Element of Play®
WWO was founded with the belief that play holds a transformative power for both children and adults. WWO provides local opportunities for children and youth to learn and thrive through play. Our Element of Play® program trains caregivers, teachers, and other adults to use play-based, early childhood lessons to support healthy growth and development.
Element of Play®
Element of Play® is WWO’s trademarked program developed to support early childhood development, bring about psychosocial change and rehabilitate communities in areas of extreme poverty and disaster.
Adverse childhood experiences cause trauma in children which often leads them to miss critical developmental milestones and creates lasting negative consequences in their lives. These developmental delays produce a cumulative effect on their communities.
Element of Play® reduces delays in a child’s developmental milestones, including listening, language, cognitive, gross, and fine motor skills while addressing the development of life skills including; collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence.
Students accessing WWO's Element of Play® program are 3 times more likely to be ready for 1st grade than children who did not participate.
What makes us different?
What differentiates Element of Play® is our Theory of Change. True change happens when a community works together to care for one another. The key to this program’s success comes from our foundational premise – children thrive when the adults around them engage in the play, too. Element of Play® brings trauma-informed, play-based programs to young children and our Element of Play® Professional Development Training brings the mastery of this methodology to the caregivers and professionals who work with children in the community. When children learn to overcome challenges, they make tremendous progress in becoming strong, successful adults.
Element of Play® Goals
Element of Play® program and Professional Training goals include:
A strengthened relationship between adults and children
Improved developmental outcomes for children
Improved psychosocial wellbeing for both children and adults
Research that informs Element of Play® programming
Research over the last 30 years has shown us that a child’s early experiences affect the architecture of the brain and determine long-term outcomes in health, learning, and behavior (Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child.)
The most important period of human development is from birth to eight years of age. Play serves as a powerful tool for building cognitive skills, emotional well-being, social competence and lays the foundation for success well into adulthood. Opportunity Gap – each year, millions of children enter kindergarten unprepared to learn. Quality play-based programs, like Element of Play®, help address the long-standing injustices in our communities and are a proven solution to breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
In the United States, every dollar invested in early childhood programs yields a $6.30 return, improving education, employment, and health outcomes and saving on later remediation costs, according to Economist James Heckman.
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