Interview with Jo Caseley – Play Specialist, Bristol Royal Hospital for Children

Written by Michelle Smith, Bristol Standard lead mentor for Play

The Hospital Play Team for the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children is an amazing team of 20 hard-working and dedicated Play Specialists and Play Assistants.  They cover all areas of the hospital and so enable play to be a part of every department.  Their mission statement is very clear:

 “Advocating our professional knowledge to support the resilience of children and families through therapeutic play, preparation and distraction”

Their aim is vital – to minimise a child’s potential trauma of the hospital experience through play.  They do this in many different ways, such as providing preparation for a big operation, providing distraction through a blood test, working with siblings to help them understand what is happening to their family or simply through providing ‘normal’ play for children in very difficult circumstances. 

The team are just entering their 4^th year of using the Bristol Standard and starting on one of the new pathways. Jo Caseley, one of the Play Specialists, is taking the lead.  Jo had been aware of the Bristol Standard for a long time and worked on it many years ago when she was involved with a play development organisation in Bristol.  Jo was keen to improve the brilliant work of the team even more and further improve children’s experience of play in hospital and so suggested doing the Bristol Standard.  Despite some initial resistance, once the team understood how the framework could help them, they said ‘yes’ and they have been doing it ever since.

Unlike settings that are regulated by Ofsted, hospital play teams don’t have any standardised practice, policies or guidelines to help ensure they are providing a quality service.   Jo said because of this they have sometimes struggled to standardise their work and prove their worth.  The team felt the Bristol Standard would really help with this and so this was another great reason for embarking on the journey.

The first year was really hard for the team, trying to understand a new way of working and getting to grips with reflective practice.  Before the Bristol Standard, reflecting was only carried out informally and wasn’t ever recorded or actioned. The team are incredibly busy with very big workloads and so understanding the importance of taking time to stop and reflect more formally and thoroughly was difficult for them. There was an initial fear that the Bristol Standard would create lots of extra work that wouldn’t be manageable. Once they got into swing of it and observed the value of doing it, they soon came on board though.  It hasn’t created additional work but has meant they can evidence what they already do well. The Bristol Standard has also provided a format for the conversations that were taking place to now be actioned and so move the team forward in their practice, rather than standing still.

Then came Covid and hospital practices changed dramatically, including how the play team operated.  Jo said this didn’t actually make doing the Bristol Standard more difficult, just provided more things for the team to reflect on.  The play rooms were no longer able to be used as play rooms but were used as store rooms instead and reflecting on this and the resources that were available was a big part of what the team did during Covid.  As a result, resources have been scaled back and are now used much more effectively.  Doing the Bristol Standard provided the framework to be able to do the reflections that were needed during what was an incredibly difficult time.

For Jo, the main benefit of doing the Bristol Standard that really sticks out is that they now have a team that want to challenge things.  When the hospital trust say no to something, for budgetary or infection control reasons or simply because it’s not in the rules, the team no longer just accept this but will question why and ask how can they do it instead.  It has given them so much more confidence.  With no national guidelines, they have to push the way forward themselves and nobody else in the trust helps with this.  Because of the Bristol Standard, being their own team is now seen as a positive thing.  They know their own work and how to do it well and are striding forward with writing their own policies.  There may be no standard ones in place, so they are writing them themselves.

To other groups thinking about doing the Bristol Standard, Jo would like to tell them that its brilliant and that it has really pulled their team together.  She said it can be daunting but you need good structures in place to support progress.  She said the dimensions are brilliant – focussed but you can make them work for your setting.  Jo would also like to encourage other hospitals to try and make it work for them too.

In terms of what’s next – its journeying on one of the new pathways.

Well done to Jo and the team – you have done an amazing job with the Bristol Standard and do an amazing job every day.