDEXCEL Cert in hospital play specialism/HPSC/HPSEB OR Foundation degree in health care play specialism
Experience
Essential criteria
- Previous play experience
- Working in a health care organisation
Desirable criteria
- Has previous experience as a play specialist in a Hospital/Hospice setting
Skills & Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Good communication with children/families
- Good communication with other professionals
- Empathetic to the effects of hospitalisation on the family unit
- Good observation and assessment skills
- Full understanding of therapeutic play with the ability to use play specialist techniques to enhance the care of children
Special Requirements
Essential criteria
- Flexible with hours of work
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (FHFT) has an outstanding reputation and a proud record of achievement. As a well performing, well led and ambitious Foundation Trust, we have exciting times ahead of us. We have an ongoing commitment to improving the health and care services for the 900,000 people we serve across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire.
We are proud of the ambitions laid out in our strategy, Our Future FHFT, including our vision to be a leader in health & wellbeing, delivering excellence for our communities.
We continue to invest in our services and facilities, including a £10 million upgrade to the hospital maternity unit as well as £49m major new Emergency Assessment Centre on our Wexham Park site. The opening of a brand new £100m state of the art hospital which replaced the existing hospital facility at Heatherwood and are planning to invest further in diagnostics and inpatient capacity at Frimley Park.
We have also made significant investment in our quality improvement and digital programmes to support our vision and we will ensure that we achieve our aim of providing the highest quality healthcare to our patients. Our new EPR – Epic – went live in June and we are already beginning to reap the benefits of this ambitious investment.
Our three core values, and the behaviours that support them, guide everything we do and set out what we expect of our staff in the way they treat patients, visitors, service users and each other, Committed to Excellence, Working Together and Facing the Future.
Apply online now
