The therapeutic power of play and nature with Ali Chown

Connection Matters Podcast

Things we talk about in this episode

• Importance of politics in the whole of the idea of nature connection
• The journey from the indoors to the outdoors
• Last child in the woods
• The Collaboration of Outdoor Play Therapists conference
• Animal assisted therapy
• Children who show us the way.risk-averse
• Lessons from nature
• Ways to understand transitions and work through them
• Benefits of Risk
• Sanitisation of childhood - risk averse society
• When children roamed free
• Solitary play is important
• Children as teachers

Links mentioned in this episode

The collaboration of Outdoor Play Therapists https://cooptuk.com/

Email- [e-mail]

Our website is www.livewild.org.uk/connectionmatterspodcast

Connect with us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/livewilduk/

My personal Instagram is https://www.instagram.com/leona.connection.matters/

The music for this podcast is -Hermosa Dia by Ray Johnson https://soundcloud.com/visionray

Biography

Ali Chown is a Play Therapist, Supervisor, Trainer and qualified and experienced Specialist Teacher for children and young people with complex BESD.

As a Play Therapist, Ali has worked with children and young people with complex behaviour, emotional and social needs (BESD), those who have experienced early childhood trauma and loss and have attachment difficulties and pupils with autism, language and communication and other complex special needs.

She is an experienced trainer and supervisor and has presented on ‘working in nature’ at the BAPT Annual Conference and Romanian Institute for Play and Drama Therapy and lectured on trauma and learning to teachers from the MYME Mobile Education Project in Myanmar (Burma).

Ali is one of the pioneers of play therapy in the outdoors. She has published two books, Play Therapy in the Outdoors (Kingsley, 2014) and The Practical Guide to Play Therapy in the Outdoors (Routledge, 2017). Ali also has two chapters in the forthcoming International Handbook or Play Therapy to be published this autumn. She is the director of Phoenix Play and the co-founder of COOPT which she now facilitates. Ali lives in Dorset where she loves being outdoors, connected to nature with sea swimming, just ‘being’ on the beach, walking, camping and gardening.