Who is this useful for?
Parents/caregivers, teachers, social workers, wider community and other organisations.
Play and physical activities in essence have a unique way to promote inclusion, particularly of children with disabilities. Through play-based activities, they learn how to regulate their feelings, practice resilience through challenges, and experience success. They learn to stand up for themselves and what they are capable of, and they gain respect for one another. Especially important for children with disabilities is that through participation in play-based activities one can enhance self-esteem and confidence.
The Play Opportunities for Wellness and Education Resource (P.O.W.E.R.) is a collection of 100 gender-responsive play-based learning activities created to support parents, teachers, coaches, social workers and others to promote children’s learning and well-being. It provides activities to support girls, boys, and adults to practice their own agency and learn in a fun and engaging way. The guide includes a specific section on ‘Children with Disabilities and Play’ to provide some guidance on how to make these games inclusive for both children with and without disabilities, so everyone can fully participate and benefit.
Generally, to make activities all-inclusive and to adapt them to the abilities of the participants, facilitators can be flexible in adapting the rules of the games (e.g. allowing a ball to touch the ground before it’s passed on), adjust the size of the field or pitch, consider the way instructions are delivered (e.g. signs, cards, colours), and change the type of equipment used (e.g. balls with different textures, weights or sizes). It’s important to think about specific needs and abilities of the participants. One way users of P.O.W.E.R are encouraged to adapt the activities to respond to different needs and abilities is by asking participants for their input on how they would like to play.
The 100 games are available as animated videos and short PDF manuals (manuals are available in multiple languages including English, French and Arabic). They support all children to develop holistic life skills like communication, empathy, creativity and confidence; promote psychosocial well-being; teach children how to process difficult emotions; and show them how to be inclusive of peers of all backgrounds, genders, and abilities. There are also three training videos and handouts to support teachers and other facilitators to use the P.O.W.E.R. activities to reach different learning objectives in their work with children.
These are:
Using P.O.W.E.R for collaborative play
How to use a P.O.W.E.R activity to teach your learning objective
How to use a POWER activity for your program outcome
Accessibility statement
In some places on our website, we signpost to third party websites and applications that provide useful information and advice to our users. We cannot guarantee that that these third-party websites and applications are fully accessible and comply with the WCAG 2.2.
Where possible we strive to work with these third parties to make the changes needed to conform to the WCAG 2.2 and improve their accessibility. Read our full accessibility statement.