History of Creative Spirit’s Healthy Play IS a Solution Program

Prior to 1992, we explored and crafted programming utilizing play as a therapeutic modality at the children and adolescent unit of the in-patient psychiatric hospital and mental health organizations we worked at. This methodology was so successful that aggressive behaviors in our clients decreased dramatically while patient-staff bonding increased. As Youth Services Coordinator, I was delighted to see the positive gains of using play as a major component of creating a healthy in-patient psychiatric milieu that we were able to open our locked unit and realize that we were creating something magical.

The old in-patient model of containing acting-out behaviors with beefy staff and “take downs” within a sterile environment was replaced with a warm family/community milieu that had healing, joy, active learning, and self-discovery as focus points. A culture of trust, compassion, and logical consequences created significant positive impact on the social/emotional/behavior traits of our clients’ lives no matter their age, socio-economic status, diagnosis, or traumatic event that brought these children to the hospital.

Upon discharge back to their home schools, teachers and administrators discovered that their once most challenging students now possessed well-developed executive function skills and had become positive role models for the other students. When asked what we did to affect such change, we talked about how we created a culture of empathy, enhanced character traits and self-regulation by utilizing a unique approach to play, the most natural way children and teenagers learn. Quickly, local school administrators and teachers realized, they too, needed to create a positive learning environment at their own schools to combat the difficult behaviors that were getting in the way of teaching and learning.

The demand for our services was so great that we decided to take off the “golden handcuffs” of having steady incomes, benefits and retirement plans and started Creative Spirit in 1992, sharing our Healthy Play IS a Solution program with schools, mental health communities and youth servicing organizations.  Five years later, in 1997, we incorporated our experience in a companion book entitled Learning to Play, Playing to Learn.  The book provides teachers, school counselors, parents and youth servicing professionals with curriculum and activities that will reduce bullying, build character and support learning.

Since then, Healthy Play, our character education program has been utilized throughout the United States and even into Canada utilizing fun, play and creativity to cultivate personal and professional growth. Our clients include colleges and universities, elementary, middle and secondary schools, convention bureaus, churches, mental-health organizations, after-school, youth serving organizations, businesses and professional organizations. We have given hundreds of teacher-oriented trainings/seminars nationally on how to utilize therapeutic play to teach and internalize empathy, self-regulation and problem-solving skills, manage aggressive behavior in children, build their self-esteem, cultivate character skills, foster cooperation, invigorate academic performance, reduce bullying and provide a healthy approach to structured physical activities. We have worked directly with over 250,000 students and tens of thousands of teachers.  Charlie retired in 2014.

The Healthy Play program continues evolve and grow. This is especially evident since Spencer Gorin joined the staff of the University of Arizona’s Campus Health Service in 2010 to expand his play methodologies to a variety of college-age youth and developed stronger ties with other youth servicing community and thought idea leaders.

For the last decade Spencer has finely-tuned the Healthy Play program, consultations and trainings to reflect the needs of today’s children and teachers in the current age of divisiveness, disconnection and reduced opportunities for play. Healthy Play has been made simpler to utilize, more focused on building student empathy, communication, and self-regulation skills, improving social/emotional well-being and helping students connect and bond to other students, staff and caring adults around them.

Healthy Play has an extensive proven history in making positive change in youth and is needed now more than ever.