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6. Playworkers’ Experiences, Children’s Rights and Covid-19: A Case Study of Kodomo Yume Park, Japan

Chapter of: Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation(pp. 119–140)

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Metadata
Title6. Playworkers’ Experiences, Children’s Rights and Covid-19
SubtitleA Case Study of Kodomo Yume Park, Japan
ContributorMitsunari Terada (author)
Mariia Ermilova(author)
Hitoshi Shimamura (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0326.06
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0326/chapters/10.11647/obp.0326.06
Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightTerada, Mitsunari; Ermilova, Mariia; Shimamura, Hitoshi;
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2023-06-01
Long abstractThis chapter investigates the Covid-19 experiences of Kodomo Yume Park, a facility aimed at safeguarding children's rights and providing a safe environment for children from different backgrounds. It was established in Kawasaki City in 2003 in accordance with Japan’s first local ordinance on children’s rights, an interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Admirably, during the pandemic, Kodomo Yume Park remained open amidst the restrictions, even when public schools were closed and Japanese people strictly adhered to the ‘stay-at-home’ policy. Four topics emerged from qualitative interviews with playworkers and managers, including controversial feelings regarding performing a ‘facilitator’s’ role when people have to keep apart from each other. Proclaimed as ‘the last resort’, the location became a target for leisure among Tokyo suburbia, putting at risk security and disrupting the usual culture of an adventure playground. Departing from Yume Park’s participatory management style, we investigate how the child’s right to play was realized and balanced during the pandemic-related restrictions and how children, playworkers, and park managers perceived the situation and made decisions accordingly in response to the rapidly changing Covid-19 agenda.
Page rangepp. 119–140
Print length22 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Keywords
  • Kodomo Yume Park
  • children's rights
  • safe environment
  • Kawasaki City
  • local ordinance
  • United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
  • pandemic
  • qualitative interviews
  • playworkers
  • managers
  • 'stay-at-home' policy
  • leisure
  • Tokyo suburbia
  • adventure playground
  • participatory management style
  • child's right to play
  • pandemic-related restrictions
  • decision-making
  • rapidly changing agenda
  • Covid-19
Contributors

Mitsunari Terada

(author)
senior researcher at Japan Adventure Playground Association

Mitsunari Terada (Charlie), PhD, works as a landscape planner, facilitating local governance for child-friendly communities. He is an IPA Japan board member and a senior researcher of the Information Research Center for Japan Adventure Playground Association. He is a specially appointed assistant professor in the Faculty of Regional Policy of Takasaki City University of Economics, and practically lives in a community centre as a co-manager of the Iwase Neighborhood.

Mariia Ermilova

(author)
postdoctoral researcher at Chiba University
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9720-4330

Mariia Ermilova, PhD, is an ecologist and environmental educator, doing biocultural diversity concept-based community design projects. She has been working as a co-manager of the Iwase Neighborhood Association in Matsudo, Japan, since 2016, cultivating native flowers and herbal gardens in the area. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, Japan.

Hitoshi Shimamura

(author)
founder and the director at TOKYO PLAY
director at Japan Playwork Association

Hitoshi Shimamura is the founder and the director of the organization TOKYO PLAY. He is also the director of the Japan Playwork Association. After graduating from Sophia University, he completed the programme in playwork at Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. He then worked at Hanegi Play Park in Tokyo and Children’s Yume Park in Kawasaki. In 2005-2011, he served as the regional vice president of East Asia of the International Play Association (IPA).

References
  1. Group Gendai. 2021. Documentary Series about Yume Park during Pandemic, https://youtu.be/j9gRT9A_s-0
  2. Katafuchi, Yuya, Kenichi Kurita, and Managi Shunsuke. 2021. ‘COVID-19 with Stigma: Theory and Evidence from Mobility Data’, Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, 5: 71–95, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41885-020-00077-w
  3. Kinoshita, Isami. 2007. ‘Children’s Participation in Japan: An Overview of Municipal Strategies and Citizen Movements’, Children, Youth and Environments, 17: 269-86
  4. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan and others. 2021. Suicide Situation in 2020, https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/R2kakutei-01.pdf
  5. Nagata, Yoshiyuki. 2016. ‘Fostering Alternative Education in Society: The Caring Communities of “Children’s Dream Park” and “Free Space En” in Japan’, in The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education, ed. Helen E. Lees and Nel Noddings (London: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 241-56
  6. National Centre for Child Health and Development. 2021. National Online Survey of Children’s Well-being During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan, https://www.ncchd.go.jp/center/activity/covid19_kodomo/report/digestreport_en.html
  7. NHK [Japan Broadcasting Corporation]. 2021. Children’s Dream Park: About Children Who Do Not Attend School, https://www.nhk.or.jp/shutoken/yokohama/article/000/66/
  8. International Play Association, 2020. Play in Crisis, https://ipaworld.org/resources/for-parents-and-carers-play-in-crisis/
  9. Tanaka, Haruhiko. 2021. ‘Development of the Ibasho Concept in Japanese Education and Youth Work: Ibasho as a Place of Refuge and Empowerment for Excluded People’, Educational Studies in Japan, 15: 3-15, https://doi.org/10.7571/esjkyoiku.15.3
  10. Terada, Mitsunari, and Isami Kinoshita. 2020. ‘Research on Local Governmental Restrictions for Ball Play in Block Parks’, Landscape Research Japan Online, 13: 52–58, https://doi.org/10.5632/jilaonline.13.52
  11. Terada, Mitsunari, and Hitoshi Shimamura. 2020. ‘Finally Got Free Time? Could Public Spaces Reverse Children’s Play-Deficit in Post-Pandemic Japan?’ Unpublished conference paper presented at the ‘IPA-World Play and Public Place Seminar, 4: State of Play in Cities’